The US air campaign against Iran has been devastating in military terms, but Gen. David Petraeus said it will not produce regime change on its own. The reason is simple arithmetic: Iran's regime protection forces number roughly one million armed personnel, and no organized opposition exists to challenge them on the ground.
Petraeus broke down the numbers in a discussion at CSIS, according to "Hvylya". The Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps accounts for over 150,000 personnel. The Basij militia - which he described as "the pipe swingers on the street with weapons, actually gunning down their own people" - numbers more than 200,000 before reserves. The regular military adds 400,000, the National Police 250,000, and even the Ministry of Intelligence can put 25,000 operatives on the street.
President Trump himself acknowledged the limitation after initial remarks focused on regime change, Petraeus noted. "We can't bring regime change ourselves through the air. This will have to come from the Iranian people, maybe breakaway forces," the general said, though he added there are no signs of such forces emerging.
The January protests drew enormous crowds, but Petraeus said the demonstrators lacked everything needed to become a real threat to the regime: "no leader, no headquarters, no chain of command, no logistics, not even any weapons." The regime responded by killing tens of thousands and imprisoning many tens of thousands more.
Petraeus said he supports the president's decision not to take boots on the ground off the table, calling it "unwise for presidents to prematurely take something off that should give pause to the enemy." But when examining each scenario for ground intervention, the calculus is stark. Minority groups - Iranian Kurds, Azeris, Baluch, Sunni Arabs - are all too small. Even if they could seize their own areas, Petraeus questioned whether that would be sustainable or wise, noting that Trump "has at least implied that civil war in Iran is not one of our objectives."
The regime, meanwhile, has already selected its next Supreme Leader - Mojtaba Khamenei, the previous leader's son, sanctioned by the US in 2019. It would take "a very substantial force with real leadership, real command and control, real logistics" to challenge a million armed men who have already demonstrated their willingness to use lethal force against civilians, Petraeus said.
Also read: McMaster Outlines Three Scenarios for Post-War Iran - and Two of Them Are Disastrous