US-Israeli Strategy Against Iran Has Failed and Plan B (Dahiya Doctrine) Will Also Fail
Source: https://www.theguardian.com/profile/paul-rogers. "The US-Israeli strategy failed to defeat Iran quickly – now they are moving to plan B | Paul Rogers | The Guardian." March 11, 2026. www.theguardian.com
The Gist
The US and Israel tried to quickly defeat Iran by killing its leaders, but that didn't work. Now they're switching to a strategy of attacking civilians to break public support, but this approach has already failed in Gaza and will be even harder in Iran with its much larger population. This will likely backfire by causing Iran to attack oil facilities and crash the global economy.
Conclusion
The US-Israeli military strategy against Iran has failed to achieve quick victory and their backup plan (the Dahiya doctrine) will also prove unworkable and counterproductive
Premises
- The initial strategy to assassinate Iran's supreme leader and collapse the theocracy failed completely
- Plan B involves applying the Dahiya doctrine - punishing civilian populations to destroy domestic support for the regime
- The Dahiya doctrine has already failed against Hamas in Gaza despite 30 months of intense application and massive casualties
- Iran's population of 93 million is over 40 times larger than Gaza, making the doctrine even more difficult to implement effectively
- Applying this strategy to Iran will likely provoke IRGC attacks on Gulf oil infrastructure, causing global economic catastrophe similar to 1973-74
- For Israel to truly win, they would need complete control of Iran including access to all nuclear facilities and uranium stocks, which airstrikes alone cannot achieve
- Any outcome short of total victory leaves Iran incentivized to develop nuclear weapons as deterrence against future attacks
Assumptions
- Military strategies that fail in smaller contexts will fail in larger ones
- Iran's leadership structure is resilient enough to survive decapitation attempts
- The Iranian regime retains enough capability to retaliate against regional oil infrastructure
- Global economic consequences would force policy reconsideration
- Netanyahu is the primary decision-maker driving US policy rather than Trump