Kayhan Valadbaygi in Phenomenal World:
At first glance, the strategic rationale for the US-Israeli offensive in Iran seems elusive. While President Trump has described the campaign in the familiar idiom of democratic liberation, promising to topple the Islamic Republic, Secretary of State Marco Rubio has presented it as a pre-emptive strike. Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth joined Rubio in claiming that the core objectives are the destruction of Iran’s nuclear and missile programs and the degradation of its naval capabilities—not exactly regime change, but counter-capability coercion.
Yet the US war aims should not be sought in the Trump administration’s official briefings but in the long-term changes in American statecraft. Since the early 2010s, Washington has increasingly pivoted away from large-scale occupations towards the use of airpower, financial instruments, diplomatic pressure, and targeted removals of key adversaries. It has sought to impose its will on other states while limiting the domestic and geopolitical costs associated with prolonged military presence, in what amounts to a model of remote political engineering.
The Venezuelan episode marked the culmination of this approach, demonstrating how a strike against an individual leader, combined with the application of intense external pressure, can create political change without the burdens of territorial control. This, it seems, is the same scenario that Washington would like to play out in Iran.
More here.
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