AMERICA AND IRAN PLAY CHICKEN June 20, 2025
When making decisions, government leaders must evaluate their nation’s pain threshold and their own political risks. Cue Donald Trump and Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Trump gave Khamenei 60 days to agree to processing uranium only for civilian use—and outside Iran. Khamenei refused. The deadline passed.
Given the stalemate and American inaction, Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu decided to strike Iranian nuclear and military sites, and kill senior personnel. Trump may not have encouraged the attack, but he didn’t try to thwart it.
Iran’s nuclear program has been set back but not eliminated. While Iran has been weakened militarily, its hunger for revenge has produced steady missile attacks on Israel. Damage has been done, lives lost.
If ending Iran’s ability to develop nuclear weapons is Trump’s priority, as it is Netanyahu’s, the job remains unfinished because the Fordo fuel enrichment plant, buried in a mountain, still stands. Only America has the weapons to (possibly) destroy it. If Fordo remains untouched, Israel and America will buy less time. If Fordo is destroyed, Iran likely will rush forward a restored nuclear program.
Absent on-the-ground reports from International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors, U.S. and Israeli intelligence will have a good idea of what’s going on. They can take new steps to sabotage Iran’s program. In the past, the Stuxnet virus disabled Iranian centrifuges. Nuclear scientists were killed. But Iran likely will continue enriching uranium and the ability to weaponize it. That could mean placing a crude bomb onto another nation’s airplane headed for Israel or a truck bound for an American regional military base.
Unfortunately, America and Iran have painted themselves into opposing corners. Trump called for Iran’s “unconditional surrender” and stated that he knows where Khamenei is but won’t seek his assassination—yet. Yesterday, Trump set another deadline: He’d decide about Fordo in two weeks. A bluff? Tehran refuses to buckle.
Don’t be surprised, according to former NATO commander Admiral (ret.) James Stavridis if, sooner than two weeks, U.S. B-2 Stealth bombers drop 30,000-pound Massive Ordnance Penetrators (“bunker buster” bombs) on Fordo.
Stavridis labels bombing Fordo a “feel-good” moment.
Fordo may set back Iran’s nuclear program by years, but Iran’s possible response now: missile attacks on U.S. installations and personnel in the Gulf, mining the Straits of Hormuz to block oil shipping, and terrorist activities reaching the United States, including cyber-attacks on infrastructure.
The U.S. will strike back. Hard. Iran will lose the war, but America will suffer losses.
Perhaps Fordo’s destruction will trigger regime change. American attacks joining Israel’s may so hurt Iranians that the people rise up to topple the ayatollahs. A new government might declare that it no longer desires to destroy Israel and agrees to unhindered IAEA inspections. We could see an era of actual peace in the Middle East.
But, be careful what you wish for. Toppling the ayatollahs may fracture Iran into fiefdoms. Highly armed warlords, including those representing minorities, could fight for control of the nation. A destabilized Iran might produce any number of terror attacks on countries in the region. U.S. assets also could be targeted.
America and Iran are locked into a “game” of chicken. As retired Army colonel and Medal of Honor winner Jack Jacobs remarked on MSNBC, we face “lots of imponderables.” The moment, indeed, is explosive.
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You rightly point out the uncertainties inherent in the idea of regime change. Our recent experience (i.e. Iraq) should argue for caution. Assuming that the ayatollahs are toppled, the structures that supported them will still be in place. What happens to the Revolutionary Guard? Do they simple disappear? Or do they do what the Baathists in Iraq did–take their arms and melt into the population, only to reemerge as a heavily armed insurgency? Or maybe they fracture into armed militias that spend the next decades fighting the government and each other. What almost certainly won’t happen is that Iran would suddenly become the Persian version of Denmark
In related news, last night I saw an interview of Reza Pahlavi, the self-styled crown prince of Iran. It would be very Trumpy to try to replace the ayatollahs with a shah, replicating the mistake we made in 1953, when we and the British engineered the overthrow of a democratically elected government and installed Pahlavi’s grandfather as Shah (a Farsi-fication of “Caesar”). Sadly, I doubt there’s anyone in Trump’s cabinet who knows enough history to counsel against that mistake.
One shah for Iran, David, and another already in the United States.
Doesn’t experience show that when a country is attacked, the people of the country rally round their leaders, even if they don’t particularly like them?
Isn’t that the most likely outcome of attacks by the US?
You’re totally correct. Regardless of the regime, being attacked by outside forces doesn’t encourage the people to rise up. The British didn’t fold under the Blitz, and then turned around and fire-bombed Dresden and other German cities, which didn’t cause the Germans to rise up against Hitler. We fire-bombed most Japanese cities, and they were preparing to fight to the death if we invaded.History isn’t a perfect teacher, but it’s a pretty good guide.
History and perspective, David, sadly are not one of the Trump administration’s strengths.
Experience shows that, Bill, but the Trump administration is noted for lack of experience—and a knowledge of history.
We could all be roasted
Not an encouraging thought, David. But roasted one way or another.
Has anyone noticed we have just drastically changed our regime in the US? The result has been fear and expulsion of immigrants, legal or not… Government control of academia and the arts… Economic disequilibrium: subset food access, medical care, public health, dismantling the Federal Employee system… Attacks and murder w/in our flailing 2 party system…. Overt exercise of military force on out own soil…. And the fall of our constitution. We have such hubris we do not recognize what is creeping towards the US, much less what horror is actually here. This is not watching how other countries have responded to regime changes, it is us trying not to see it in our own front yard. David S is right, we could all be roasted.
The regime change of 2025 has indeed, Jean, been disastrous for this nation.
I quickly read your subject line as America and Iran Play Children.
I think that could also be a title. Short term thinking, all about me egos, no real vision, under developed brans and judgement.
Nice one, Sandy! Wish I’d thought of that.