Ali Khamenei may be dead, but Donald Trump has unfinished business

“ONE CONFLICT stands out in stark contrast,” to most American wars, argued Pete Hegseth, America’s secretary of defence, speaking to a gathering of America’s top officers last year. He pointed to the Gulf war of 1991. “It was a limited mission with overwhelming force and a clear end state.” In their latest war on Iran, America and Israel have undoubtedly brought overwhelming force. Israeli jets alone dropped more than 1,200 munitions on 500 targets across Iran in a single day. Iran was “obliterated”, claimed President Donald Trump, implausibly. What is less clear is the end state.

America and Israel have already had one enormous success. It took America nine months to find and capture Saddam Hussein in 2003. Russia has failed to kill Volodymyr Zelensky, Ukraine’s president, despite several efforts. In contrast, it took America and Israel just one day to find and kill Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, on February 28th, whose death was confirmed by tearful anchors on state television early the following morning. But that is unlikely to bring the war to a swift close.

Binyamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, said his country would strike “thousands of targets” in the coming days. On March 1st Israel’s air force announced that it had launched broad strikes against “targets of the Iranian terror regime” in Tehran. Mr Netanyahu and Mr Trump promised to “fight on as long as necessary”. America’s Central Command (CENTCOM), which runs Pentagon operations in the Middle East, says that its instructions are to “dismantle the Iranian regime’s security apparatus”. The aim is evidently to create conditions in which a mass uprising could sweep away the regime. Mr Trump called on security forces to “merge” with protesters and Mr Netanyahu urged Iranians to “take to the streets”.

Israel has killed not only the supreme leader, but also a bevy of senior officials, including Iran’s defence minister, army chief, head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and defence council chief. But there is no clear sign that Iran’s security forces are melting away as a result of this rapid decapitation. Iran has continued to fire drones and ballistic missiles at Israel and Arab countries.

Overnight on February 28th and March 1st, it launched barrages at Israel, as well as Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and, for the first time, Oman, the country which had mediated between America and Iran in the days prior to the war. On social media Ali Larijani, the head of Iran’s supreme national security council, promised that Iran would hit America and Israel “WITH A FORCE THAT THEY HAVE NEVER EXPERIENCED BEFORE”.

In total, these barrages are substantial. Iran fired around 100 missiles at Israel on the first day of this conflict, similar to the number it let off in the same period during last year’s 12-day war. This time it also fired 137 missiles at the United Arab Emirates, along with 66 at Qatar and 45 towards Bahrain, according to figures reported by those countries. Iran’s strikes on major airports and cities—missiles hit luxury hotels in Dubai and Bahrain—have a disproportionate political impact on small countries that rely on international tourism and business. On March 1st John Healey, Britain’s defence minister, said Iran had also fired missiles towards Cyprus, though not, he said, at the British base on the island. That suggests Iran might also be aiming at American warships in the Mediterranean.

Whereas Iran launched missiles in “distinguishable waves” last year, says Decker Eveleth of CNA, an American think-tank, “this is complete chaos. Many missiles across many fronts, potentially with units acting without centralised authority.” Last year Iran fired larger individual salvoes at Israel, making it more challenging for Israel’s air defences to intercept them. This time, it is firing smaller packets of missiles every half hour or so, something it did only in the latter stages of the last conflict. The official Iranian explanation is that it wants to deplete Israel’s supply of interceptors before launching more powerful missiles.

Such a cadence eases the military challenge of interception. Video footage showed Arrow interceptors destroying incoming projectiles high above the country. But the drip-drip of attacks has a larger psychological impact on Israelis, who have to spend more time in shelters. It is unclear how long Israeli interceptor stocks will last—they came under serious pressure last year—but a war that continued for more than two weeks would test both Iranian and Israeli reserves.

In the coming days, America and Israel are likely to focus on three types of target. First, Iran’s missile launchers, which Iran tends to operate from concealed positions. That will occupy a significant proportion of American and Israeli surveillance and strike resources as Iran keeps up its reprisals. It is harder to hunt Iranian launchers in the east and north-east of the country, which are farther from Israeli planes coming from the west and American ones approaching from the Gulf of Oman.

Second, Iran’s most important surviving political leaders. Israel is thought to have taken aim at Mr Khamenei’s sons, who were potential successors; it is unclear whether they were killed. If the goal is to destabilise the regime, America and Israel will want to disrupt the succession process under way, perhaps by hitting those in the line of succession. Mr Larijani appears to be playing a leading role.

General Mohammad Pakpour, the IRGC commander killed on February 28th, and General Hossein Salami, his predecessor, killed last June, were “schoolteachers” compared with the newly appointed General Ahmad Vahidi, notes Mohammad Ali Shabani, an analyst. General Vahidi is subject to an Interpol notice over his alleged role in the bombing of a Jewish cultural centre in Argentina in 1994. He has served as defence minister; interior minister, in which capacity he oversaw the suppression of large protests in 2022; and commander of the IRGC’s expeditionary Quds Force. In that role, he built Hizbullah into a force that chased Israel from south Lebanon. If the war ends with General Vahidi and his ilk in charge, it would hardly meet Mr Trump’s promise of a “prosperous and glorious future” for Iranians.

The third set of targets is Iran’s security apparatus itself. On the first day of war, Israel appears to have attacked sites associated with Iran’s brutal crackdown on protesters earlier this year: the IRGC and basij, a paramilitary militia; the justice ministry, which sentenced and executed political prisoners; and the country’s intelligence service. But Iranian security forces would have to be weakened much further to render them incapable of suppressing another round of mass protests. One indication of this would be strikes against security forces in provinces across the country.

Should the regime begin to fall apart, America and Israel would face the difficult question of how to deal with Iran’s nuclear facilities and materials. “Iran’s nuclear material and technology could be stolen by non-state actors—or simply go missing,” warned the Nuclear Threat Initiative, an advocacy group. “It is imperative that the United States has a comprehensive, actionable plan to prevent this scenario.” If a new regime is pliant, it could allow international inspectors back in. If it is unable or unwilling to do so, America might contemplate options such as sending special-forces teams to secure or seize nuclear material.

More violent days lie ahead. “The heavy and pinpoint bombing, however, will continue, uninterrupted throughout the week or, as long as necessary to achieve our objective of PEACE THROUGHOUT THE MIDDLE EAST AND, INDEED, THE WORLD!” declared Mr Trump late on February 28th. “Thank you for your attention to this matter.” ■