How do you bomb a country “without mercy”—and end up strengthening it?

When US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth declared that Washington would show “no quarter, no mercy for our enemies,” the message was unmistakable: this was not a limited war, but an overwhelming campaign meant to break Iran—militarily, politically, and socially. 

The logic behind such a position is not new. A country under years of sanctions, strained by economic hardship, and periodically shaken by protests would, under sustained attack, fracture from within. Pressure would compound, divisions would deepen, and the political system would eventually collapse.

That was the expectation. But the result has been the opposite. Across Iran, millions have taken to the streets—not only rejecting the war, but expressing support for their country’s military, political institutions, and leadership. Instead of collapse, there has been consolidation. Instead of fragmentation, cohesion.

This is not simply a miscalculation. It is the failure of an entire way of thinking about history.

For decades, much of US and Israeli strategic thinking has relied—implicitly or explicitly—on the assumption that political systems can be weakened and reshaped from the outside. Economic pressure, psychological operations, military escalation, and the targeting of leadership are all seen as levers that, if applied with sufficient intensity, will produce predictable outcomes. 

In Iran’s case, this approach was reinforced by visible internal tensions: economic grievances, social unrest, and waves of protest that seemed to signal a society under strain.

READ: Iran war cost Israeli military $6.4B in first 20 days: Report

Yet these indicators were read in isolation. They were treated as signs of imminent collapse, rather than as expressions of a complex and dynamic society. What was missing from this analysis was not data, but depth.

More than a century ago, Leo Tolstoy offered a framework that helps explain precisely this kind of failure. In War and Peace, particularly in its second epilogue, Tolstoy dismantles elite-centered explanations of history—what would later be called the ‘Great Man’ theory. He rejects the idea that leaders, generals, and political elites determine events, challenging instead the very foundations of how history is understood.

Tolstoy argues that history is not shaped from the top down. It is not the product of individual will imposed on passive societies. Instead, it emerges from........

© Middle East Monitor