Seven Things to Know About the U.S.-Israel Campaign in Iran
As Americans were waking up on the morning of February 28, 2026, the United States and Israel had already begun wide-spread, coordinated attacks against Iran which struck military, naval, and nuclear infrastructure. Many of the country’s senior leaders were killed, including Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, and Mohammad Pakpour, commander-in-chief of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).
As developments in the conflict unfold at a rapid pace, scholars from the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI) shared their analysis of the war through media interviews, essays, and event panels. Here are several of their key insights into what is happening, and what to expect as the war begins to reverberate around the world.
A Democratic Iran is Desirable, but Achieving That is Difficult
In President Trump’s initial remarks announcing the military action, he called on the Iranian public to “to seize this moment, to be brave, be bold, be heroic, and take back your country.”
FSI Senior Fellow Michael McFaul supports the impulse for a democratic Iran, both for the improvement it would bring to the civil rights and liberties of Iranians, and for the advancement of U.S. national interests.
“If Iran is a democracy, they’ll become one of our closest allies in the region. We won’t have to worry about nuclear weapons and support for terrorism. That long-term strategic objective should have always been our goal,” he told Katie Couric in an interview.
Getting there, however, is easier said than done. Writing on his Substack, McFaul emphasizes:
“The fall of tyrants must always be celebrated. But the end of dictatorships rarely leads smoothly to the emergence of democracies. They take a lot of work to achieve success, often with protected engagement from international mediators and supporters. U.S. military intervention is rarely an effective instrument for fostering democratic regime change.”
But there are avenues the U.S. could pursue if it is serious about supporting democracy in Iran, stresses McFaul. Sanctions, steering oil profits into escrow funds earmarked for use by a future democratic movement, and raising the profile of Iranian human rights leaders and other significant ex-pats could all go a long way in bolstering a democratic transition, he says.
“Unfortunately, I don’t see a lot of evidence that we’re focused on that right now,” says McFaul.
Expect Internal Instability in Iran
Just because Khamenei has been killed does not mean the regime is imminently about to crumble, cautions Francis Fukuyama, the Olivier Nomellini Senior Fellow at FSI.
“Unlike the snatching of Maduro or the attack on the Fordow enrichment facility, this is going to lead to a lot of internal instability. I think this is generally true if you take out the senior leadership,” Fukuyama explains to Yascha Mounk of Persuasion.
“You still have a very well-organized and very well-armed IRGC that has a real interest in the outcome of this because their lives are on the line,” Fukuyama continues. “I think that what you’re going to get is a lot of internal conflict. You could get into conflict within the regime. Different parts of the regime seek to assert dominance over the whole thing and then between the population and the regime. That is going to be extremely difficult to control.”
Iran’s Revolution and Economy Are Intertwined
Taking a broad view of Iran’s revolution, Abbas Milani, the Hamid and Christina Moghadam Director of Iranian Studies, says that understanding the country’s future requires understanding its past.
“The 1979 Iranian revolution was no revolution at all. It was a cunning bait-and-switch game cleverly played by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who put himself at the head of the movement,” Milani writes in the New York Times.
For decades, this regime, first led by Khomeini and until recently his successor, Khamenei, has successfully kept its population under repressive control through a combination of fear, violence, and brutality, says Milani. But that stronghold has shown cracks, and fear of the regime had begun waning prior to the U.S.-Israel attacks. Coupled with frustrations with a failing economy, skyrocketing inflation, and plummeting currency, Milani sees opportunity for real change within Iran.
“The economy is a clear source of constant threat to the regime, and the new secular women and men of Iran are unwilling to accept anything less than what they were initially promised before being deceived nearly half a century ago. The machinery of the regime may survive today. But the counterrevolution of yesteryear is begetting the revolution of tomorrow.”
America’s Firepower Is Superior, but Not Infinite
Speaking at a panel discussion hosted by the Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC), FSI Director Colin Kahl, a former under secretary of defense for policy at the U.S. Department of Defense, acknowledged the magnitude and deft execution of the unfolding military operation.
“The U.S. and Israeli militaries are doing things that no militaries in the history of the world have been capable of doing. From a kind of tactical and operational sense, it is extraordinarily impressive,” he said.
But Kahl also warns that an extended military campaign could spell trouble for the United States both in the current conflict and for future readiness.
“Iran has what is basically an inexhaustible supply of short-range, one-way attack drones that only cost about $35,000 apiece. We are shooting them down with $2 million missiles. That is an exchange rate Iran will take any day of the week.”
