WASHINGTON, D.C. – Hours after the United States and Israel launched a bombing campaign against Iran on Saturday, President Donald Trump said all he wanted out of the war was “freedom of the people.”
Analysts say that despite this assertion and other stated objectives by U.S. officials, Trump appears intent on disrupting Tehran’s establishment.
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Kelly Grieco, a senior fellow at the Stimson Center think tank, told Al Jazeera that without troops on the ground, it will be difficult, if not impossible, to achieve such a fundamental political shift.
“They don’t seem to be willing to pay certain costs to achieve regime change, so there’s a set of secondary goals that air power alone would probably be sufficient to achieve,” Grieco said.
After the U.S. and Israeli attacks began, President Trump told the Iranian people that their “moment of freedom” was approaching.
“When we’re done, take over your government and it’ll be yours,” he said, suggesting the United States would overthrow the Iranian regime.
Matthew Das, executive vice president of the Center for International Policy, stressed that airstrikes alone cannot bring down Iran’s ruling regime.
“You can damage buildings, you can damage regimes, but there is no example of regime change achieved through air power alone,” Das said.
A NATO-led air operation in Libya in 2011 succeeded in ousting Muammar Gaddafi from power, but on the ground Libyan rebels led the offensive that removed the regime.
President Trump and other U.S. officials have called on Iranians to rise up against their government, but there currently appears to be no strong forces on the ground capable of challenging the Islamic republic’s regime.
Boots on the ground?
The United States has left the door open to ground military involvement in the war, but the move would increase risks for the U.S. military and mark a significant departure from President Trump’s stated desire for swift military action.
“Despite the absence of American boots on the ground in Iran, the war is already unpopular,” Das said.
According to a recent Reuters poll, only about a quarter of Americans support the war.
Das contrasted the ongoing conflict with the 2003 invasion of Iraq, which received more than 55 percent support from Americans, according to various polls.
“As this war continues, especially if US troops are on the ground, approval ratings will decline further,” Das told Al Jazeera.
On Tuesday, Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal told reporters after a secret hearing with administration officials that he was concerned the United States was heading toward a ground operation in Iran.
“After this meeting, I am more afraid than ever that we are on the ground and that American troops may be needed to accomplish the goals that this administration seems to have,” Blumenthal said.
Other purposes
In recent days, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth have made clear their goal is more modest than regime change in Iran: destroying Iran’s nuclear and drone programs and its navy.
Rubio claimed that Iran has “gained immunity” against foreign attack and is building a large missile and drone arsenal to provide deterrence, allowing it to build nuclear weapons.
Hegseth stressed that the bombing campaign in Iran would not amount to “forever war.”
“We’re making sure we get the job done, but the president, unlike other presidents, has been very calm about the foolish policies of the past that led us recklessly into things that weren’t tied to real, clear objectives,” he said.
But Grieco said Trump’s own objectives are unclear.
“What is this all for? What are we trying to achieve? The regime is certainly not doing themselves any favors in the fact that they don’t seem to have a consistent narrative or message on this,” she told Al Jazeera.
Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren offered a similar assessment during a briefing with Trump officials on Tuesday.
“This is a much worse situation than I expected. It’s natural to be concerned,” Warren said in a video message.
“The Trump administration has no plans for Iran. This illegal war is based on lies and started without any immediate threat to our country. Donald Trump has yet to give any clear reason for this war, and there appears to be no plan for how to end it.”
The United States and Israel launched a bombing campaign against Iran early Saturday that killed Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, several government officials, and hundreds of civilians.
The conflict quickly spread across the Middle East, with Iran violently attacking Gulf states and launching drone and missile attacks on U.S. assets, energy, and civilian targets.
The Iranian government has also targeted Israel with missile salvoes.
Iran-allied groups in Iraq also joined the war, claiming drone strikes against U.S.-linked targets. Lebanon’s Hezbollah has also joined the fray amid reports that Israel is planning an invasion of southern Lebanon.
A few weeks, or “longer.”
Despite Hegseth’s insistence that wars are not endless, the Trump administration’s conflict schedule has been resilient.
President Trump said the United States is carrying out its mission ahead of schedule as the conflict escalates. At the same time, he said the war could last four to five weeks or “much longer.”
The US president’s allies have also hailed the war as a success, predicting that the Iranian regime will soon collapse.
“We’re not there yet, but in my opinion, whether this terrorist regime collapses in Iran or not, it’s a matter of timing,” Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham wrote in X after a phone call with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Graham said the “door to peace” and relations between Israel and Arab states that would open after the fall of the Iranian regime would lift the region to “a new level of prosperity and security.”
But Das said it was difficult to assess U.S. progress in the war because Trump “hasn’t yet made it clear what his real objectives are.”
“We can’t really tell if we’re overdue or behind the times when it comes to these goals, and that’s the issue here,” he said.
“They didn’t bother to make a case for why this war was necessary. They certainly didn’t bother to explain what they wanted to accomplish, when and how they wanted to accomplish it. So all we can do is this killing.”
Although the war is still in its first week, it is starting to look like a more protracted conflict than the decisive strikes Trump boasts about, such as the abduction of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro in January and the attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities in June.
“I think the problem here is that he seems obsessed with air power and what he thinks it can accomplish,” Grieco said of President Trump.
