The Best Case and a Good Case

[Offthemat]

 

POSTED ON MARCH 2, 2026 BY JOHN HINDERAKER IN IRAN, TRUMP FOREIGN POLICY

  

TWO OUTCOMES FOR IRAN

Eran Ortal is a well-known Israeli military theorist. He gave an interview to the Jerusalem Post that coincides with my own thinking on Iran:

“There is no precedent for regime change through an air campaign,” Brig. Gen. Eran Ortal told The Media Line.

Which, however, is not necessarily a pessimistic evaluation:

Ortal framed what comes next as two broad paths. In the first, he said, leadership losses and a communications breakdown combine with extreme public pressure to produce a rupture that ends the regime—an outcome he stressed airpower alone has not historically produced.

“Seeing Iranians celebrating the attack in the streets increases the optimism that this scenario could materialize,” Ortal explained. “This could create a domino effect that cannot be foreseen in which the disappearance of senior leadership, major communications disruption, and extreme public pressure destabilize the leadership, who then abandon their positions.”

If that cascade does not happen, Ortal said the likely endpoint may be a government that survives politically but is left strategically broken. “This will leave the regime without military capabilities, weak and neutralized and fully subordinate to American whims and future coercion,” he said.

So the question, really, lies between best case and good case. If the Islamic regime survives, it will be so weakened as to be unable to play the disruptive role with which we have become familiar. 

Danny Orbach, a military historian, also spoke with the Post and made a similar point:

“The goal is not for the regime to fall, but to create conditions that will enable the Iranian people to topple it,” Professor Danny Orbach, a military historian from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, told The Media Line. “If the Iranians don’t take advantage of the opportunity, the war might end with less ambitious goals achieved—the destruction of the Iranian navy, its missile arsenal, and the remnants of its nuclear program.”

That would be an excellent result. Orbach puts particular emphasis on naval power:

For Orbach, the campaign’s political bet is tied to a target set that tends to receive less attention than missiles and nuclear facilities: Iran’s ability to project power at sea. “The navy is more important than what most people think,” he said. “The navy is the ability to project power, especially through the threat of blocking the Hormuz Strait. Its destruction will humiliate them and turn them into a country that cannot project power.”

There is more at the link. The bottom line, I think, is that the nay-sayers are wrong. Best case, the Iranian people rise up, install a secular government, perhaps with the Shah at the head of a constitutional monarchy, and Iran rejoins the modern world, with positive consequences too numerous to count. That is what we and the Trump administration (but not the Democrats) hope for.

But what if that dream isn’t realized? If the Islamic Republic survives, it will be gutted. It will be unable to disrupt events in the Middle East, probably for many years. And its perverted grip on the Iranian people will be loosened. I doubt, for example, that an Islamic Republic hanging on by its fingernails, and unable to supply its citizens with water and electricity, will try to force women to wear a hijab.

It is possible, of course, that a popular revolt will not occur or will fail, and that some group other than the mullahs will take power–most likely, a military dictatorship. But that–a military dictatorship with no military–would be an enormous improvement over what we have seen since 1979. Internationally, any alternative to the “Death to America” regime couldn’t possibly be worse, and in any event, Iran’s military strength will be so degraded as to make a hostile regime almost a moot point for the foreseeable future. 

So I am optimistic about the war, such as it is, in Iran. Our retribution against the mullahs is long overdue, and I think it can only have good consequences. Among those positive outcomes, the one we should all hope for and do what we can to encourage, is freedom for the people of Iran.

 

https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2026/03/two-outcomes-for-iran.php

[WrestlingRasta]

Certainly agree with the points made in the article, however I don’t know that best case and good case are the only scenarios on the table.  I question how well this was thought out, the why and the how, and I question the story we are being told about the lead up and the reasons given, but I won’t speak to strongly against because I know I’m not in those rooms and in those meetings.  On the surface this just has the feeling of another Iraq like scenario. 
 

