Israel-Iran War: What’s the End State?
Thinking about possible outcomes.
University of Chicago political scientist Robert Pape offers a pessimistic take of “Israel’s Futile Air War” for Foreign Affairs.
Over the past week, Israel has engaged in a protracted air campaign in Iran to achieve something no other country has ever done before: topple a government and eliminate its major military capability using airpower alone. Israel’s attempt to achieve these highly ambitious goals with an air campaign and sophisticated intelligence networks, but without the deployment of a ground army, has no modern precedent. The United States never succeeded in achieving such goals just through airstrikes during the massive strategic bombing campaigns of World War II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the Gulf War, the wars in the Balkans, or the Iraq war. Nor did the Soviet Union and Russia in Afghanistan, Chechnya, or Ukraine. And Israel itself has never attempted such a campaign in previous conflicts in Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, or even in its most recent operation in Gaza.
Israel, the strongest military power in the Middle East, has scored numerous tactical successes using precision airpower and exquisite intelligence since Hamas’s attack on October 7, 2023. The Israel Defense Forces have assassinated senior leaders in Iran’s proxy organizations, including much of Hezbollah’s mid- and high-level leadership. In a previous exchange of missile fire in April, the IDF destroyed a variety of Iran’s air defenses and missile capabilities. And its most recent attacks on Iran have killed senior Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps leaders, destroyed important regime communication systems, damaged important economic targets, and degraded some of Iran’s nuclear program.
But even as it continues to score individual victories, Israel appears to be falling into the “smart-bomb trap,” in which overconfidence in precision weapons and intelligence not only allows the country’s leaders to believe that they can stop an Iranian nuclear breakout and even topple the regime of the Islamic Republic but also leaves Israel less secure than before. Airpower, no matter how targeted and intense, is not certain to dismantle Iran’s nuclear program in its entirety, nor will it clear a path for regime change in Tehran. In fact, if the historical record is any indication, Israel’s overconfidence in what its technologically advanced weapons can do is likely to harden Iran’s resolve and produce the opposite of its intended results: a more dangerous Iran, now armed with nuclear weapons. Without a ground invasion (highly improbable) or direct U.S. support (which the Trump administration may be wary to provide), Israel’s military successes in Iran and beyond could very well be short-lived.
[…]
Israel faces three impediments to knocking out these facilities altogether. First, much of Iran’s nuclear program, including its uranium enrichment facilities, is buried deep underground. The well-developed facility at Fordow is burrowed hundreds of feet under a mountain, and a new underground facility at Natanz, at depths similar to Fordow, has been under construction for several years. Thus far, Israel has not targeted Fordow at all and has limited its attacks on Natanz to its power generation facilities rather than attempting to destroy the centrifuges and stockpiles of enriched uranium buried 75 feet under the surface. No available evidence suggests that Israel has the airpower payload capacity to carry the 30,000-pound large earth-penetrating bombs developed by the United States that would be necessary to carry out an attack to totally destroy Fordow. The fact that it has not already attempted to attack the shallower underground chambers at Natanz suggests it faces constraints, either from the United States or from its own limited firepower, against even these more vulnerable facilities. Israeli military leaders seem to acknowledge the fact that a decisive operation against Fordow would be impossible without U.S. support: former Minister of Defense Yoav Gallant stressed that the United States has “an obligation” to join Israel’s military campaign against Iran’s nuclear program.
What if the United States, with its bunker-busting bombs, joins the attack? Could Israel actually knock out Iran’s weapons program with such support? Even if President Donald Trump were to take up Gallant’s request to bomb Fordow, and even if the United States’ large bunker-buster bombs could burrow all the way into Fordow’s most deeply buried chambers, the United States and Israel would still face more challenges to eliminating Iran’s ability to acquire nuclear weapons. There would be no “mission accomplished” moment in which both countries could conclude with absolute confidence that Iran could not proceed covertly. If anything, a U.S.-assisted attack on Iranian facilities would only put the United States directly in Iran’s nuclear cross hairs rather than solve the problem for good.
