Washington, D.C. – Hours after the United States and Israel unleashed their bombing campaign against Iran on Saturday, President Donald Trump said the only thing he wants from war is “freedom for the people.”
Analysts say that despite this claim and other goals articulated by US officials, Trump appears to be seeking to collapse the system of government in Tehran.
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Kelly Grieco, a senior fellow at the Stimson Center think tank, told Al Jazeera that achieving such radical political change will be difficult – if not impossible – without troops on the ground.
“It seems like they’re not willing to pay certain costs to achieve regime change, so there’s kind of a set of secondary objectives that maybe are enough if they can’t achieve it through air power alone,” Grieco said.
After the first attacks between the United States and Israel, Trump told the Iranian people that their “moment of freedom” is near.
“When we are done, take control of your government. It will be yours,” he said, suggesting that the United States will overthrow the Iranian regime.
Matthew Duss, executive vice president of the Center for International Policy, stressed that airstrikes alone cannot bring down the Iranian ruling system.
“You can damage buildings; you can damage the regime, but we don’t have examples of cases where air power alone has achieved regime change,” Duss said.
A NATO-led air campaign in Libya in 2011 succeeded in dislodging Muammar Gaddafi from power, but Libyan rebels led the offensive on the ground that toppled the regime.
While Trump and other US officials have called on Iranians to rise up against their government, so far there does not appear to be any significant force on the ground capable of confronting the Islamic Republic’s system.
Boots on the ground?
While the United States has kept the door open to involving ground troops in the war, the move would pose greater risk to American forces and mark a sharp departure from Trump’s stated preference for rapid military campaigns.
“The war is already unpopular, even without American troops on the ground in Iran,” Duss said.
A recent Reuters poll suggested that only about a quarter of Americans support the war.
Duss compared the current conflict to the 2003 invasion of Iraq, which had more than 55 percent support from the American public, according to several polls.
“I imagine that as this war continues, especially if American troops are sent to the ground, that support will diminish even more,” Duss told Al Jazeera.
On Tuesday, Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal told reporters after a classified hearing with administration officials that he fears the United States may be moving toward a ground operation in Iran.
“After this briefing, I am more afraid than ever that we may be sending troops on the ground and that US troops may be necessary to achieve the goals the administration appears to have,” Blumenthal said.
Other objectives
In recent days, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth have articulated more modest goals than regime change in Iran: destroying Iran’s nuclear and drone programs, as well as the country’s navy.
Rubio has argued that Iran was building a large arsenal of missiles and drones to “achieve immunity” and deterrence against foreign attacks that would allow it to build a nuclear weapon.
For his part, Hegseth stressed that the bombing campaign in Iran will not become an “forever war.”
“We are making sure that the mission is accomplished, but we are very clear-eyed, as the president had been, unlike other presidents, about the foolish policies of the past that recklessly dragged us into things that were not tied to real, clear objectives,” he said.
Grieco, however, noted that Trump’s own goals have not been clear.
“What is all this for? What are we trying to achieve? The administration certainly hasn’t done itself any favors by the fact that it doesn’t seem to have a consistent narrative or message around this,” he told Al Jazeera.
Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren emerged from a briefing with Trump officials Tuesday with a similar assessment.
“It’s a lot worse than I thought. You’re right to be worried,” Warren said in a video message.
“The Trump administration has no plan in Iran. This illegal war is based on lies and was launched without any imminent threat to our nation. Donald Trump has yet to give a single clear reason for this war, and appears to have no plan for how to end it.”
The United States and Israel launched the bombing campaign against Iran early Saturday, killing Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, several senior officials and hundreds of civilians.
The conflict quickly spread across the Middle East, with Iran lashing out at Gulf countries, launching drone and missile attacks on US assets as well as energy and civilian targets.
Tehran has also been targeting Israel with barrages of missiles.
Iran-allied groups in Iraq also joined the war, alleging drone strikes against U.S.-affiliated targets. Hezbollah in Lebanon also entered the fray amid reports that Israel was planning an invasion of the country’s south.
Weeks or “much more”
Despite Hegseth’s insistence that the war is not open-ended, the Trump administration’s timetable for the conflict has been elastic.
Trump has said the United States is ahead of schedule in completing its mission as the conflict expands. At the same time, he said the war could last four to five weeks and “much longer.”
The US president’s allies have also hailed the war as a success and predict that the Iranian system will soon collapse.
“We are not there yet, but, in my opinion, it is not a question of if this terrorist regime falls in Iran; it is just a question of when,” Republican Senator Lindsey Graham wrote in X after a call with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Graham said the “door to peace that would open” after the Iranian regime falls and ties between Israel and Arab states would take the region to a “new level of prosperity and security.”
However, Duss said it is difficult to assess the United States’ progress in the war because Trump “has not yet made it clear what the goals really are.”
“You can’t really judge whether we’re ahead or behind on those goals. That’s the problem here,” he said.
“They didn’t bother to explain why this war was necessary. They certainly didn’t bother to explain what they hope to achieve and how and when. So all we have is this slaughter.”
With the war still in its first week, it is starting to look like a longer conflict than the decisive attacks that Trump prides himself on, such as the kidnapping of Venezuelan Nicolás Maduro in January and the attacks on Iran’s nuclear facilities in June.
“I think the problem here is that he seems to have fallen in love with air power and what he thinks it can accomplish,” Grieco said of Trump.
