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Ongoing reports and analysis

One thing is certain about the widely anticipated U.S. war on Iran: If it happens, it won’t include an occupation of the country. The United States has been sending aircraft carriers and support equipment to the Gulf, not expeditionary ground forces for an invasion, and there has been no public evidence of any planning for a long-term presence in Iran. If U.S. President Donald Trump has been consistent about one thing in the region, it’s the need to avoid another Iraq-style occupation, which he’s described as a “big fat mistake.” As with the capture of Venezuelan President Nicolàs Maduro in January, the killing of Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) commander Qassem Soleimani in 2020, and Israel’s decapitation strike against Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in 2024, the United States would likely target top leaders in Iran along with the regime’s repressive apparatuses, and then let the cards fall where they may.

So, where will they fall? Iran, of course, can see the same things we can and is unlikely to be taken by surprise. Tehran remembers well how the United States used scheduled negotiations as a smokescreen to entice it to lower its guard ahead of a surprise attack last June, and it is unlikely to fall for the same ruse again. It has fortified its positions in anticipation. Security forces are fully mobilized and deployed after the brutal suppression of recent protests, and they have spent months assiduously rooting out suspected Israeli intelligence assets (and no doubt sweeping up many innocents in the process). Israel’s remarkable success in targeting senior Iranian officials last June speaks to the degree that Iranian intelligence has been penetrated and suggests that the country’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and its senior leaders should not sleep easy. They may well be killed, but it won’t be for lack of preparation.

One thing is certain about the widely anticipated U.S. war on Iran: If it happens, it won’t include an occupation of the country. The United States has been sending aircraft carriers and support equipment to the Gulf, not expeditionary ground forces for an invasion, and there has been no public evidence of any planning for a long-term presence in Iran. If U.S. President Donald Trump has been consistent about one thing in the region,........

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