Trump’s Iran Campaign Ignores the Lessons of the Iraq War

The disastrous aftermath of U.S.-led regime change in Iraq more than two decades ago could be repeated in Iran with an even wider threat of regional upheaval unless a rational plan for ending the conflict diplomatically is put in place.

The one certainty about war is its unpredictability. I saw this firsthand in Afghanistan and then in Iraq. In March 2003, after reporting on special operations forces during the major combat phase of operations, I attended a desert ceremony to inaugurate the Iraq Governing Council in a tent next to the imposing Mesopotamian Temple of Ur. The council, composed of expats who had not been to their home country of Iraq for many years, gave me the feeling that the plans for a new government might not materialize. Within the month, Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein’s fedayeen and dismissed soldiers were in a full-blown insurgent mode, punctuated by the bombing of the UN headquarters in Iraq’s capital Baghdad and the death of the UN Special Representative to Iraq Sergio Vieira de Mello.

The experience in Iraq, a case study for many in poor handling of regime change and nation building, resonates as the world reacts to the strikes on Iran. Three days into Operation Epic Fury, launched by President Donald Trump to neutralize Iranian threats, the end game plan is unclear and U.S. casualties are beginning to mount. Three U.S. fighter jets were shot down by friendly fire, and luckily their crews were rescued unscathed. But the war has quickly spread, with hundreds of casualties from over a thousand Iranian missiles and drones into ten countries. Lebanon-based Hezbollah, despite its weakened state, launched rockets into Israel.

Unlike Operation Iraqi Freedom, the United States is not counting on a coalition against Iran—forty-nine countries backed Washington in the 2003 war—or a resolution of support from the U.S. Senate. Indeed, Canada, Spain, and the United Kingdom have demurred—the latter granting use of its bases for defensive purposes when Iranian drones fell on Cyprus. There isn’t much domestic support, either. In multiple surveys following the first few days since the joint U.S.-Israeli strikes, a majority of Americans have expressed skepticism about the intervention in Iran, unlike the early days in Operation Iraqi Freedom. There is also real concern that U.S. munitions of various types will run low before long despite President Trump’s suggestion that major combat operations could last for a month. Although Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth insists that “this is not Iraq,” Trump has declined to rule out issuing ground troops in Iran.

According to U.S. military doctrine, major combat operations, or Phase III operations, are to be followed by Phase IV stabilization operations. However, the president has suggested that Iranians will be on their own to install a successor government—provided the air campaign knocks out the country’s dominant security organization known as the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) sufficiently to provide that opening. But it is more likely that the guard and other security services will retain enough muscle to quell any opposition power moves and possibly add to the thousands reportedly killed to put down mass antigovernment protests that flared up again in January.

The U.S. experience in Iraq stands as a testament to hubris in many ways, but the U.S. military has distinguished itself with perseverance and adaptation when the plan, as the saying goes, does not survive contact with the enemy. Over the ten years after the initial invasion, the United States surged troops into Iraq, developed local-level defense forces, and ultimately resorted in the latter years of the counter-Islamic State fight to a combat support role. The other adage that soldiers are fond of citing is “the enemy has a vote,” and in the case of Operation Iraqi Freedom, the toll was 4,500 Americans dead and wounded and 211,046 Iraqi civilian deaths, according to Iraq Body Count, a public database that uses media reports to document the deaths during the U.S. 2003 invasion.

While Iranian capabilities have been degraded by recent operations and their munitions are also running low, the regime has demonstrated remarkable ability to regenerate its fighting power. It has fought the insurgent “war of the flea” and perfected proxy warfare over decades through its support of Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen, Hamas in Gaza, and Shia militias in Iraq and Syria, though some have been depleted in the past two years. It would be folly to think that such a hasty solo campaign can be won from the air when no other war has followed that course.

Should the major combat phase succeed in reducing the country to rubble, the likelier scenario is a splintering of the ethnic fabric of Iran, a civil war with remnants of the IRGC, and regional instability that no Mideast power is likely able to control. The Israelis would resort to their time-tested “mow the grass” strategy to keep their perimeter secure while the rest of the region suffers economically. It is hard to answer the question, “Tell me how this ends,” one that former U.S. Army General David Petraeus posed to journalist Rick Atkinson in the early days of the Iraq war, but a smooth passage to a free Iran is not the likeliest answer.

To use another adage from the long wars, then-Defense Secretary Colin Powell’s admonition in 2002 to George W. Bush administration colleagues that “if you break it, you own it,” also applies to Iran. The Trump administration may eschew any responsibility for what comes next when the bombs stop falling, but history will still judge the campaign based on the outcome for U.S. interests as well as for Iran and the region. It is still possible to fashion a plan that contains the threats that Iran poses to the region and the world, gains allied and regional support, and achieves verifiable agreements, but time is running short.