The New Yorker:

The U.S. and Israel have ignited a campaign to topple the Islamic Republic—with little thought to what comes after.

By Robin Wright

President Donald Trump has launched a capricious and personal war on Iran that is more ambitious, politically and militarily, than any past U.S. campaign in the perpetually volatile Middle East. In an eight-minute video released in the wee hours of Saturday morning, while most Americans were still asleep, he announced that his goals are the abolishment of the theocratic regime, total capitulation by its Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps—or else the death of its members at U.S. hands—and an end to the country’s controversial nuclear program.

Trump called for Iran’s ninety-two million people to rise up in popular resistance and form a new government. “For many years, you have asked for America’s help, but you never got it,” he told the Iranian people. “Now you have a President who is giving you what you want, so let’s see how you respond. America is backing you with overwhelming strength and devastating force.” It is an audacious gambit, undertaken in coördination with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, of Israel, that has no clear outcome. For a man who hungers for the Nobel Peace Prize, this war of choice borders on delusion.

Ali Vaez, who heads the Iran project at the International Crisis Group, told me, “The idea in Washington and Tel Aviv that bombing Iran will somehow trigger a popular uprising is not strategy—it’s wishful thinking.” He noted that there is no modern precedent for forcing regime change by airpower alone. “Bombs can degrade infrastructure. They can weaken capabilities,” he said. “But they do not manufacture organized political alternatives.”

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