A War With Iran Would Begin Easily and End Beyond Washington’s Control

Editorial

War Without Defensive Necessity

If Washington chooses to strike Iran, it will not be because Iran presents a clear and present danger to the United States. It will be because we have once again normalized undeclared war, preemptive force, and the casual abandonment of law in the name of power.

We have grown accustomed to it. Preemptive war is dressed up as defense. Economic strangulation is called policy. Carrier deployments are framed as deterrence. But under the United Nations Charter, which the United States drafted and ratified in 1945, even the threat of force against another state is prohibited. Article 2, paragraph 4 is not ambiguous. Yet threats are issued openly, sanctions are tightened deliberately to collapse currencies, and bombs are dropped two days before negotiation rounds are scheduled to resume. This is not diplomacy. It is war by other means.

Let us start with the central claim: Iran does not pose a direct military threat to the United States. It is not blocking our shipping. It is not invading allies. It is not massing forces on our borders. The rationale for war is not defensive necessity. It is political ambition.

The Objective Is Not Deterrence – It Is Disintegration

That ambition has two tiers. The first is regime change. The second, if regime change fails, is disintegration. If we cannot install a compliant government in Tehran, we can attempt to fracture the Iranian state so thoroughly that it cannot function as a regional power. The tools are familiar: air strikes, cruise missiles, cyber attacks, special operations, decapitation attempts, and encouragement of internal unrest among Kurds, Baluch, Azeris, and others. Infrastructure becomes target lists. Water systems, ports, energy grids, and food distribution networks become pressure points. The theory is that systemic stress will break cohesion.

Iran Is Not Iraq

But Iran is not Iraq. It is four times larger than Iraq. Its population approaches one hundred million. It is mountainous, networked, and sanctioned hardened. There will be no land invasion. We lack the forces and the staging grounds. This would be an air and missile war, and air power is an uncertain instrument of political transformation. Kosovo was meant to be resolved in days. It lasted seventy eight. It ended not because bombs alone compelled surrender but because diplomatic leverage altered calculations.

The JCPOA and the Collapse of Credibility

The Israeli dimension overlays everything. For decades, Israeli leadership has insisted that Iran is on the verge of a nuclear breakout. That prediction has been repeated since the mid nineteen nineties. Yet Iran negotiated the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action in 2015 with the permanent five members of the Security Council and Germany. The agreement placed Iran’s nuclear program under strict International Atomic Energy Agency monitoring. It was ratified unanimously by the UN Security Council. Then the United States withdrew.

The story is simple. Iran negotiated. An agreement was reached. Monitoring was in place. Washington repudiated its own signature. The pattern is not isolated. From NATO expansion to the Anti Ballistic Missile Treaty to Minsk II, the United States has demonstrated a willingness to abandon negotiated settlements when domestic or allied pressure demands it. The result is predictable: no one trusts American assurances.

The argument that Iran cannot be trusted to negotiate collapses under its own weight. The United States has shown that it cannot take yes for an answer. When Iran accepted intrusive inspections and limits, the agreement was torn up. When negotiations resumed last year, bombing preceded the sixth round of talks. If we are serious about preventing nuclear proliferation, we already had the mechanism to do so.

The Military Reality: Short Wars Are a Fantasy

Instead, the discourse shifts to red lines and irrational regimes. Yet the lesson from North Korea is stark. Maximum pressure did not prevent nuclear acquisition. It accelerated it. If Iran faces existential destruction, the incentive to pursue a nuclear deterrent increases, not decreases. Proliferation becomes the rational response to vulnerability. A world divided into nuclear sovereign states and non nuclear subordinate states is not stabilized by attacking those without weapons. It is destabilized.

Meanwhile, the logistics of a sustained war are rarely discussed honestly. The Navy can sustain high tempo missile operations for perhaps ten to fourteen days before resupply becomes a constraint. There is no industrial surge capacity reminiscent of World War II. Missile production requires specialized labor and complex supply chains. Vertical launch systems must be reloaded in port. Ships rotate out of theater. The Air Force can surge for several days with overwhelming intensity, but sustained campaigns strain personnel and platforms.

Iran is not defenseless. It possesses layered air defenses, ballistic missiles that have demonstrated accuracy, and possibly hypersonic variants. Even the Houthis complicated U.S. naval operations in the Red Sea. Iran’s capabilities are assessed to exceed theirs. Whether Iran can sink a carrier is uncertain. That it can impose serious costs is not.

The Strait of Hormuz and Global Shock

Then there is the Strait of Hormuz. Close it and global energy markets convulse. China imports roughly 1.4 million barrels per day from Iran. Even if flows are rerouted, prices spike worldwide. There is no ceiling on the economic shock. Regional states dependent on stability and trade would not remain passive if the war drags on. Turkey in particular may have differences with Tehran, but it does not support a campaign designed to erase Iran from the map. Public sentiment there is combustible.

Russia, China, and the Escalation Threshold

Russia and China do not seek direct war with the United States. But both have vested interests in Iran’s survival. Russia is increasingly skeptical of American good faith in negotiations. China is moving toward dedollarization and is deeply intertwined with global energy flows. If Iran faces annihilation, indirect intervention becomes likely: intelligence sharing, financial support, weapons transfers, perhaps naval deployments. Submarines, in particular, alter maritime risk calculations dramatically. No surface fleet is immune.

The economic war has already been waged. Sanctions have deliberately restricted dollar flows into Iran, collapsing the currency and reducing living standards. U.S. officials have openly described this pressure as intentional. When protests followed, infiltration and destabilization efforts accompanied them. That is not a peace strategy. It is coercion.

The Proliferation Paradox

And all of this unfolds against a legal backdrop that Washington itself once championed. The UN Charter prohibits the threat or use of force. It is a treaty ratified by the United States Senate. Yet threats are issued casually, and force posture is brandished publicly as political theater. When law becomes optional, power becomes the only language.

If a war begins, it will not be quick. There is no such thing as a neat in and out operation against a country of this size and capacity. Missile exchanges will intensify. Energy markets will destabilize. Regional powers will calculate their own thresholds. Great powers will weigh involvement. And if Iran concludes that survival requires a nuclear deterrent, the very outcome the war purports to prevent may be the one it produces.

Law, Threats, and the UN Charter

Two American presidents faced moments when military escalation was urged upon them. Eisenhower rejected marching into China. Kennedy rejected invasion during the Cuban Missile Crisis. They understood that tactical dominance does not guarantee strategic wisdom.

Presidential Precedent

To attack Iran under these conditions is to gamble not merely on battlefield success but on the stability of an entire system. We may begin the war. There is no assurance we will control the consequences.