In these early days of Operation Epic Fury, while much remains unknown, one thing has become clear: how little the conventional wisdom about foreign policy in Washington, D.C., has to do with the realities taking shape on the battlefield. Traditionally, four things were assumed to be near inevitable if the United States and/or Israel were to take significant military action against Iran:
All four assumptions are dead wrong.
Obviously, the supreme leader was not untouchable. He was eliminated in one of the opening strikes of the mission, along with much of Iran’s senior leadership. His arrogant foolishness in gathering that leadership together was in fact the opportunity that prompted Epic Fury in the first place.
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But that did not prevent the survivors from organizing a succession meeting on Tuesday, March 3, which was in turn targeted. The demoralized remnants of the regime are now attempting to re-establish command and control with little in terms of structure or internal communications.
In addition, the predicted mass regional attack on Israel has not materialized. Because of Iran’s disastrous decision to launch missiles against its neighbors — even those who had been acting as its mediators, such as Qatar and Oman — the region has unified not against Israel, but against Iran.
There are even reports of Arab nations potentially participating in the strikes on Iran. The Abraham Accords, although under strain since the Hamas attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, have held.
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Iran’s terrorist proxies, rather than rising up to attack Israel, have been remarkably inactive given their patron’s desperate straits. Hamas in Gaza has been all but silent. Hezbollah in Lebanon have fired some rockets, but nothing like the overwhelming barrage of precision-guided missiles that was once feared. The Houthi in Yemen have stuck to threats rather than attacks. None of them appear to be interested in a multi-front war against the combined might the U.S. and Israel have demonstrated.
While it is true that Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping have put out strong statements condemning the American action, they have actually done precious little to support their supposed ally Iran, which is reportedly registering complaints about the quality of the missile-defense systems they supplied.
And America, rather than being isolated, is re-established as the pre-eminent military power on the planet, while Russia and China hardly look like reliable partners. Even our originally timorous European allies have come around to supporting the mission.
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Of course, this is a real war, and no one is claiming it will be neat or simple. It’s a difficult mission that has already and will continue to cost American lives and treasure to successfully prosecute. But there’s no denying it is very different from what the so-called “experts” have predicted for the last 47 years.
So, while success is far from guaranteed, this new reality presents several opportunities as well as risks, and should prompt a reassessment of other assumptions that have constrained American action against Iran for so long.
President Donald Trump has a history of doing things in the Middle East that had been declared impossible. Experts knew that moving the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem would cause a massive regional attack on Israel. Eliminating Qasam Soleimani would ignite a regional war. Additional regional normalization between Israel and regional neighbors could not be reached until there was a two-state solution with the Palestinians.
See what I mean?
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Another piece of conventional wisdom Trump seems poised to disprove is the so-called “Pottery Barn Rule” for regime change — “you break it, you buy it.” This dictate that the U.S. had to rebuild a hostile country once its government was removed — even if that government had supported a vicious attack on our own soil — led to catastrophic mission creep in Afghanistan and Iraq as, after the success of those military campaigns, attempts to remake those countries dragged on for decades and ended in failure.
America should not repeat this error. Presumably, Trump will want to bring the kinetic phase of this mission to a close as soon as his objectives are achieved. Then we will see if the Iranian people will take advantage of the best opportunity they have had since the revolution to reclaim their government.
Iran is, after all, a country, not a piece of crockery in a store, and President Trump’s mission is not nation-building. It is to give the American people the opportunity to go through the next half-century freed from the deadly threat of the Islamic Republic, especially if that regime were to acquire a nuclear weapon.
It would be even better to go through that period with a prosperous and secure partner in what the new Iran becomes. And that future will ultimately be for the people of Iran to secure.
