M A Hossain,
There are moments in international politics when the choreography of war becomes visible before the curtain officially rises. Aircraft carriers reposition. Bases quietly empty. Diplomats talk faster, if not more honestly. The current U.S. military posture toward Iran suggests such a moment. The Pentagon is not improvising; it is staging. And when a superpower stages, it usually does so with more than one script in hand.
Yet the central question is not how the United States could strike Iran. It is why—and to what end. American history is littered with wars in which tactical brilliance outpaced strategic clarity. From Vietnam to Iraq, the United States has learned, relearned, and then inconveniently forgotten that military action untethered from clear political objectives tends to age badly. Iran risks becoming the next chapter in that familiar story.
The signs of preparation are hard to ignore. A carrier strike group steaming toward the Middle East. Patriot and THAAD missile defenses deployed. Non-essential personnel pulled from exposed bases in Qatar and Saudi Arabia. Tanker aircraft and heavy transport planes moving into theater. This is not the posture of a power expecting imminent diplomacy. It is the posture of a power clearing the battlefield.
Iran, for its part, is not passive. Arms shipments from Russia and China suggest anticipation, not surprise. Tehran has stockpiled weapons and upgraded its air defenses, including Chinese HQ-9B systems. On paper, these defenses look formidable. In practice, they are less so. Modern air defense requires deep integration, layered systems, and constant real-time coordination. Iran lacks much of that. Air defenses are only as strong as their weakest sensor—and Iran has many.
Still, none of this explains the purpose of war. The protests inside Iran, however real and deadly, are a sideshow in American calculations. Washington’s sudden interest in Iranian democracy rings hollow given Donald Trump’s record—from his indifference to Venezuela’s democratic collapse to his transactional view of Ukraine and even Greenland. This is not a crusade for liberal values. It is about unfinished business.
That business dates back to the last confrontation, when U.S. strikes failed to account for roughly 400 kilograms of 60-percent enriched uranium. Tehran had moved it in advance. If further enriched—a technically modest step—that stockpile could yield material for several nuclear weapons. As long as that uranium remains unaccounted for, the problem, in American eyes, remains unresolved.
Iran has tried to buy time by offering negotiations. But the terms have shifted. Washington now demands not only an end to enrichment and missile development, but the removal of existing nuclear material and the abandonment of regional proxies. No Iranian government, clerical or otherwise, could survive agreeing to such terms. Which brings us back to force.
Broadly speaking, the United States has three military options—three ways to strike Iran—each with distinct risks and implications.
The first is a focused strike on nuclear infrastructure. This would be the narrowest option and the easiest to justify strategically. Destroy the sites. Eliminate the missing enriched uranium if possible. Declare the mission complete. Such an operation would rely heavily on B-2 bombers carrying GBU-57 bunker busters, the only weapons capable of penetrating Iran’s deeply buried facilities. It would be violent, brief, and—crucially—limited.
This approach has historical precedent. Israel’s strikes on Iraq’s Osirak reactor in 1981 and Syria’s al-Kibar facility in 2007 delayed proliferation without triggering regional war. But Iran is not Iraq in 1981. Its program is dispersed, hardened, and politically symbolic. Even a successful strike would likely buy time, not closure.
The second option is decapitation: targeting senior Iranian leaders or key IRGC figures in the hope of destabilizing the regime. The appeal is obvious. Remove the head, and the body collapses. The reality is less tidy. Iran’s political system is deeply institutionalized. The Revolutionary Guards have contingency plans for succession and control. Kill a leader, and you may get a martyr. History offers a cautionary tale here. The 1980 Operation Eagle Claw failed not because of Iranian resistance, but because of logistical overreach. Iran’s geography punishes hubris.
More importantly, assassination strikes risk producing precisely the unity they aim to shatter. Shiite political culture is steeped in martyrdom. External attacks tend to consolidate hardliners, not empower moderates. Regime change by airstrike is an idea that has aged poorly since Baghdad in 2003.
The third option is the most ambitious—and the most dangerous: a sustained campaign aimed at degrading Iran’s military, security apparatus, and political leadership over weeks or months. This would go far beyond a one-off strike. It would target IRGC infrastructure, command centers, missile forces, and internal security units. The goal would be to create a power vacuum so severe that Iran’s leadership is forced into submission or collapse.
This is not impossible. But it is costly. Iran would respond, calibrating its retaliation to the level of threat. At the low end, it might strike U.S. assets in Iraq or harass shipping in the Strait of Hormuz. At the high end—if it believed regime survival was at stake—it could escalate dramatically, risking a regional war that would draw in Gulf states and Israel.
Geography shapes all three options. With most regional states unwilling to grant airspace access, Washington’s choices narrow. A northern route via the Caucasus risks Russian detection. A central corridor through Israel, Jordan, and Iraq is tested but predictable. A southern approach via the Indian Ocean offers flexibility but demands heavy logistics. Most likely, any strike would combine the latter two.
Israel’s role adds another layer. Its interests are narrower but sharper. If Iran’s regime falters, Israeli jets would not wait for clarity. They would move to obliterate Iran’s military infrastructure, as they did in Syria after Assad’s fall. From Israel’s perspective, such moments are fleeting—and must be exploited.
All of which returns us to the central problem: strategy. What does Washington want when the smoke clears? A delayed nuclear program? A weakened regime? A new government? Without a clear answer, military action risks becoming an end in itself—a demonstration of power untethered from outcome.
Iran demands sobriety in abundance. The fuse may be burning. But history suggests that how wars begin matters less than how they are intended to end. And on that question, Washington remains conspicuously vague.
M A Hossain, political and defense analyst based in Bangladesh. He can be reached at: writetomahossain@gmail.com
This article published at :
1. The Nation, Pak : 02 February, 26
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