On Feb. 28, america and Israel launched coordinated however individually named army campaigns towards Iran — america beneath Operation Epic Fury and Israel beneath Operation Roaring Lion — hanging Iran’s nuclear amenities, ballistic missile infrastructure, and army management and command constructions. In a video message broadcast, President Donald Trump once more urged Iranians to “take over your authorities. It will likely be yours to take.” No matter else the marketing campaign accomplishes, it can’t be mistaken for coercive diplomacy. It’s a regime change operation, and the American president has outlined that finish state goal explicitly.
That is the second main army marketing campaign towards Iran in beneath a yr. Final June, Israel’s Operation Rising Lion and America’s Operation Midnight Hammer considerably degraded Iran’s enrichment infrastructure however left its extremely enriched uranium stockpile largely unaccounted for, believed to be saved in or beneath bombed amenities. The Trump administration declared this system “obliterated,” then launched one other marketing campaign eight months later, ending nuclear negotiations with Iran in Geneva.
The US has pursued regime change towards governments earlier than, in Iraq in 2003 and in Libya in 2011. The sample is constant: coercive approaches to weapons of mass destruction within the Center East haven’t produced extra manageable nonproliferation outcomes. The query for Washington now could be what occurs subsequent and whether or not army pressure in Iran can succeed the place diplomacy didn’t.
The Limits of Navy Drive
The U.S. and Israeli strikes can set again Iran’s nuclear program by degrading enrichment infrastructure, eliminating key personnel, and signaling resolve. Rising Lion and Midnight Hammer did all of those. However three dynamics the earlier strikes have left unresolved or actively worsened now demand Washington’s consideration.
First, army strikes can destroy amenities however can not account for the fabric already produced. A confidential Worldwide Atomic Power Company report circulated on Feb. 27 confirmed that Iran’s final verified stockpile stood at 440 kilograms of uranium enriched to 60 p.c purity — ample for as many as ten nuclear weapons, if additional enriched — saved in a tunnel complicated at Isfahan that the June 2025 strikes left structurally unaffected. The company can not account for its present location or situation. Two army campaigns have made that stockpile more durable, not simpler, to search out.
Second, the strikes can goal commanders however can not get rid of the oversight constructions required to regulate what they depart behind. Israeli strikes final June killed the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps’ commander in chief, the armed forces chief of workers, the Aerospace Drive commander, and at the very least 14 nuclear scientists. The most recent American and Israeli assaults are designed to go additional. But Iran seems to have anticipated this. Inside hours, Iranian forces launched simultaneous retaliatory assaults throughout a number of fronts with out ready for centralized authorization, suggesting pre-delegated response authority — an indication that decapitation methods face diminishing returns towards a regime that has spent months dispersing its command constructions. No matter whether or not the regime survives, its enriched uranium shares will stay in broken, partially unaccountable amenities with no worldwide monitoring.
Third, strikes can foreclose diplomacy however not substitute for it. The Geneva talks ended with Omani mediators describing “vital progress” however no deal. That opening is now closed — and Iran’s preliminary retaliation makes clear it is a completely different battle than June 2025. Then, Iran gave advance warning earlier than launching missiles at Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar, a sign calibrated to facilitate de-escalation. No such sign has accompanied its response this time. Iranian strikes have focused U.S. bases throughout the Gulf, together with in Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates. The battle is already a multi-front regional warfare.
The Proliferation Dangers That Stay
The central query is what turns into of Iran’s nuclear program beneath three believable eventualities — none of which clearly delivers the decision the U.S. and Israeli strikes are supposed to realize.
If the regime had been to fall and get replaced, Washington seems to imagine {that a} pro-Western successor would dismantle what stays of this system. That assumption deserves scrutiny. The US made an identical guess in Iraq in 2003, anticipating a steady, pleasant authorities to instantly comply with Saddam Hussein. As an alternative, it inherited a decade of instability and no sturdy framework for managing what it left behind — and Iraq had no lively nuclear program. Iran does.
