Illiberal systems often seem permanent before they change. But moments of upheaval can also create a different illusion: a dramatic external shock far from collapsing the system. With Iran reeling from unprecedented protests against the country’s leadership, it is tempting to imagine that United States air power could deliver the final blow.
That temptation misunderstands how the Islamic Republic actually survives. Coercive cohesion is the cement of the system: the ability of parallel security and political institutions to work together even as their legitimacy declines. When that cohesion holds, the system absorbs shocks that would bring down more traditional states.
Iran is not a single pyramid with a man at the top. It is a heterogeneous, networked state: an overlapping center of power around the office of the Supreme Leader, Revolutionary Guards, intelligence organs, clerical gatekeepers and a patronage economy. In such a system, removing a node, even symbolically, does not reliably collapse the structure; Redundancy and alternative chain of command is a design feature. The beheading – a dominant narrative following US President Donald Trump’s strategic “success” in Venezuela – thus looks less like a strategy and more like a gamble on chaos.
So Trump’s dilemma is important. He sits between neoconservative hawks who want regime change by force and an America First base that will not support protracted wars, post-conflict stabilization or other adventures in the Middle East. Therefore, instinct is quick, instant-out punishment that seems decisive without creating obligations.
Regional politics further narrowed Trump’s menu. Israel wants Washington to take strong action against Tehran. Key Gulf negotiators, notably Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Oman, have pushed for de-escalation and diplomacy. Operationally, the lack of support from the Gulf for the new campaign could push the US toward remotely launched military options, making it difficult to sustain sustained air operations.
Trump has also indulged in rhetoric. He has signaled credible military options, warning that if Iran “violently kills peaceful protesters”, the US will “come to their rescue”, even as he suggested diplomacy was preferable and signaled the killing was “stopping”. In practice, this oscillation appears to be less policy ambiguity and more bargaining and indecision, encouraging each group around it to believe they can still win the argument.
It is important to be clear about what Washington’s inner circle wants. The goal is not liberal democracy. The prize is a pragmatic Iran that can be drawn into a regional geo-economic framework, opened up for business with the US and freed from imperatives on China. This means limits on nuclear activities, some curbs on ballistic missiles and a reduction in Iran’s support – real or cosmetic – for the so-called “axis of resistance”. This is a change of posture, not a wholesale replacement of the Islamic Republic.
Air force can punish and signal. This may lead to degradation of certain facilities. This may increase the cost of repression by the authorities. But it cannot restructure the security sector, mediate succession or provide behavior change. And it cannot protect protesters from the air. Libya in 2011 is a cautionary tale. Military force, for the most part, is a high-risk attempt to bring the Iranians to the negotiating table that may backfire.
The most plausible military scenario is to target Iranian Revolutionary Guards using cruise missiles and long-range warheads or enabling infrastructure. It fits the “quick and clean” preference and can be framed as punishment rather than war. Its strategic downside is that it gives the Guards an “existential threat” narrative that can legitimize harsh repression, while raising the risk of retaliation by proxies, shipping disruptions, and pressure on US bases in the Gulf. It can also reduce the likelihood of internal fragmentation by pushing rival factions to rally around the flag.
Attempts to “behead” the leadership are more cinematic and less believable. This is the most incremental option, likely to bring radicals together and yet unlikely to collapse the network system.
A sustained air campaign is the least reasonable and the most dangerous. Without Gulf basing and overflight, logistics operations push to more distant platforms and thinner sortie generation. Politically, it would violate the principle of America First; Strategically, it would internationalize the crisis, widen the battlefield, and invite a tie-for-tat escalation cycle that neither side can reliably control.
Cyber- and electronic disruption fit into a different category: low visibility, sometimes deniable, and potentially consistent with Gulf priorities to avoid open war. But results are uncertain and often temporary, and network conditions can be disruptive. The most realistic outcome is that while cyber operations may accompany other movements, they are unlikely to produce decisive political change on their own.
The deeper point is that external shocks rarely produce the specific internal results that Washington claims: a pragmatic transition to the top. Intense external pressure often hardens the coercive core of the system, because increasing violence is not always self-confidence; Wearing a uniform is often feared. The only sustainable trigger for transformation is internal: fractures within the security services or elite divisions that create competing centers of authority with incompatible survival strategies.
If the US wants to influence that dynamic, it should focus on levers that shape cohesion rather than dramatic bombardment. Maintain prohibitions against mass slaughter but avoid promising “defenses” that cannot be delivered without war. Measure the economic pressure on individuals and institutions that promote violence and leave credible off-ramps for technocrats and pragmatists who may prefer de-escalation and negotiation. Above all, coordinate with US allies in the region, chief among them all Qatar, Oman and Saudi Arabia, who can prevent escalation and translate coercive discourse into bargaining space.
The Islamic Republic can still crush this round of protests. It can also reorganize itself internally and survive in a new form. But unless sanctions are lifted and the economy transformed, the anger on the streets will not be contained. For that, governance needs to change from theocratic paralysis to a more pragmatic system.