Washington’s Tehran gamble

The Iran war is not about poor tactics but a classic case of meticulous military planning being sidelined for political goals.

In his address to the nation on April 1, President Trump announced that US-Israeli military operations in Iran were nearing completion, claiming to have decimated Iran’s navy, air force, and neutralised nuclear/missile threats. 

He also projected a withdrawal of US forces within two to three weeks and described the war as a successful investment, with the “core strategic objectives” in Iran having almost been accomplished after a month of conflict. However, he stopped short of articulating the underlying strategic objectives. 

Taken at face value, his remarks suggest that the current scale and trajectory of military operations will likely remain unchanged. 

Two days later, US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth asked the Chief of Army Staff, General Randy George, and two other senior generals to step down without giving any reason for this unusual step in the midst of war. This ill-advised step reveals a worrying lack of coherence at the top in the conduct of operations against Iran.

The current US air campaign against Iran does not reflect military incompetence or poor tactical execution. Rather, it is a classic case of political goals outstripping operational feasibility, where meticulous military planning is sidelined by the political leadership demanding immediate breakthroughs and outcomes. 

In fact, the US is waging a high-stakes war using a force level designed for rapid response, limited objectives rather than decisive victory. History offers a useful benchmark in this regard. 

In the 1991 Gulf War, against a much weaker Iraq, General Norman Schwarzkopf, C-in-C CENTCOM, assembled over half a million coalition troops, backed by 2,000-plus aircraft and overwhelming naval power. 

To support this massive array of forces the logistical build up took over six months. He did not confuse air superiority with decisive victory. The first phase was a long air campaign to incapacitate Iraqi military infrastructure as well as its air power. Then came the lightning 100-hour ground offensive to liberate Kuwait. In the Gulf War II in 2003, though the force levels were leaner, corps level manoeuvre capability, sizeable air and naval components were employed to achieve the war aims.

That looks very different from what we see today. Despite thousands of precision strikes and continuous naval presence, US forces in the region remain relatively light: tens of thousands of troops, two carrier strike groups, and expeditionary units built for rapid response, not for sustained, large‑scale war. This is not the force posture for achieving a regime change, destroying nuclear capability or forcing a total surrender. 

Speculation abounds that the US is preparing to secure Kharg Island or the Strait of Hormuz. However, such force levels are woefully inadequate for either mission, particularly now, as Iran could have fortified these chokepoints extensively, rendering strategic or tactical surprise improbable in any amphibious seizure operation. More plausibly, they serve as a “threat in being” to shape ongoing negotiations. 

And Iran is no Iraq. As Robert D Kaplan explains in his book The Revenge of Geography, Iran’s power comes less from ideology than from its terrain and location. It is mountainous, internally cohesive, and sits at the crossroads of the Middle East, Central Asia, and the Indian Ocean. Its control of the Strait of Hormuz gives it leverage over global energy flows; its network of regional proxies lets it spread the fight far beyond its own borders. 

In this case, geography is not theory; it is an active weapon. Even a relatively weaker power like Iran can exert disproportionate influence because geography compresses naval space, especially in the Persian Gulf. Moreover, the US is fighting far from home, across long supply lines and in cramped maritime spaces that favour the defender. 

Iran, by contrast, is operating in its own backyard, using proximity, terrain, and chokepoints, such as Hormuz, to offset US technological edge. Matched against these geographical attributes the current US strategy in Iran starts to unravel. The US is leaning heavily on air power, stand‑off strikes, and sea dominance in the Arabian Sea to produce outcomes that, in past conflicts, required boots on the ground. 

But Schwarzkopf knew that air power is most effective when it prepares the battlefield, not when it pretends to finish the war. Bombing can disrupt, degrade, and confuse an enemy. It cannot seize terrain, impose order, or force a political surrender on its own. No amount of smart weapons can fully erase this geographic advantage.

The effects are already clear. Even after hundreds of strikes, Iran has kept its ability to threaten shipping through Hormuz, harass regional partners, and escalate asymmetrically, from the Gulf to the Red Sea. 

The battlespace is widening even as US troop levels stay modest. What we are seeing is not a focused, decisive campaign, but a war that is characterised by stagnation and strategic inertia. None of this is necessarily a sign of military failure. 

On the contrary, American commanders are not incompetent and have probably given frank, sober assessments of the risks, costs, and limits of such a campaign. The US military’s culture still values professional honesty. But in a democracy, political leadership is in charge. That means sound advice can be heard, weighed, and then set aside in favour of political urgency. That seems to be happening now. 

The desire to act fast, show resolve, and get visible results without the full human, financial, and political cost of a larger war has pushed strategy on the back foot. Public communication underlines this problem further. Briefings by the Secretary of War and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs are verbose, full of statistics—numbers of targets hit, sorties flown, and drones shot down—but thin on real strategy or exit scenarios. Counting beans is not the same as explaining a war. In a democracy, these briefings should help citizens understand the risks, choices, and likely endgame.

The imbalance is not just in the military domain. The broader American system of governance shows confusion, too. 

The Congress, constitutionally empowered to declare war, has done little more than offer vague, indirect support. The courts, wary of touching national security questions, stay out of the room. Even the wider ecosystem — media, think tanks, civil society, and the national security bureaucracy — has been feeble in its response.

Washington is gambling on a strategy wherein the military is achieving tactical victories but is unable to convert them into a strategic outcome. The problem isn’t the advice; it’s the leaders who chose to ignore it in favour of political optics.

(The writer is a former Vice Chief of the Indian Army)

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are the author's own. They do not necessarily reflect the views of DH.