Second, aside from Iran’s enrichment facilities, the Bushehr reactor, which is approximately 11 miles southeast of the city of Bushehr, presents a significant challenge. The reactor can be modified to generate plutonium that could be used for nuclear weapons. This risk cannot be eliminated as long as the reactor exists. But if Israel were to destroy the Bushehr reactor, it could risk the release of a Chernobyl-like radiological plume over the city, which is home to roughly 200,000 people, as well as over population centers across the Persian Gulf. It would also invite Iranian ballistic missile retaliation against Israel’s nuclear reactor complex at Dimona.
Last, and most important, even following extensive airstrikes against the nuclear facilities, significant uncertainty about the condition of surviving elements and their ability to be reconstituted would remain. Without onsite inspections, Israel would not be able to conduct reliable assessments of the damage done to Iran’s uranium enrichment capabilities and existing stocks of enriched uranium. Iran is not likely to allow international inspectors, much less U.S. or Israeli teams, to assess the exact degree of damage to its enriched uranium stocks, determine whether usable equipment or material has been removed before or after strikes, or pinpoint the manufacturing locations for the components for Iran’s significant domestic centrifuge production. Commando teams could attempt onsite reconnaissance but would face obvious risks of attack by Iranian forces. This lack of knowledge means that Israel—even with the United States’ help—would never be confident that Iran no longer has a path to the bomb. Concerns about Iran nuclearizing in secret would fester, mirroring the fears that drove the United States in 2003 to launch a ground war to conquer Iraq in search of nonexistent weapons of mass destruction.
Pape became famous in IR circles for his 1996 book, Bombing to Win: Air Power and Coercion in War. This basically ties that book’s thesis to this campaign.
As the son of a soldier who also served in the Army and spent the last dozen years working for the Marine Corps, I’m naturally sympathetic to the value of ground forces in combat. Ultimately, objectives must be seized and held.
Still, if the goal is simply setting back Iran’s nuclear program by several years, that’s likely achievable through airpower. Indeed, it may have already been achieved.
A further reasonable goal, likely achievable through an air campaign, is to force Iran back to the table for the reinstatement of the JCPOA or even an enhanced version of same. Alas, Israel seems to have no interest in that.
If the goal is regime change, that will almost surely require action by people on the ground. But not necessarily—or even desirably—Israeli or American ground forces. The obvious candidate, the military, is unlikely given the degree to which the IRGC is selected and scrutinized for loyalty to the regime. And mass uprising is a hell of a collective action problem in a police state.
An alternate scenario:
Israel appears to have complete dominance in the air. That capability means that Israel need not accomplish its goals immediately or completely. They can come back again and again, so long as they stop Iran from reconstituting its air defenses.
They can bomb the access points to Fordow and they can bomb the power supply and they can continue to pick off scientists. Bomb making is a supply chain and a broken chain is no longer a functioning chain. They don’t have to destroy A-Z, they only need to destroy B and F and H to stop the process. It’s the same logic as bombing ball bearing factories in WW2, except they now have far greater accuracy and effectiveness.
And Israel can do a lot of it on the cheap, no F35s needed. They can keep drones loitering in the sky above Fordow for years, decades even – so long as they control the sky. They can blow up vehicles approaching or leaving. They can hit power lines as soon as they are re-strung. They can assassinate scientists and technicians and members of leadership.
And they can hit economic targets again and again. They could, if they chose, obliterate Kargh Island. They can hit tankers. They can hit pipelines. They can reduce Iran to desperate poverty and hamstring the regime’s efforts to exter control over the population.
At least that’s how I would write the story.
Even with ground power added, a military power cannot assume the capability to effect a lasting regime change. Examples: Vietnam, Afghanistan, even Iraq. Regime change has to come from the inside. It is a matter of culture, not arms. Really, the only effective regime change strategy available to the Israelis is assassination, over and over again. And that probably wouldn’t work for long.
@Scott: The Norman’s achieved permanent regime change in England. The Allies achieved it in Germany and Japan. We did it multiple times along the way to continental status. But, absent long term occupation, it’s unlikely.
