Air strikes alone will not defeat Iran – and Trump is now trapped

Full Opinion article: US and Israeli air strikes hit 4,000 targets in the first 100 hours of its bombing campaign against Iran, with more attacks being carried out by the US Air Force than in the first six months of its air campaign against Islamic State 10 years ago.

Israel has hit twice as many targets in Iran as it did in Gaza over the same timespan, according to figures [compiled by Airwars](https://airwars.org/record-pace-of-strikes-in-iran-bombing-campaign-analysis/), a non-partisan organisation which monitors bombing campaigns and their impact on civilians.

Iran is under one of the most intense air attacks in history, the US and Israel seeking to force its unconditional surrender or [regime change](https://inews.co.uk/opinion/irans-new-leader-message-trump-plan-backfired-4282546?ico=in-line_link), according to Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Neither outcome is likely, as air wars alone and unsupported by ground troops have never succeeded in achieving these goals in the past.

Yet possibly the true US and Israeli intention is to turn Iran into another Gaza by [pulverising a whole society](https://inews.co.uk/opinion/draft-dodger-trump-flexing-military-muscle-mistake-4282270?ico=in-line_link) and its modern infrastructure, returning Iranians to a pre-modern era by destroying their electric power stations and fuel supplies. In the Vietnam War, US Air Force general Curtis LeMay was widely criticised for threatening to bomb North Vietnam “back to the Stone Age”, but the same destructive, if unspoken, intent may today be inspiring the bombing campaign against Iran.

As obvious military and security targets are destroyed and the enemy shows no sign of giving up, those conducting bombing offensives display less and less concern for civilian loss of life. Not that such a concern was ever high up the Trump administration’s agenda, going by fresh film footage confirming that it was a US Tomahawk missile that struck near a girl’s elementary in southern Iran on 28 February killing 168 children and staff. Trump, true to form, had claimed it was an Iranian missile that destroyed the school.

Iran said on Monday that 1,255 people had been killed in the bombing so far, including 200 children. This was broadly confirmed by the US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency, which gives a figure of 1,168 civilians dead.

Israel is now targeting civilian infrastructure, including oil storage tanks in Tehran, where blazing fuel ran down drainage channels beside roads and huge clouds of oily black smoke darkened the sky over the capital. The US says it is not attacking Iran’s oil production facilities, including the crucial oil export terminal at Kharg Island on the Gulf but Israel may well do so.

Past bombing campaigns in the Middle East have generally become exercises in communal punishment and destruction. In Gaza, some 72,000 Palestinians were killed by Israel, mostly by airstrikes, including 20,000 children, according to the UN. Israel always claimed to be targeting Hamas command centres when civilians were killed, but at the end of the war, Hamas was still in control of Gaza, though its cities were turned into rubble.

Southern Lebanon is likewise coming under unrelenting Israeli air attack, with 500,000 refugees and nearly 400 dead, according to the Lebanese government. But the Shia paramilitary group Hezbollah is still in control of its own areas, even if it is a much diminished military force.

All air forces boast of the precise accuracy of their munitions, but this does them no good unless they know what they are targeting. The US Air Force always lied about this during its last big bombing campaign, which was against Islamic State in Iraq and Syria between 2014 and 2019, a fact proved by detailed post-war studies.

No one expect the IRGC to surrender and hand over the regimen, but heavy airstrikes against IRGC and basij targets can make the regimen weak enough so they will either accept the original US terms from the negotiations or make the Iranians themselves trying massive protests again which could lead to a regimen change.
There’s also a possibility of returning to the original situation with a much weaker and isolated Iran of course, which is also a good thing.

I don’t know why people are speaking about this issue like it’s a binary thing with two possible outcomes.

They’ll soon declare victory and walk away leaving the country in a complete mess. Meanwhile the IRGC wont stop until there’s none of them left. USA/Israel have started something they can’t finish.

Trump spooked by oil price will leave the mess as it is, as the whole thing was just for show. Regime will lay low not to provoke escalation/let US leave. People in Iran will suffer even more than before bc of regime turning retaliation inward, weakened economy, Israel striking here and there to keep Iran weak.

You’re assuming that Trump is going to prosecute this war as we did Iraq and Afghanistan which he wont. Trump is irrational and unpredictable thats neither a compliment or an insult it simply is. Trump could do anything and he’s not hampered by laws or precedent because he has no respect for either.

Trump isn’t trapped he certainly wont suffer politically because he largely has the backing of his base. So if he blockades the western mountain ranged of Iran through brutal tactics of killing anyone who attempts to cross nobody is going to stop him. And thats just one potential outcome.

He could also just bounce and leave Iran fuming with nobody to fight and a food crisis even worse than before. Only to return and strike again after the elections in the US.

You see Trump as trapped because you value rules and precedent and history. All fine and dandy but Trump doesn’t and that makes predicting what he will do almost impossible. He isnt trapped by anything save his own ego and that he will mullify with what ever lie he concocts.