Phase I Is Going Okay Militarily. But It’s Phase II That’s Terrifying.

At bottom, there are only two outcomes. Either the Iranian regime remains in power, or it doesn’t. Both scenarios end badly for the U.S., Iran, and the world in general.

When the U.S. and Israeli militaries launched offensive operations against Iran, President Trump delivered an address making two claims. First, that he was eliminating an imminent threat to the United States; second, that he was calling for the Iranian people to rise up and depose the existing regime. On the first count, there’s little evidence to support this assertion. On the second, ask the Kurds how well it turned out for them when they tried to rebel against Saddam Hussein  after President George H.W. Bush called on them to do so in 1991 with implied US military support.

But assuming that these reasons aren’t just a pretext for getting a cut of Iranian oil revenue (like U.S. operations in Venezuela turned out to be), even cursory analysis shows that Trump is unlikely to achieve either of these goals. There are only two realistic possible outcomes at the end of hostilities: either the Iranian regime remains in power, or it doesn’t. Both scenarios end badly for the U.S., Iran, and the world in general.

The first and more likely scenario is that Iranian leadership remains in the hands of the Guardian Council and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). Despite the successful decapitation strikes against Ayatollah Khamenei and other leaders, we can already see the Iranian government naming successors and reconstituting its chain of command, while divvying out war-time responsibilities. The new leadership is younger and appears to be more hardline than Khamenei was.

For instance, IRGC security chief Ali Larijani is reportedly emerging as the kingmaker in the process of rebuilding the government. Larijani was reportedly the mastermind and driving force behind the massacre and execution of up to 30,000 civilians this past January during the people’s uprising against the government.

Based on what we have observed, the Iranian response strategy for this war is to inflict as much pain points as possible on Gulf States via long range drones and missiles, while bleeding the U.S. and Israel dry of interceptor munitions. These munitions were already likely in critically short supply after the........

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