Mommm, two of our three most annoying allies are fighting again!
Don’t listen to Israel’s ‘poison,’ says Turkish President (NBC News)
Ladies! ladies! Can’t we all just get along?
@James Joyner:
It should be pointed out that the achievement of “regime change” in Germany and Japan was partly facilitated by finding a governmental actors that had credibility and legitimacy with broad swaths of the population.
I’m not a scholar. At best, I’m a moderately well read person, with real world experience dealing with people on both sides of anger management, PTSD, and abusive relationship issues.
Nothing I’m seeing in my available news gives me any indication that anyone has anything remotely resembling long-term planning. It all seems to be short-term strategic as opposed to any overarching theater planning. As far as I can tell, it’s all
I’m not seeing anything more than a prison or schoolyard fight. Except for the fact that one or more parties have (&/or seek to have) the ability to “make a desert and call it peace.”
Seriously, that’s all it is. Someone please prove me wrong.
https://images.app.goo.gl/tVcHMnejHg3gQ2er8
Here are a whole lot of commentators offering a wide diversity of opinions:
“Link”
Links are at top, scroll down to see the various contents.
@Sleeping Dog:
And after years of war and millions of deaths.
@James Joyner: Yes, if one kills off the majority of adult and late teens men. One can change the ambitions of a culture. This is unprecedented outside of a total war scenario.
Lengthy air campaigns have the unintended consequence of strengthening a people’s resolve.
Here is an excerpt from:
Opening Statement As Prepared by
The Honorable Tulsi Gabbard,
Director of National Intelligence
Annual Threat Assessment of the U.S. Intelligence Community
March 25, 2025
…addressing the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.
Now The Honorable Tulsi Gabbard is claiming:
Since the Honorable Gabbard was spanked by Trump she can’t twist her own words fast enough.
I invite anyone to demonstrate how any news reports of her statement to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence on March 25, 2025 has been taken out of context.
@Michael Reynolds:
The cool thing about writing a story, however, is that the writer is ultimately God and can control how the story plays out.
Real life is another matter.
@Steven L. Taylor:
Theoretically, but practically no, not for a lot of writers. Certainly not for me. I’m a ‘discovery’ writer, meaning I figure shit out as I go along. It’s a philosophical choice: I like to allow for randomness. It’s more like I’m captain of the ship, but the currents have a say.
Also, show me where I’m wrong. Not for a minute denying that shit goes wrong (see randomness above), the Russians could get involved, or the Turks, or etc… and etc…, but I don’t think there’s anything impossible or illogical in my scenario. And shit also goes wrong with negotiated deals. Ask Mr. Molotov. (Side note, my brother-in-law’s wife is an actual Ribbentrop.)
That’s the same IC that was assessing the USSR was going to overtake the US economy just hours before the regime collapsed. And that was when there were far more honorable members running the show. And they certainly weren’t going to suddenly change their assessment two months after the Iran-compromised Biden admin left office.
In any case, building a nuclear weapon is easy. Iran has the ballistic missiles to reach Israel and even had their proxies in position to place a device.
The hard part of a nuclear weapon is the enriched uranium.
And it is quite apparent that Israel has better intel on the enriched uranium in Iran. Certainly better than the 2016-2024 politically compromised CIA.
In any case, regime change in Iran is an internal matter. Israel’s targeting of IRGC commanders could cause more reasonable people to rise by also disrupting the grooming paths. Young Iran is more secular and not a fan of the religious-fanatic Islamic republic of the 1979 “college” students.
But Bibi and Trump calling for regime change gives the internal security murders something to occupy their time rather than being able to concentrate on Mossad assets in the country.
Next week will be when likely something big happens as it is the new moon so dark skies will prevail.
@Michael Reynolds:
20+ years on, the major cities in Iraq still experience almost daily rolling power outages lasting up to 10 hours. At some point, this is a war crime against civilians, since it takes away clean water and sewage treatment, makes it impossible to keep drugs that require refrigeration stocked, etc.
