The US and Israel are waging war on an Iran they think they know. The reality is very different | Ali Vaez

The US and Israel are waging war on an Iran they think they know. The reality is very different Ali Vaez Is the Islamic Republic a messianic theocracy or a brittle dictatorship? It’s neither – as those attacking it are finding out W hen the US and Israel launched coordinated strikes against Iran on 28 February, the campaign was structured like a textbook air war: destroy defences, degrade retaliatory capabilities and decapitate leadership. Iranian air defences – already battered in last summer’s war – were further dismantled to secure uncontested skies. Missile factories, drone infrastructure and naval assets were hit to erode Iran’s ability to retaliate. And a steady cadence of precision strikes removed senior commanders in what amounted to a sustained attempt to disorient Tehran’s decision-making. From a purely operational perspective, the advantages have been stark. Once skies are open, the war becomes cheaper: plentiful, relatively inexpensive munitions can replace the long-range systems that defended airspace typically demands. The decapitation element reflects a familiar military concept: get inside the enemy’s decision loop. If seasoned leaders are constantly “knocked off”, the thinking goes, the system becomes consumed by succession, suspicion and internal coordination. Decision quality degrades; response time slows; coherence frays. Turbulence at the top becomes a weapon in itself. But a command of tactics does not guarantee strategic clarity. And the deeper risk in this campaign lies in the assumptions that animate it – assumptions about how Iran behaves under pressure, and what pressure produces. For decades, US policy has oscillated between two caricatures of Iran: a messianic theocracy impervious to cost; or a brittle dictatorship one hard shove away from collapse. The reality of Iranian governance has always been less theatrical and more enduring. Ideology is central to Iran’s self-conception, but it has never functioned independently from the regime’s...