Ed wrote this morning about reports that Trump is considering limited strikes on Iran in order to prod them to move to our position on disarmament.
He rightly notes that “limited” strikes are exactly the wrong way to go, which is why I believe these reports are basically disinformation, meant to suggest that massive strikes are not imminent.
The rational order of battle should be the opposite. First, take out the anti-aircraft and radar systems in Iran with stealth bombers and fighters, and immediately after start going after the launchers on a massive first wave. We wouldn’t get all of them or even most of them the first time, but we’d take out some of them, and launchers are the IRGC’s weak spot. They have plenty of missiles, but only a finite number of launchers and no effective air cover to protect them. The more we take out up front, the fewer ABM resources we will have to expend from the start.
I believe that massive strikes are imminent. There are likely tactical considerations about which we, or at least I, are not sufficiently familiar to determine the exact timing of the strikes, but most of the pieces are in place, and Trump will not back down.
The strikes are almost certainly coming, and if they do, Iran, Russia, and China have no idea what they will be facing.
‘US can conduct Hundreds of strikes per day’: Former CENTCOM deputy tells the @Jerusalem_Post that US can wipe out Islamic Regime in hourshttps://t.co/wRjnl3NWCc
— Amichai Stein (@AmichaiStein1) February 19, 2026
If Vice Admiral (Ret.) Bob Harward, former CENTCOM Deputy Commander, is right: nobody yet understands what the US military’s current capability really is, and it is far more awesome than most people imagine.
Perhaps the most chilling warning for Tehran was Harward’s description of modern American warfare capabilities, which he noted are vastly superior to what was seen in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. “Because of what we’ve learned and what we’ve been able to develop technology-wise – be it command, control, and targeting – it allows your mass of strikes to be more effective,” Harward said.
“Where previously you could do 40 or 50 strikes a day, we now have the ability to conduct hundreds of strikes a day. That in itself changes the equation completely for the regime.”
Harward elaborated that the US now possesses the capability to decapitate the IRGC’s command structure with overwhelming speed. “If you’re targeting the IRGC and want to go after all their headquarters and facilities, you could probably do that in a matter of hours. That’s unprecedented.”
This seems right to me for a number of reasons, and they are not all related to the sheer scale of military power deployed and ready to strike Iran. The nature of the capabilities themselves has changed dramatically in recent years. It’s not just the proliferation of guided munitions, nor is it the proliferation of stealth aircraft and our ability to disable air defense platforms and gain air supremacy quickly and completely, making the airspace over Iran completely permissive.
It’s not even the massive number of cruise missiles we have, although unleashing them in numbers never seen before; in fact, I suspect that cruise missiles will make up only a minority of the targets hit.
It’s the fact that each aircraft can strike many more targets at once, using smaller, more numerous weapons that can be independently guided. Most of the targets will not require massive bombs or bunker busters; a small-diameter bomb will take out a building above ground, not just as effectively, but with much less collateral damage.
And the goal is not to destroy Iran, but its ability to control a country that desperately wants to free itself from the regime.
However, the most significant shift in strategy concerns the regime’s internal grip on power. Harward suggested that a campaign would target the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and the instruments used to oppress the Iranian people, rather than the national infrastructure.
“You’re not going to look at infrastructure,” Harward explained. “This is to provide the Iranian people a change in government, so I think those types of targets will not be hit. It will be focused only on the things that enable the regime and the IRGC to suppress the people.”
Trump has no interest in invading or occupying Iran. We don’t want to own it; we want to make it impossible for the regime to keep it. Displacing a regime is a far different proposition than running a country, and no doubt one of the main considerations is putting the chess pieces in place for a swift change to a new regime, and at least temporarily, that likely means a coalition government with the Shah on top.
No doubt the Trump administration and our allies (ahem…) are worried about unconventional retaliation, and of course, a spasm of ICBM and drone strikes, but I expect that the FBI is ready to take down a number of terrorist cells, and our “allies” are trying to distance themselves from us, as if that matters, and will also try to do the same.
I can’t predict how that will go, but I would be surprised to see the Iranian regime survive, or the terrorist threat to persist beyond a spasm if even that comes.
Could I be wrong? Obviously. I suck at predictions. But I don’t think Trump is going to back down, nor that the Iranians will either.
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