If the Iranian regime had been to break down with out a coherent successor, the analogy is much less Iraq than Libya: fragmented authority, rival factions, and competing regional actors, with no single interlocutor capable of make or implement binding commitments. In such a setting, the Worldwide Atomic Power Company would face the daunting activity of reconstructing a monitoring baseline over a program way more superior and technically refined than the one it confronted after Gaddafi’s fall.
The third risk is regime survival — the result most in line with the Islamic Republic’s document. The system has endured the Iran-Iraq warfare, nationwide protest waves in 2017, 2019, 2022, and a bloody crackdown on mass uprisings final month, rising every time extra consolidated. A authorities with that historical past is unlikely to break down shortly due to army strikes. It’s extra prone to adapt. And if it adapts, the nuclear program could adapt with it — transferring additional into concealment, dispersal, and gradual reconstitution.
In every situation, the type of the problem shifts, however the underlying proliferation dangers stay. With out boots on the bottom, america shall be unable to conduct dependable bomb injury assessments to gauge the influence of the strikes or state of Iran’s remaining fissile materials. Iran’s stockpile is presently ample, if processed at an undeclared facility, to provide weapons-grade materials for a number of gadgets. The Worldwide Atomic Power Company has “misplaced continuity of data” over that materials. Broken declared amenities present cowl for covert reconstitution, and the absence of inspectors because the summer season of 2025 means there isn’t any baseline towards which to detect it. The administration’s personal declare that Iran might produce weapons-grade materials inside every week implies {that a} covert sneak-out is a near-term risk.
Throughout the area, there may be additionally the danger of a proliferation cascade. Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has been unambiguous: “If [Iran] will get one, we’ve to get one.” The United Arab Emirates, Turkey, and Egypt are watching. Two army campaigns that degraded monitoring with out eliminating Iran’s nuclear program ship an unmistakable sign to each authorities within the area that the nonproliferation regime can not constrain a sufficiently decided state.
Managing the Residual Threat
The diplomatic opening for nuclear talks that existed as lately as final week is gone. Washington has but to articulate what it will settle for as decision — and with out that, there isn’t any framework for what comes subsequent. What stays is a nuclear safety disaster and the potential for a protracted warfare that won’t watch for politics to catch up. Contingency planning, separate from any future diplomatic efforts, wants to start now within the occasion of regime change, collapse, or survival. The Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Risk Discount program is an effective mannequin however the fallacious operational template. It assumed a authorities with sovereign curiosity in orderly materials accounting and a bilateral relationship by means of which cooperation may very well be coordinated. The Iranian situation, against this, assumes an adversarial or fractured authorities and a political surroundings through which seen cooperation with Washington carries extreme home prices. Efficient planning requires completely different intermediaries and trustworthy eager about what could be achieved with out Tehran’s cooperation versus what can not.
Lastly, it’s price confronting straight the argument that regime change will resolve issues about Iran’s nuclear ambitions. This system predates the Islamic Republic, launched by the Shah with American help within the Seventies, suspended after the 1979 revolution, and revived beneath the pressures of the Iran-Iraq Warfare. A change in management at present wouldn’t erase stockpiles, centrifuge functionality, or technical experience, nor would it not get rid of the strategic situations that make nuclear growth engaging. Any Iranian authorities, this one or a successor, revolutionary or pro-Western, faces a nuclear-armed adversary in Israel and america that has now twice struck Iranian territory in a single yr.
It is a state of affairs with no good choices. The president who promised no extra regime change within the Center East has launched precisely that — towards a rustic of ninety million individuals, with no framework for what follows, and no telling the way it ends. What the approaching weeks and months require will not be a victory lap however a severe reckoning with what has been left behind: enriched materials of unknown location, command constructions of unsure integrity, and a regional surroundings through which the case for nuclear deterrence has by no means been stronger.
Nima Gerami is an affiliate at Arcipel, a London-based consultancy that gives protection, safety, and geopolitical recommendation to governments and companies worldwide. He beforehand served on the Nationwide Protection College and the U.S. Division of State. His work focuses on nuclear coverage, deterrence, and regional safety within the Center East.
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