@Mister Bluster: How can people suck up so much crap? Is Tulsi utterly without a scintilla of self respect? I once quit a job because the boss was disrespectful. I didn’t not get angry and storm out; I carefully crafted an exit. My income did dip for a couple of years, but it has more than rebounded.
@Flat Earth Luddite: Agree all around. Then again, I’ve never believed “the goal” was regime change. The goal is maintaining a perpetual state of war/preparedness to benefit the expansionist goals of Likud.
Bomb and kill enough of the right people, and Israel can get regime change in Iran. Probably not the regime change they want.
But, you know what they say: bombers can’t be choosers.
I don’t agree that one of the goals of Israel’s campaign is regime change, although Israel certainly won’t cry if the regime’s failures result in a coup or uprising.
Secondly, no one is going to invade Iran. The whole idea is just stupid. People who catastrophize about this either don’t know what they are talking about or are intentionally spreading misinformation. Iran is not Iraq in 2003 – and the US military certainly isn’t the same as 2003, much less 1991.
It’s similar with more general comparisons to Iraq. Iraq was transparently and deliberately a ground campaign with regime change as an explicit goal, which followed the OG ground campaign in 1991 and multiple airstrikes and other combat activity over the following decade. Iran isn’t remotely the same situation, despite people wanting to tie them together for rhetorical effect.
It’s also important to note that Israel and Iran have been in a de facto state of war for a long time. The current conflict isn’t really a new war, but a continuation war after a series of major escalations over the past couple of years that are downstream of Oct. 7, 2023.
Assuming the US doesn’t get involved and complicate things, how this stage of the conflict ends is up to Israel and Iran. Since Iran’s ability to defend itself and strike back is diminishing daily, the war will probably end when Israel decides it’s done enough damage. I think what MR suggests is likely. Iran will be open to future Israeli incursions for quite a while. They really have no ability to replace their air defense system, not that it did them any good. Russia can’t afford to resupply, and that leaves China, which will not give it for free, and Israel can probably destroy the equipment before it can be deployed.
Somewhat predictably, Iran looks to be making initial moves to leave the NPT. That would be another stupid move in a series of really stupid moves that have gotten Iran to this point.
@JKB: At least you admit that far more honorable people ran things in the past. That’s progress of a sort. I guess.
@Mister Bluster: Tulsi Gabbard, @Slugger:
Yes. Cults gonna cult.
Tulsi Gabbard, 3 Jan 2020:
There is a tweet for everything. Won’t be long till Epstein’s best friend identifies Gabbard as a Russian asset.
@just nutha:
Personally, I’ve long suspected what Bibbi wants is to remain free until he dies (an old, bitter, miserable excuse for a human being). If that means burning everything to the ground, I suspect he’s ok with that.
Avoiding Mussolini’s example appears to be goal #1.
Seems mostly just the facts, though obviously from the Israeli side:
@Michael Cain:
Sanctions are also potentially a war crime against civilians. It’s never the elites or the armies that suffer from sanctions, it is always the civilians. I’m sure there are sick children in North Korea, Cuba, Venezuela and Russia who suffer or die because of our sanctions.
I go back to the end of the war with Japan where the choices were nukes, firebombing, invasion or blockade, and people who don’t think deeply on the subject imagine blockade was the humane option. But Japan cannot feed itself, and a blockade could have starved vast numbers of Japanese civilians, far more than died from atom bombs or firebomb raids. As it happened the nuking of Hiroshima and Nagasaki may have saved millions of civilians’ lives.
In this context the Iranian regime is the cause of their peoples’ suffering. Regime change could in theory at least improve the prospects of average Iranians just as taking down the Japanese military freed their people to make Toyotas and fight Godzilla. Emphasis on ‘theoretically,’ cuz this is the Middle East where all outcomes suck.
Still, in the age of smart weapons advanced militaries do at least try to avoid hitting civilians as they try to topple a regime, whereas sanctions effectively target civilians in an effort to force them to topple a regime.
“Lucian Truscott”
@charontwo:
Gee, I so hope he got a chance to squeeze in a round of golf.
