The US-Israeli military campaign against Iran is not the chaotic misadventure that critics describe but a recognizable model of strategic disarmament - one closer to the Allied approach to Germany's industrial war-making capacity in 1944-1945 than to the 2003 invasion of Iraq. That is the argument advanced by Muhanad Seloom, a security researcher who has advised defense and intelligence agencies in multiple countries.

His analysis, published in Al Jazeera, contends that the campaign's endgame is visible in its operational phasing even if the administration's rhetoric obscures it, "Hvylya" reports.

The objective, Seloom wrote, is "the permanent degradation of Iran's ability to project power beyond its borders through missiles, nuclear latency and proxy networks." No one is proposing to occupy Tehran. The campaign has moved methodically through phases: first suppressing air defenses and command structures, then targeting the defense industrial base to ensure destroyed capabilities cannot be rebuilt.

Iran entered 2026 with 440 kilograms of uranium enriched to 60 percent purity - enough, if further enriched, for as many as 10 nuclear weapons. Before the June strikes, Tehran was less than two weeks from enriching enough uranium for one bomb, according to US intelligence assessments. The current campaign has damaged the Natanz nuclear facility further, while Fordow remains inoperable. The facilities needed to reconstitute enrichment capacity are being systematically targeted.

Seloom acknowledged the analogy is imperfect: "Strategic disarmament without occupation requires a verification and enforcement architecture that no one has yet proposed." US Senator Chris Murphy raised precisely this concern after a classified briefing, asking what prevents Iran from restarting production once operations end. The answer, Seloom argued, requires a post-conflict framework that does not yet exist in public - a verification regime, a diplomatic settlement or a sustained enforcement posture.

But the absence of a public diplomatic blueprint "does not mean the military campaign is failing," he wrote. "It means the campaign is ahead of the diplomacy - a sequencing problem, not a strategic one." The 440 kilograms of enriched uranium remains unaccounted for, and any successor regime will inherit an environment where the case for nuclear deterrence has been strengthened, not weakened.

Also read: Trump's Iran Dilemma: Why Both Staying and Leaving Carry Devastating Consequences.