It took only hours into military strikes on Iran for the United States to find itself in a familiar but unsettling position: the swift removal of a global foe, only to confront an aftermath that history suggests will prove difficult to navigate.
The killing of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei marked the latest decapitation or defeat of a bitter US adversary overseas, following the ouster of the Taliban in 2001, the overthrow of Saddam Hussein in Iraq two years later, the breaking of Moammar Gaddafi’s grip on power in Libya in 2011 and the capture of Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro just two months ago.
The United States has often followed such triumphant moments with attempts to fill the void – deploying thousands of troops, spending billions of dollars, seeking to nurture fledging democracies or, in the case of Venezuela, leaving the decapitated government in power. But those efforts have largely brought disappointment, yielding states that remain riven by conflict, have revolted against the US role or hardly rank as robust US allies.
President Donald Trump appears to be pursuing a starkly different approach with Iran, signalling that he has no intention to use American troops to steer the path of a country whose fate has been buffeted by US power since Iran’s last democratically elected government was ousted in 1953 in a CIA-backed coup.
Instead, Trump has sought to put the onus on Iran’s besieged and divided population, saying in a video address early Saturday: “When we are finished, take over your government. It will be yours to take. This will be probably your only chance for generations.”
Trump’s inclination to bomb first and then wash his hands of whatever comes next in Iran has alarmed US allies. Security officials in the Middle East and in Europe have raised concerns that the US is unleashing forces that could spill across borders, disrupt global trade and lead to asymmetric terrorist attack reprisals – all with no certainty that the remaining Islamic hardliners won’t ultimately retain their hold on power.
Some lawmakers, primarily Democrats, have expressed similar concerns. “It’s like we’re going to break all the china and you guys decide how to put it back together. It seems like that is the strategy,” Democrat senator Tim Kaine said on Sunday.
Senator Lindsey Graham, a longtime Trump supporter, professed that no US plan was needed. “It’s not my job, it’s not the President’s job” to select or even support a new government in Iran, Graham said on NBC News’s Meet the Press. In the “new Iran, whether it’s a cleric or a representative democracy, our goal is to make sure it does not become the largest state sponsor of terrorism. That’s a win for us.”
Before the Iran strikes began, the CIA examined multiple scenarios for a post-Khamenei government, according to people familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive intelligence assessments.
Agency analysts concluded that the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the elite armed force that answered directly to the ayatollah, would be best positioned to take power, but they stopped short of predicting that outcome. The Iranian opposition, which has no clear leader, was seen as less likely to assume control of the government, which has been ruled since 1979 by theocrats overseeing a nominal democracy.
Western security officials cited similar projections in interviews Sunday and warned that Iran – a nation the size of France, Germany, Italy and Britain combined – could face years of infighting among Shia Muslims, who represent the majority of its 90 million people, as well as Kurdish and Baluchi factions.
On Sunday, in phone calls with journalists at several news outlets, Trump seemed to revel in the incapacitation of the Iranian regime, saying that the strikes had wiped out potential successors to the Supreme Leader.
After assessing Trump’s comments and the impact of US-Israeli attacks, a German security official said the worry in Berlin and other European capitals is that “the plan is to have no plan”.
Detailed examinations of contingencies “obviously have not played out in the American mind,” the official said, leaving unclear what will happen “when the bombing ends if people really go to the streets,” as Trump has urged them.
Trump has expressed willingness to deal with an interim ruling council announced in Tehran after Khamenei’s death, as long as it has no intention of reconstituting the nuclear or ballistic missile programmes the US says it is eliminating.
“They want to talk, and I have agreed to talk, so I will be talking to them,” he told the Atlantic magazine on Sunday. Asked whether the US would support Iranians if they took to the streets to demand a completely new government, Trump said he would “have to look at the situation at the time it happens”.
A senior White House official, speaking on the condition of anonymity about the ongoing effort, noted that the President did not commit to immediate talks with the newly announced ruling council and said only that “eventually he will talk”.
“For now, Operation Epic Fury continues unabated,” the official said, using the Defence Department’s name for the military action.
Direct in-and-out US military interventions have had some success in quickly leading to lasting democratic rule, including in Grenada in 1983 and Panama in 1989. But these efforts, and more recent wars of regime change, included troops on the ground – something the Trump White House has pledged will not happen.
Trump’s perceived lack of post-conflict planning stands in contrast to major US military missions in recent decades that were often accompanied by detailed – if ultimately futile – blueprints for bringing democracy to states ruled by autocrats.
The most extreme example is Iraq, where the George W. Bush administration’s aspirations of erecting an American-friendly ally in the Middle East involved planning as extensive as for the invasion itself. Even before thousands of US troops massed around Iraq’s borders, an entire suite of Pentagon offices was dedicated to organising a new Iraqi government, with every expectation it would be warmly welcomed by the liberated population.
Hussein’s government in Baghdad was quickly toppled, and, within months, the dictator was captured and executed. In May 2023, Bush delivered a triumphant speech aboard a US aircraft carrier in front of a “Mission Accomplished” banner.
By then, insurgent groups had already begun mounting bloody attacks on US and allied forces, and an offshoot of the al-Qaeda terror network – which would eventually become the Islamic State – was gaining a dangerous foothold. The country soon plunged into a civil war that the United States often seemed powerless to quell during a near-decade-long occupation.
Trump, then a New York businessman, initially supported the Iraqi invasion but quickly turned against it.
The massive US investment of resources and attention in Iraq was also a factor in the failures to secure a democratic Afghanistan after the rapid ouster of the Taliban government, which had sheltered September 11 mastermind Osama bin Laden.
After an overwhelming display of US and proxy forces prompted Taliban leaders to flee, the United States spent the next two decades struggling to pacify the country. Eventually, US troops withdrew amid a chaotic collapse in 2021 as the Taliban swept back into power.
President Barack Obama, seeking to avoid the perceived mistakes of his predecessors, approved a limited allied air campaign with no ground forces in Libya in 2011 that toppled the regime of Gaddafi, who fled his compound and was captured and killed by a Libyan mob after being dragged from a culvert.
Fifteen years later, that country remains split in two pieces controlled by rival factions, though bloodshed has diminished since a 2020 ceasefire.
After campaigning as an opponent of costly US wars overseas, Trump has now presided over two military campaigns aimed at regime change in as many months – the overnight capture of Maduro in early January and the death of Khamenei and other Iranian leadership figures on Saturday in a campaign he now says will probably be finished within the month.
Trump’s efforts to avert any ongoing US presence in either country, let alone bear responsibility for rebuilding, appears to reflect a determination to avoid the enormous costs earlier conflicts inflicted on the US and the tarnished political legacies of his predecessors.
Sign up to Herald Premium Editor’s Picks, delivered straight to your inbox every Friday. Editor-in-Chief Murray Kirkness picks the week’s best features, interviews and investigations. Sign up for Herald Premium here.