An aspect of this that bothers me is being manipulated. Bibi knew going in the IDF has no way to hit Fordo or Natanz, nobody wants to hit Bushehr and create a radiation catastrophe either, and it is said that Bushehr can produce plutonium, which may be used to make a nuclear bomb although it’s difficult. Bibi’s objective seems to have been to commit the US in war with Iran. Create a situation wherein we had no practical course of action but to do it. It worked. Bothers me, it most definitely does, but aside from that understanding Bibi’s desired end-state may be the key aspect in assessing what that will be.
@Michael Reynolds: “Still, in the age of smart weapons advanced militaries do at least try to avoid hitting civilians as they try to topple a regime”
Yes, we’ve all seen how scrupulously the Israeli government has been trying to avoid hitting civilians in Gaza. I’m sure they’re twice as careful in Iran.
@wr: And the Russians in Ukraine. I take reporting out of Ukraine with a grain of salt. I expect they are minimizing, even covering up, damage to military assets and critical infrastructure. But they sure do report a lot of verifiable damage to purely civilian targets.
@charontwo:
Isn’t Diego García a British overseas possession? Wouldn’t the UK have to ok military operation from there?
@Michael Reynolds:
And yet, you are still in control of your narrative in ways that bear little actual resemblance to actual reality.
I am not sure how I disprove a hypothetical.
I will ask: How long do you expect to maintain this operation?
And how does your plan stop clandestine operations at some other site?
Embarking on war is not neccessarily conditioned by a predicted end-state in the politics of the state upon which war is made.
That the outcome of war should be a certain governance in the opponent state seems to be recent, and rather quixotic, fixation.
I cannot think of many wars that had such an objective.
It certainly was not the case when the UK declared war on Germany in 1914; and arguably not in 1939.
Nor in most other wars in European history; with the possible exception of the Wars of the French Revolution.
The general point of war by a state is to stop the other party doing things which are regarded as unnacceptable.
“Regime change” is just gravy.
@Kathy:
Technically yes.
In practice, not so much.
@gVOR10:
I’ve spoken to UK folks with reasonable knowledge of the situation, and the general conclusion is, that to use the technical terms, that the Russian strikes are for shit.
They have been totally incapable of cutting the main rail and road routes, and have very little sucess hitting Ukrainian supply depots.
Heads up: reporting US operations now commenced.
@dazedandconfused:
IDF seems to have already hit Natanz quite effectively.
Deep bunkers are fine for for sheltering command.
For major industrial operations, they have mulitple vulnerabilities.
A penetration weapon is optimal, but not the only option.
@Michael Reynolds:
I may have mentioned before, I once had a conversation with a WW2 RAF Bomber Command planning staff officer (the elder brother of a friend of my father).
Bomber Command apparently had continually updated plans for gas attacks on Germany, and contingency plans for biotoxins use (anthrax) and other “special weapons”.
And the main benefit of the Los Alamos Trinity “Gadget” Test from the US military pov was that it meant that if an invasion of Japan went ahead, there would be dozens of Pu bombs available to support the landings.
WW2 could easily have ended up being even worse than it was.
@Kathy:
@JohnSF:
There was in the last few days a judgement by the UK Attorney General that US action might not be legal, and therefore use of Diego Garcia problematic.
The reality is, the US controls DG.
The UK presence there is rather token.
Which is our silly mistake, over decades of complacency.
“If peace does not come quickly (there’s more where that came from, bud.)
Indicates Bibi has agreed to stop further attacks, so the desired end-state is Iran tacitly, if not meekly, admitting defeat. Bib’s cheese for Trump was likely telling Trump he would be able say he “ended the war” so, unless Iran does something stupid, Bibi must stop. Hopefully the Iranians will recognized this would be the wise move.
The “deal” that Trump wants? I would guess they will repeat what they did with Carter: Give that to the next guy.
Next up: does Iran attempt to cut the Straits of Hormuz?
And/or attack US and allied positions?
Or does Iran fold?
24 hours.