1297: Iran | Out of the Loop

What It Covers

Jordan Harbinger and military analyst Ryan Macbeth trace Iran's trajectory from the 5,000-year-old Persian Empire through the 1953 CIA-backed coup, the 1979 revolution, and the IRGC's $5.7 billion proxy network spanning Hezbollah, Hamas, and the Houthis, up to the current U.S. missile campaign targeting Iranian nuclear facilities, air defenses, and command-and-control infrastructure.

Key Questions Answered

• •Iran's Proxy Warfare Model: Iran funds and directs proxy militias — Hezbollah, Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Iraqi Shia militias, and the Houthis — as a low-cost power projection strategy. Rather than building a navy, Iran spends comparatively little to arm groups willing to cause regional chaos. The Houthis, for example, received Iranian targeting coordinates and simply launched missiles on command, giving Tehran plausible deniability while disrupting global shipping lanes through the Strait of Hormuz at minimal direct cost.
• •IRGC Structure and Economic Control: The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps operates as both a 125,000-person religious military force with a $5.7 billion annual budget and a for-profit conglomerate owning construction, engineering, and electronics companies. IRGC-affiliated firms systematically underbid private competitors on government contracts, funneling revenue back into the corps. This dual role — armed enforcer and economic monopolist — makes the IRGC structurally embedded in Iran's economy in a way that mirrors Egypt's military-industrial complex.
• •JADO Doctrine — Any Sensor, Any Shooter: The U.S. military's Joint All-Domain Operations doctrine connects any sensor (satellite, AWACS, ground observer) to any decision-maker to any shooter (HIMARS, aircraft, naval vessel) in near real-time. A Filipino HIMARS unit can fire on a Chinese destroyer identified by an Australian special forces soldier relayed through an AWACS plane. This replaces the Gulf War's six-week air campaign followed by ground invasion with simultaneous, unpredictable multi-domain strikes from the opening hours of conflict.
• •Air Campaign Sequencing: U.S. strikes follow a deliberate five-phase sequence: first eliminate air defenses, then destroy command-and-control nodes, then blind radar and ISR sensors, then neutralize aircraft inside hardened shelters (not runways, which can be repaired in 12 hours), then target ballistic and cruise missile launchers. Destroying command-and-control early means missile crews lose contact with commanders and cannot receive targeting data, rendering remaining weapons largely inoperable even if physically intact — a lesson directly applicable to understanding why Iranian missile fire dropped roughly 90% during the campaign.
• •Nuclear Threshold Reality: Iran reportedly disclosed at negotiations that it possessed enough material for approximately 11 nuclear devices. A gun-type uranium bomb requires roughly 10 kilograms of 90%-enriched uranium-235 — the weight of a large bag of pet food. The design itself, a uranium plug fired into a uranium ring to achieve critical mass, was so well understood by 1945 that the U.S. never tested the Little Boy bomb before deploying it. The primary remaining barrier for Iran is delivery capability, not fissile material acquisition.
• •AI Disinformation Scalability: Fabricated war footage now costs approximately $12 in AI generation tokens plus a $36 platform membership to produce a convincing video. Channels run by criminal networks in Pakistan are publishing three AI-generated geopolitical videos daily. During the Gaza conflict, Hamas consistently produced usable content while Israel did not, causing creators to default to Hamas footage simply for supply reasons. Platforms that demonetize AI war content reduce the financial incentive, but the production cost barrier is now effectively zero for state or non-state actors.
• •Regime Collapse Scenarios: Unlike Iraq or Libya, Iran lacks deep tribal factionalism, making post-regime fragmentation less likely. The most probable transition path involves the Artesh (Iran's conventional 300,000-person army, budget $2.7 billion) turning against the IRGC once air strikes sufficiently degrade IRGC command structures. Any externally installed leader, including the Shah's son Reza Pahlavi, carries a legitimacy deficit because he has not shared the hardships of ordinary Iranians. A credible transition requires the Artesh to install a temporary authority and hold constitutional elections independently.