Trump's war with Iran is hopeless.

Key Points:

• President Donald Trump’s air campaign against Iran, involving over 13,000 bomb and missile strikes, failed largely because no nation has historically won a war through air power alone without coordinated ground forces.
• Attempts to instigate internal rebellion within Iran, such as Israel's plan to support former President Ahmadinejad or Kurdish militias, were ineffective due to lack of local support and the swift consolidation of power by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
• Historical analyses, including Robert Pape’s 1996 study, demonstrate that strategic bombing alone rarely achieves decisive war objectives like punishment, leadership decapitation, or government surrender without complementary ground operations.
• The 1999 NATO airstrikes on Serbia, initially seen as an exception, actually relied heavily on cyber and information warfare, indicating that some form of "boots on the ground" or direct pressure is necessary alongside air power for success.
• Trump’s miscalculation about the ease of toppling Iran’s entrenched regime and the overreliance on air strikes reflect a broader misunderstanding of air power's limitations, contributing to what may be one of the most unpopular and strategically flawed U.S. wars.