Iran Bombing: Another Libya in the Making?

A country of 92 million people just lost its supreme leader to foreign missiles. On February 28, 2026, as US and Israeli strikes began pounding Iran, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei died in the bombardment. President Donald Trump immediately declared the objective: "destroy Iran's military capabilities and give rise to a change in government."

In the first days alone, Israel dropped over 2,000 bombs on Iranian targets—half the tonnage of their 12-day conflict in June 2025. Heavy US bombing targeted Revolutionary Guard forces and missile defense sites. The destruction is undeniable.

But here's what decades of military history teach us: destruction is not the same as political success.

The Bombing Paradox

Since World War I, scholarship on air power has reached a consistent conclusion: bombing can degrade military capacity and destroy infrastructure, but it cannot produce governments more cooperative with the attacker.

Political outcomes require political processes—negotiation, institution-building, legitimate transitions of power. Bombs cannot create any of these. What they reliably create is destruction, and destruction generates its own dynamics: population rallying, power vacuums, radicalization, and cycles of retaliation.

The American record proves this point repeatedly. In 2003, the George W. Bush administration launched "Shock and Awe" in Iraq with explicit regime change goals. The military objective was achieved in weeks. The political objective was never achieved at all.

The US decision to disband the Iraqi army created a vacuum filled not by democratic reformers but by sectarian militias and eventually ISIS. The regime that emerged was not friendly to American interests—it was deeply influenced by Iran.

Libya's Cautionary Tale

2011's NATO air campaign in Libya followed the same pattern. What began as civilian protection quickly expanded into regime change. Dictator Moammar Gadhafi was overthrown and killed.

But there was no plan for political transition. Chaos and instability have endured since. Asked about his "worst mistake" as president, Barack Obama said: "Probably failing to plan for the day after... in intervening in Libya." Libya remains a failed state today.

The intervention also sent a chilling signal to countries pursuing nuclear weapons: Gadhafi had dismantled his nuclear program in 2003. Eight years later, NATO destroyed his regime.

Even Kosovo, often cited as air power's success story, undermines the case. 78 days of NATO bombing alone did not compel Slobodan Milosevic to withdraw. What changed the equation was the credible threat of ground invasion combined with Russia's withdrawal of diplomatic support.

The pattern is consistent: America repeatedly confuses its unmatched capacity to destroy from the air with the ability to dictate political outcomes.

Why This War?

The recent US attacks on Iran raise a fundamental question: Why is America fighting this war at all?

The administration has declared regime change as its objective, justifying the campaign on grounds of Iran's nuclear program and missile capabilities. But that nuclear program was being actively negotiated in Geneva just days before the strikes. Iran's foreign minister told NBC the two sides were close to a deal. Then the bombs fell.

Iran did not attack America. It currently lacks the capability to threaten the American homeland. What Iran challenges is Israel's regional military dominance—and it appears to be Israel's objective of neutralizing a rival that's driving this operation.

Israel targeted 30 senior Iranian leaders in the opening strikes. Israeli officials described it as a preemptive attack to "remove threats to the State of Israel." The strategic logic for these killings appears Israeli, while Americans absorb the costs.

US military bases in Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait, the UAE, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia have taken Iranian missile fire. American service members are in harm's way—three have already been killed—not because Iran attacked them, but because their president committed them to someone else's war without a clear endgame.

The Institutional Reality

Decapitation strikes assume that removing a leader removes the obstacle to political change. But Iran's political system is institutional—the Guardian Council, Assembly of Experts, and Revolutionary Guard have survived for four decades.

The system has succession mechanisms, but they were designed for orderly transitions, not active bombardment. The group most likely to fill the vacuum is the Revolutionary Guard, whose institutional interest lies in escalation, not accommodation.

There's a deeper irony here. The largest protests since 1979 swept Iran just weeks ago. A genuine domestic opposition was growing. The strikes have almost certainly destroyed that movement's prospects.

Decades of research on rally-around-the-flag effects confirm that external attacks fuse regime and nation, even when citizens despise their leaders. Iranians who were chanting "death to the dictator" are now watching foreign bombs fall on their cities during Ramadan, hearing reports of over 100 children killed in a strike on a girls' school in Minab.

Trump's call for Iranians to "seize control of your destiny" echoes a familiar pattern. In 1953, the CIA overthrew Iran's democratically elected prime minister in the name of freedom. That produced the Shah, whose brutal reign led to the 1979 Iranian Revolution, which produced the Islamic Republic now being bombed.

The Unanswered Question

What comes next? And what guarantee exists that whatever emerges will be friendlier to Israel or the United States?

There is no American theory of political endgame in Iran—only a theory of destruction. That theory has been tested in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, and Iran itself over the preceding eight months. It has failed every time, not because of poor execution, but because the premise is flawed.

Air power can raze a government's infrastructure. It cannot build the political order that must replace it. Iran, with its sophisticated military, near-nuclear capability, proxy networks spanning the region, and a regime now martyred by foreign attack, will likely not be the exception.