China and Russia are also watching this conflict and America’s artillery usage, says Kahl:
“We are expending a lot of long range precision munitions and a lot of air interceptors. And a lot of these weapons are exactly the systems you need for a contingency in North Korea, across the Taiwan Strait, or in the Baltics,” he says. “If you're in Moscow and Beijing, you’re counting those, and you know that for the next two or three years, the United States' cupboard is going to be bare and a more confrontational posture will not be viable.”
U.S.-Israel Interests are Aligned but Not Identical
Unlike in previous conflicts when the U.S. was joined in combat with NATO allies or other partners, the strikes on Iran were conducted in tandem with only one other nation, Israel.
Amichai Magen, the director of the Jan Koum Israel Studies Program, believes some of the impetus for the strikes is to send a message to anti-American and anti-Israel actors.
“If you can take out Maduro or undermine the regime in Iran, you are signaling to Russia and China that America is repositioning and re-establishing deterrence against its peer competitors,” Magen told NBC Bay Area.
Or Rabinowitz, a visiting scholar of Israel studies, also points to Iran’s insistence in recent negotiations on keeping its ability to produce advanced centrifuges as being particularly significant in the decision to execute military action.
But there is the possibility of divergence in the United States and Israel’s overarching goals as well, Rabinowitz says, especially when it comes to questions of nuclear capabilities.
“Take Qatar as an example,” she told the CISAC panel. “Qatar is an actor that the Trump administration is very at home with, even though they are an anti-Israel actor. Something similar could emerge in Iran that feels malleable enough for the U.S. to work with on the nuclear issue, but they don’t forgo their ideology, their anti-Israel rhetoric, or their support for destabilizing Israeli-Arab normalization. The U.S. may choose to live with that even if Israel isn’t happy about it. That’s where you’ll see divergence.”
China Is Likely to Sit This One Out
When it comes to Iran’s partnerships and allies, experts believe Tehran is unlikely to see much help from Moscow or Beijing. Writing for Foreign Affairs, Michael McFaul and Abbas Milani track how Russia’s focus on Ukraine has diverted its ability to engage with players in the Middle East, citing its meager response to the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria and limited engagement with Iran in the aftermath of the airstrikes in June 2025 targeting nuclear facilities.
Lisa Blaydes, an FSI senior fellow, thinks China—Iran’s major trading partner—will take a similar backseat approach to the current conflict.
“We think that China might have some leverage over Iran. But it's not clear how much will there is in China to get involved in this,” she explained at an event hosted by the The Program on Arab Reform and Development. “We know one of the only planes to land in Tehran recently was a Chinese plane that was bringing weapons to support the Iranian regime. Will this continue? Is it a one-off? Is it a pattern? I don't think we know yet.”
While a majority of Iran’s oil does end up in Chinese markets, China also has important economic and trade interests in the Gulf, says Blaydes, where all six Gulf Cooperation Council nations have been hit by retaliatory Iranian missile strikes.
“The Gulf is an important part of the Belt and Road Initiative. And there's a lot of money at stake. Disturbances in a place like the Strait of Hormuz would cause major disruptions to global supply chains. So I don't know if the Chinese want to weigh in strongly on either side.”
The Risk of Global Destabilization Is Real
The question on most people’s minds in regards to the war is, “What happens next?” Hesham Sallam, a senior research scholar at the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law, acknowledges the complexity and gravity of the situation.
“This is a very unpredictable situation. And it is concerning that multiple U.S. officials don’t seem to have a consistent answer about a situation that is so consequential and that puts so many people in harm's way,” says Sallam.
If not handled carefully, Sallam warns that the threat of escalation is very real. Faced with a potentially existential risk, leaders in what remains of the regime may seek broad global destabilization.
“There’s a logic here for the regime that if you don’t exact more costs and prolong the conflict and make this as inconvenient as possible for everyone, Iran will not be dealt with on equal footing,” he says. “So they may be looking to exact huge costs not just on the U.S. and Israel and countries in the region, but to disrupt global energy markets and the flow of trade as a means of ensuring something like this never happens again.”
For more commentary from our scholars and to stay informed about new analysis and upcoming events, subscribe to our newsletters.
Read More
Scholars from FSI offer insights into the war between Iran and U.S.-Israel forces, and the risk of the conflict expanding beyond the Middle East.
