The Iran War and the Limits of American Power | Joshua Landis

What It Covers

Joshua Landis, director of the Center for Middle East Studies at the University of Oklahoma, analyzes the US-Israeli bombing campaign against Iran, examining unclear strategic objectives, regime change feasibility, civil war risks across a 92-million-person nation, Kurdish minority implications for Turkey, and emerging regional power realignments as Israel becomes the dominant Middle East hegemon.

Key Questions Answered

• •Regime durability gap: Iran's government is structurally unlike Iraq, Libya, or Syria — the IRGC numbers approximately one million members, is decentralized, and has distributed arms into private homes. Removing top leadership will not trigger collapse. Analysts who predict rapid regime change are applying an Arab-dictatorship model that does not transfer to Iran's institutionalized system.
• •Economic pressure timeline: Gas prices in Oklahoma rose 50 cents per gallon within days of the conflict escalating. With Lloyd's of London refusing to insure Strait of Hormuz tankers — through which 20% of global exported oil passes — inflation will accelerate rapidly, giving Trump a narrow window of weeks, not months, before domestic economic costs erode political support.
• •Civil war probability benchmark: Iraq had 24 million people in 2003; Syria had 22 million. Iran has 92 million, with only roughly 50% ethnic Persians. Minorities include 20 million Azeris, 9 million Kurds, and Baloch populations. Arming Kurdish factions, as CIA reporting suggests, mirrors the Iraq fragmentation playbook and risks producing refugee flows four times larger than Syria's.
• •Kurdish alliance unreliability: The US abandoned its Syrian Kurdish partners in early 2025, allowing Ahmed al-Shara's forces to absorb 25% of Syrian territory previously held by Kurdish groups. Any Iranian Kurds being recruited now operate with full knowledge of this betrayal. Landis argues they will rationally resist committing to American promises given this recent, direct precedent.
• •Regional realignment signal: Israel's military dominance — demonstrated by strikes on Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, and Iran — is pushing Saudi Arabia and Turkey into an informal alignment despite their decade-long rivalry over Sunni Islamic leadership. Investors and analysts should monitor Saudi-Turkey coordination as the emerging counterbalance to Israeli regional hegemony, with Syria serving as a shared client state between them.