US-Israel military campaign against Iran is based on flawed assumptions about Iranian behavior and governance
Source: https://www.theguardian.com/profile/ali-vaez. "The US and Israel are waging war on an Iran they think they know. The reality is very different | Ali Vaez | The Guardian." March 5, 2026. www.theguardian.com
The Gist
The author argues that the US and Israel are attacking Iran based on wrong ideas about how Iran works. Iran isn't just a crazy religious state or a weak dictatorship - it's actually pretty good at surviving by mixing ideology with practical decisions, and military pressure probably won't make it collapse the way some people hope.
Conclusion
The US and Israeli military campaign against Iran is strategically misguided because it relies on oversimplified assumptions about how Iran behaves under pressure, potentially leading to unintended consequences for all parties involved
Premises
- US policy has historically oscillated between two false caricatures of Iran: either a messianic theocracy impervious to cost or a brittle dictatorship easily collapsed
- Iran's actual governance combines ideological commitment with pragmatic survival instincts, as demonstrated by the 2015 nuclear agreement and continued diplomatic channels despite confrontation
- Iran has adopted an asymmetric strategy of endurance, using measured strikes across multiple fronts to impose cumulative costs rather than seeking decisive military victory
- The Iranian system has proven resilient historically, having survived the Iran-Iraq war with massive casualties and decades of sanctions while maintaining state cohesion
- Military pressure alone is unlikely to trigger the internal uprising or state collapse that some policymakers expect, given the deep institutional embedding of the Revolutionary Guard Corps
- Iranian state collapse could destabilize the entire region, affecting Iraq's fragile politics and potentially drawing in Turkey over Kurdish autonomy concerns
Assumptions
- Military campaigns should be based on accurate understanding of the target state's decision-making processes
- Historical patterns of Iranian behavior under pressure are reliable predictors of future responses
- Regional stability is preferable to the chaos that might follow Iranian state collapse
- Tactical military success does not automatically translate to strategic political outcomes