All that said, the Iranian people deserve better.  The everyday Joe’s of Iran.  They’re great people. I can’t imagine the conditions they’ve been living in and trying to raise families in and live their best life over the past few decades.  Is it our job to provide that for them?   Well that’s certainly a good debate.  Humanity is humanity, and America first is America first.  In some situations it’s hard for those two to co-exist. 

[Rassling]

56 minutes ago, WrestlingRasta said:

On the surface this just has the feeling of another Iraq like scenario. 

It does and we can’t afford it dammit! 

Edited March 4 by Rassling

[Offthemat]

4 hours ago, WrestlingRasta said:

however I don’t know that best case and good case are the only scenarios on the table.

Of course there are many different ways this could go, so what he is laying out here are two that would be satisfactory.  They also are in line with some of the statements we’ve heard.  Trump saying we’re going to give Iranians the opportunity, I hope they step up.  

4 hours ago, WrestlingRasta said:

On the surface this just has the feeling of another Iraq like scenario. 

Not yet, it doesn’t.  There’s not anywhere near the buildup of troops, tanks, and artillery ready to move in.  Also, much of what made Iraq so difficult was an Iran right next door, able to supply and direct the resistance with impunity.  

4 hours ago, WrestlingRasta said:

Is it our job to provide that for them?

For forty-seven years our troops, citizens, friends, and economy have been attacked, killed, and otherwise harmed by the antics of the Iranian theocrats.  If ridding ourselves of that menace provides relief to the Iranian people, so much the better, but you can’t really believe that’s the reason it’s happening. 
 

I hear it said that Iran had no ability to strike the continental U.S.  Yet.  But they were working on it.  China has been flying cargo planes into Iran with suspected components and elements of the fuel for them.  Though their nuclear weapons program took a setback recently, they build their own centrifuges and have bragged that they have enough enriched uranium to build eleven bombs within about a week of resuming enrichment.  It’s estimated they are months away from building missiles able to reach the U.S., but China has been providing the technology.  
 

Taking the proverbial 30,000 foot view, it’s possible to see that this isn’t entirely about Iran.  I’ve alluded elsewhere that this will have a blunting effect on radical Islam, but I believe that’s also just a consolation.  When you look at Trump’s moves on the Panama Canal, Greenland, Venezuela, the drug cartels, tariffs, and now Iran, it looks like China may be the target.  

[wrestlingguy]

4 hours ago, WrestlingRasta said:

All that said, the Iranian people deserve better.  The everyday Joe’s of Iran.  They’re great people. I can’t imagine the conditions they’ve been living in and trying to raise families in and live their best life over the past few decades.  Is it our job to provide that for them?   Well that’s certainly a good debate.  Humanity is humanity, and America first is America first.  In some situations it’s hard for those two to co-exist. 

This is where I struggle. There are a lot of countries whose citizens deserve better. Most of the Middle East, Africa, parts of India, etc. There are also parts of the US whose citizens deserve a lot more than they are getting currently. It is so hard to always help everyone and I have accepted that is just the way it is because it doesn't ever seem to be getting better from my perspective. We spend billions upon billions to help and yet I don't ever see it changing.

[WrestlingRasta]

1 hour ago, Offthemat said:

Of course there are many different ways this could go, so what he is laying out here are two that would be satisfactory.  They also are in line with some of the statements we’ve heard.  Trump saying we’re going to give Iranians the opportunity, I hope they step up.  

Not yet, it doesn’t.  There’s not anywhere near the buildup of troops, tanks, and artillery ready to move in.  Also, much of what made Iraq so difficult was an Iran right next door, able to supply and direct the resistance with impunity.  

For forty-seven years our troops, citizens, friends, and economy have been attacked, killed, and otherwise harmed by the antics of the Iranian theocrats.  If ridding ourselves of that menace provides relief to the Iranian people, so much the better, but you can’t really believe that’s the reason it’s happening. 
 

I hear it said that Iran had no ability to strike the continental U.S.  Yet.  But they were working on it.  China has been flying cargo planes into Iran with suspected components and elements of the fuel for them.  Though their nuclear weapons program took a setback recently, they build their own centrifuges and have bragged that they have enough enriched uranium to build eleven bombs within about a week of resuming enrichment.  It’s estimated they are months away from building missiles able to reach the U.S., but China has been providing the technology.  
 

