MPCooper

I did not wake up this morning with any desire to talk about Iran, war, or the Middle East. There are far more pressing issues in American politics. But this is where we are.

America and Israel struck Iran last night, and now many people are asking the same question: what now?

What is going to happen?
Are we going to war?
What is the plan?
What exactly are we trying to accomplish with Iran?

President Donald Trump has said that it is time for the Iranian people to take back their government. And yes, the Iranian people have been protesting. Those protests have been brutal. Terrible things have happened, and there is no question that many people in Iran want change. Something clearly needs to change there.

But the question remains: what exactly is supposed to happen next?

The Problem With Unilateral Military Decisions

This is the danger when one person is able to make unilateral military decisions. There is no grand strategy guiding the action. Instead, there is a grandiose action driven by the belief that one person knows better than everyone else what to do.

Military action without strategy is not leadership. It is improvisation.

And improvisation is a dangerous way to conduct foreign policy.

If the Government Falls, Then What?

Even if the Iranian people succeed in overthrowing their government, what happens next?

Iran has effectively been a theocracy for more than 40 years under the Islamic Republic. It does not have the institutions necessary to immediately build a stable democracy. It does not have the political structures required to keep the peace during a transition. It does not have a ready-made replacement government waiting in the wings.

Without those things, what you get is chaos.

We have seen this story before.

It looks very similar to what happened in Afghanistan, where the United States attempted to build a new government structure from the outside. Nation-building sounds good in theory, but in practice it often means cobbling together institutions that cannot sustain themselves once the pressure begins.

And the pressure always comes.

Too many competing factions. Too many groups with competing visions for the country’s future. Too many people willing to push back against any new authority.

The Military Has Not Turned

Another important reality is that the Iranian government itself has not collapsed.

The military has not turned against the government. It continues to operate and continues to fire rockets at those it considers Iran’s enemies.

The protests are happening in the streets, among the people. And those protests matter. They are important. They show that there are many Iranians who want a different future.

But street protests alone do not create stable governments.

Regime Change Is Not a Strategy

There are many countries in the world where people live under oppressive regimes. Many of them could benefit from political change.

But regime change is not a strategy.

Without a long-term plan, military intervention often creates a vacuum. And political vacuums rarely produce stable democracies.

More often, they produce instability, factional conflict, or a new authoritarian regime.

The Questions No One Is Answering

The real questions are the ones that are not being answered.

What happens in a year?
What happens in five years?

Is the United States prepared to commit troops on the ground?

Because if the goal is to reshape Iran’s government, history tells us that airstrikes alone do not accomplish that.

The only way to truly control the outcome would be boots on the ground and a long-term occupation. That is essentially what the United States attempted in Afghanistan for more than a decade, and we all know how that ended.

Even Iraq, where the United States helped install a new government after the fall of Saddam Hussein, remains a fragile and deeply unstable democracy.

Why Congress Is Supposed to Decide War

This is precisely why the Constitution gives Congress the authority to debate and declare war.

War is supposed to be difficult to start.

It is supposed to involve debate, planning, and a clearly defined objective.

You cannot simply attack another country and hope things will work out.

As historian Sarah Paine lamented, “Hope is not a strategy.”

And when military action is taken without a long-term plan, history shows that the result is often something worse than what existed before.

That is the trajectory the United States appears to be on right now.