The U.S.-Israeli air campaign against Iran has created what one former Pentagon official calls "an opportunity for regime change through a mass uprising" - but history offers sobering precedent for that bet, with only a single arguable success to point to.
Douglas J. Feith, a Hudson Institute senior fellow and former undersecretary of defense for policy, examined the historical record in The Washington Post, as reported by "Hvylya".
Feith identifies only one case where an air campaign arguably led to regime change: the overthrow of Serbia's Slobodan Milosevic in October 2000, which he describes as "the delayed reaction to a U.S.-led air campaign" and "arguably the exception that proves the rule." From World War II through Vietnam to the Gulf and Iraq Wars, he writes, "aerial bombing alone failed to dislodge enemy leaders."
Despite these odds, Feith argues that the Trump administration's approach does not hinge entirely on a popular uprising succeeding. The air campaign is designed to destroy Iran's conventional and nuclear military capabilities, from the IRGC to its air defenses and nuclear weapons program. Even without regime change, Iran's capacity to threaten its neighbors or the United States would be drastically reduced.
If the long-shot uprising does happen, Trump "will praise himself as a strategic genius, and his political opponents will have a hard time contradicting him." If it doesn't, the administration still expects to emerge with a weakened adversary - one whose new leaders would face a choice between seeking American cooperation to rejoin the world economy or remaining hostile with a fraction of their former military power.
Feith concedes, however, that the stakes are high. Iran could fragment into civil war, mirroring Syria's collapse and sending millions of refugees toward Europe and America. The question, he argues, is not whether risks exist but "which he prefers to face."
Also read: Netanyahu to Iranians: "The Time to Overthrow the Regime Is Now"