Taking the proverbial 30,000 foot view, it’s possible to see that this isn’t entirely about Iran.  I’ve alluded elsewhere that this will have a blunting effect on radical Islam, but I believe that’s also just a consolation.  When you look at Trump’s moves on the Panama Canal, Greenland, Venezuela, the drug cartels, tariffs, and now Iran, it looks like China may be the target.  

All of this is fair and valid points. 

[Offthemat]

57 minutes ago, WrestlingRasta said:

All of this is fair and valid points. 

Some similar points:

 

[Bigbrog]

3 hours ago, Offthemat said:

Of course there are many different ways this could go, so what he is laying out here are two that would be satisfactory.  They also are in line with some of the statements we’ve heard.  Trump saying we’re going to give Iranians the opportunity, I hope they step up.  

Not yet, it doesn’t.  There’s not anywhere near the buildup of troops, tanks, and artillery ready to move in.  Also, much of what made Iraq so difficult was an Iran right next door, able to supply and direct the resistance with impunity.  

For forty-seven years our troops, citizens, friends, and economy have been attacked, killed, and otherwise harmed by the antics of the Iranian theocrats.  If ridding ourselves of that menace provides relief to the Iranian people, so much the better, but you can’t really believe that’s the reason it’s happening. 
 

I hear it said that Iran had no ability to strike the continental U.S.  Yet.  But they were working on it.  China has been flying cargo planes into Iran with suspected components and elements of the fuel for them.  Though their nuclear weapons program took a setback recently, they build their own centrifuges and have bragged that they have enough enriched uranium to build eleven bombs within about a week of resuming enrichment.  It’s estimated they are months away from building missiles able to reach the U.S., but China has been providing the technology.  
 

Taking the proverbial 30,000 foot view, it’s possible to see that this isn’t entirely about Iran.  I’ve alluded elsewhere that this will have a blunting effect on radical Islam, but I believe that’s also just a consolation.  When you look at Trump’s moves on the Panama Canal, Greenland, Venezuela, the drug cartels, tariffs, and now Iran, it looks like China may be the target.  

Good take in my opinion.

[Bigbrog]

3 hours ago, wrestlingguy said:

This is where I struggle. There are a lot of countries whose citizens deserve better. Most of the Middle East, Africa, parts of India, etc. There are also parts of the US whose citizens deserve a lot more than they are getting currently. It is so hard to always help everyone and I have accepted that is just the way it is because it doesn't ever seem to be getting better from my perspective. We spend billions upon billions to help and yet I don't ever see it changing.

Also good take.

[mspart]

9 hours ago, WrestlingRasta said:

The everyday Joe’s of Iran.  

I think you meant the everyday Hassan's of Iran!!   I don't know too many Iranians named Joe.   But I get your point!!  

mspart

[mspart]

I don't feel like this is another Iraq.   I don't even know what the status is of Iraq.   But from what we have been told, no boots on the ground and just pound them with air power.   I agree with the guy above that said there has never been regime change without boots on the ground, which is why the admin has said they are not interested in regime change as a main goal of this campaign.   The main goal is to deprive them of any offensive weapons they have and want.   But I honestly thought there would be more negotiation.   

mspart

[WrestlingRasta]

17 hours ago, mspart said:

I think you meant the everyday Hassan's of Iran!!   I don't know too many Iranians named Joe.   But I get your point!!  

mspart

Silly mspart, everyone knows that Joe to Hassan in Iran is like Billy to William in America.

[Interviewed_at_Weehawken]

38 minutes ago, WrestlingRasta said:

Silly mspart, everyone knows that Joe to Hassan in Iran is like Billy to William in America.

"Yusuf/Yousef" actually!

Edited March 5 by Interviewed_at_Weehawken

[mspart]

9 hours ago, WrestlingRasta said:

Silly mspart, everyone knows that Joe to Hassan in Iran is like Billy to William in America.

Oh, I forgot that!!!    That's a good one!

mspart