Fareed Zakaria on the Endgame in Iran

What It Covers

Fareed Zakaria analyzes the US-Israeli military campaign against Iran launched February 28, examining regime change prospects, regional destabilization risks, Iran's strategic miscalculations in attacking nine Gulf states, the absence of clear operational objectives, and long-term geopolitical consequences for Russia, China, and Middle East stability.

Key Questions Answered

• •Regime Change Difficulty: Aerial campaigns alone have never successfully toppled institutionalized regimes without ground forces. Iran's clerical-military structure mirrors the Soviet Communist Party-army relationship, making decapitation strikes insufficient. Without a domestic insurgency equivalent to Afghanistan's Northern Alliance or Libya's rebels, the US-Israel operation lacks the ground component historically required to convert air superiority into political collapse.
• •Iran's Strategic Miscalculation: By launching retaliatory strikes against nine Gulf Arab states using low-impact drone and missile attacks, Iran achieved the opposite of its intended regional destabilization. Gulf states that initially refused airspace and base access have reversed position entirely, now privately encouraging the US-Israel campaign and seeking participation — converting neutral parties into active adversaries through ineffective pinprick attacks.
• •Undefined Victory Conditions: The Trump administration's failure to establish measurable, classified-compatible objectives creates an unwinnable public narrative. Zakaria recommends specific degradation benchmarks — such as a 70% reduction in offensive missile capacity or destruction of named ballistic missile facilities — that allow credible victory declarations without requiring full regime collapse, enabling a defensible political off-ramp before the 2026 midterm cycle.
• •Russia vs. China Divergence: Russia benefits structurally from Middle East instability because oil price spikes fund its economy, while China requires stable global trade flows and discounted Iranian oil access. This fundamental divergence means a destabilized Iran damages Chinese economic interests while helping Russia. Policymakers should exploit this split to drive a strategic wedge between Beijing and Moscow rather than treating them as a unified adversarial bloc.
• •October 7 as Geopolitical Inflection Point: Hamas's October 7 attack eliminated itself as a fighting force, defanged Hezbollah, collapsed Assad's Syrian regime, and triggered Iran's current military degradation — all within roughly three years. The attack removed Israeli restraint while Gulf Arab states, already in tacit alignment with Israel against Iran, provided silent support, fundamentally restructuring Middle East power dynamics faster than any prior event this century.