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Three days into his war on Iran, it seems clearer than ever that President Donald Trump, the U.S. commander in chief, has no idea—or, perhaps worse, contradictory ideas—of what he wants from the conflict or how to get it.

In his eight-minute video, posted on social media early Saturday morning, Trump said the goals of his “major combat operation” were to obliterate (once again) Iran’s nuclear program, demolish its ballistic-missile arsenal, and—above all—overthrow the Islamic regime, imploring “the Iranian people” to take control of their government.

However, later that day, he told Axios that he also had in mind several “off-ramps” from the conflict, saying, “I can go long and take over the whole thing or end it in two or three days and tell the Iranians, ‘See you again in a few years if you start rebuilding [your nuclear program].’ ”

Then, on Sunday, in a six-minute phone conversation with the New York Times, Trump, after once again calling on “the Iranian people” to rise up, invoked “what we did in Venezuela” as “the perfect scenario” for Iran.

This remark has two lamentable consequences. First, the survivors of Iran’s regime could take it as a signal to hold on and not surrender. Second, Iran’s democratic activists could take his obsession with the Venezuela scenario—in which, as he described it, everyone in the regime “kept their job except for two people”—as a disincentive to take to the streets. When unarmed protesters did so last month after Trump said he had their backs, thousands of them were mowed down by police and military forces. The protesters are still unarmed—which would make it hard for them to take over a government, even under less forbidding circumstances—and the police and military are still very well armed.

Trump added, as he has said a couple times in recent days, that the elite military forces should lay down their arms and “surrender to the people.” He did not explain why the Revolutionary Guard—the elite force, with its 190,000 members and deep interests in the survival of the regime and its economic assets—would suddenly turn meek. He also didn’t explain just who “the people” taking power might be or how they would take power. Iran has about 90 million people, many of whom despise the regime, many of whom revere it. In any case, as far as anyone can tell, the democratic opposition has no leaders with the appeal, organization, or tools to take charge; to the extent there have been plausible candidates for the role in the past, they are now dead, in prison, or in exile.

In other words, Trump, with the prodding and cooperation of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, leapt into this war without first thinking through his goals or the criteria of success—in short, without formulating basic strategy.

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, in a press conference Monday, laid out the goals of the military operation, including the destruction of Iran’s nuclear program, ballistic-missile arsenal, and navy—but he said nothing about regime change or the Iranian people, again raising doubts as to the operation’s real purpose. (This aside from the fact that, according to U.S. intelligence, and contrary to Trump’s claim in Tuesday’s State of the Union address, Iran posed no “imminent threat” to the United States or its allies in the region.)

Trump told CNN’s Jake Tapper, in a nine-minute phone interview Monday morning, “We’re knocking the crap out of them,” referring to the airstrikes on Iranian targets. “I think it’s going very well. It’s very powerful,” Trump went on, adding, “We haven’t even started hitting them hard. The big wave hasn’t even happened. The big one is coming soon.”

All this may be so. Spokesmen for U.S. Central Command, which runs military operations in the Middle East, said that, in the war’s first two days, the air and naval strikes hit 1,000 targets in Iran. Trump said on Sunday that the strikes related to regime change have killed 48 senior officials, including the ayatollah.

However, hitting targets doesn’t necessarily mean winning a war—and killing leaders doesn’t necessarily mean toppling a regime. There are few, if any, cases where airstrikes alone have done either.

One exception is NATO’s 1999 air war against Serbia, which ousted dictator Slobodan Milošević—but in that case, the bombs were supplemented by U.S. cyberattacks and other means of intimidation against Milošević’s industrial and commercial allies, who were keeping him in power. Once they withdrew their support, he had no power base and so surrendered.

Iran is very different. The power structures—mainly the ideological religious orders, the military, and the Revolutionary Guard Corps—are still intact. The interim government—including the elected president and a council of experts—pledged to avenge the killing of the supreme leader. Retaliatory attacks are well in progress against Israel and Arab countries where the U.S. military has bases.

This is another difference between Iran and Venezuela. The United States and its oil companies have had a long, if contentious, relationship with Venezuela; its president, Nicolás Maduro, who forcibly retained power after losing an election, was assisted largely by self-interested bureaucrats. The swift abduction of Maduro, followed by Trump’s eagerness to restore business deals (and his clear lack of interest in restoring the democratically elected leaders to power), brought Maduro’s onetime deputies and henchmen to heel—at least so far.

This Is Different Than Trump’s Past Strikes on Iran and Venezuela

The U.S. has had no such dealings with Iran in the 47 years since the Islamic Revolution; the security forces are thoroughly enmeshed in the country’s social and economic institutions. The CIA, Mossad, or both seem to have inside sources in these organizations; hence their ability to track and, in some cases, assassinate Iran’s scientists and commanders, including the top leaders killed in Saturday’s bombing. Who knows: Some U.S. and Israeli officials may think, or hope, that one of these inside sources can take power and steer post-ayatollah Iran into a direction friendlier to Western interests. If so, this quite a leap of faith.

Trump had said he had in mind three people who might replace the supreme leader, but he later said all of those people were killed in U.S. or Israeli strikes—another case of failure in strategic thinking.

Netanyahu has expressed support for Reza Pahlavi, the eldest son of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the late shah who was installed in a coup in Iran in 1953—when the CIA and MI-6 overthrew the democratic prime minister for the sin of nationalizing Britain’s Anglo-Iranian (later BP) oil company—and was toppled during the Islamic Revolution in 1979. The shah’s son has long harbored ambitions of retaking the family throne, but he would likely face opposition from both the present regime, whose pioneers overthrew his father, and the democratic activists, whose antecedents were oppressed by the shah as well.

Meanwhile, the Washington Post reports the following:

Inside the Pentagon, and among some members of the Trump administration, there was deepening concern Sunday that the Iran conflict could spiral out of control, said people familiar with the situation. “The mood there is intense and paranoid,” one person said.

Inside the Pentagon, and among some members of the Trump administration, there was deepening concern Sunday that the Iran conflict could spiral out of control, said people familiar with the situation. “The mood there is intense and paranoid,” one person said.

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The toll of the war’s expanding scope includes four Americans killed, at least three of them in an Iraqi strike on Kuwait. Iran’s missiles and drones have also killed 10 Israelis, four Syrians, and six in the Gulf states. Israeli strikes, aimed at Hezbollah facilities, have killed at least 31 people in Lebanon. According to the Iranian Red Crescent Society, U.S. and Israeli strikes have killed 555 people across Iran, including at least 175 people, many of them young students, at a girls’ school.

Three U.S. jets were shot down on Monday, reportedly by Kuwaiti air-defense troops in an accidental “friendly fire” attack. The pilots and crews ejected without damage.

In a briefing at the Pentagon, Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said we are at the early stages of a “difficult and gritty” operation, adding that more U.S. forces will soon be sent to support the tens of thousands already there.

Trump said on Sunday the war could go on for another four or five weeks. Asked about this on Monday, Hegseth said, “President Trump has all the latitude in the world to talk about how long it may or may not take. Four weeks, two weeks, six weeks—it could move up, it could move back.”

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