‘No clear goal’: lack of Iran war plan has unleashed chaos and could stymie US military for decades, say critics

An woman looks at the ruins of a building destroyed by the US-Israeli military campaign in Tehran, Iran, on 12 March 2026. Photograph: NurPhoto/Getty Images

As US and Israeli jets descended to deliver the opening salvos of the war in Iran, Donald Trump’s back-of-the-envelope plan for regime change in Tehran was about to run into the reality of the largest US intervention in the Middle East since the start of the Iraq war in 2003.

That reality came quickly.