Early battlefield successes in the U.S. military campaign against Iran have been substantial, but the operation still has important objectives left to achieve, according to Hoover Institution senior fellow Peter Berkowitz.
Berkowitz, a former director of policy planning at the U.S. State Department, said the first phase of the conflict has produced remarkable results but cautioned against declaring victory too soon.
“The accomplishments in the first week and a half of the operation have been amazing,” Berkowitz said. “But many accomplishments remain to be achieved.”
The United States and its allies launched strikes targeting Iranian military assets, infrastructure, and leadership following escalating tensions in the region. In briefings this week, U.S. officials said the campaign has sharply reduced Iran’s ability to launch missile and drone attacks.
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Kaine said ballistic missile attacks from Iran have declined by roughly 90 percent since the start of the operation, while one-way attack drone launches have fallen by more than 80 percent.
American and allied forces have also struck Iran’s naval capabilities and military industrial infrastructure. According to military officials, more than 50 Iranian naval vessels have been damaged or destroyed during the opening phase of the conflict.
Despite those gains, Berkowitz said key targets remain.
“Israelis are still going into shelters several times a day because of ballistic missiles launched from Iran,” he said. “All the missile launchers, all the missile production sites, all the infrastructure has not yet been destroyed.”
President Donald Trump has outlined several military objectives for the campaign, including dismantling Iran’s nuclear weapons infrastructure, destroying ballistic missile capabilities, and crippling the country’s ability to manufacture drones and other weapons systems.
Berkowitz said the campaign remains focused on degrading Iran’s military capacity rather than attempting regime change through a ground invasion.
While both the United States and Israel have expressed hope that pressure from the conflict could eventually create conditions for political change inside Iran, Berkowitz said removing the regime directly would require a far larger military commitment.
“Regime change is not the military objective,” he said. “That would require introducing large numbers of troops to occupy territory and install new leadership.”
Some analysts have raised the possibility that special operations forces could be used for limited missions, particularly if key nuclear facilities prove difficult to destroy from the air.
Berkowitz said such operations would be fundamentally different from a large-scale ground war.
“Special operations forces are not an invasion,” he said. “You insert highly trained troops to perform a specific mission and then they leave.”
Even if Iran’s nuclear program were severely damaged, Berkowitz noted that permanently eliminating the country’s nuclear ambitions would be nearly impossible.
“You could destroy the entire infrastructure, but you cannot destroy the knowledge that exists across Iranian society about how to rebuild a program,” he said.
The realistic goal, he said, is to set the program back years and make it more difficult for Iran to rapidly restart its nuclear development.
That outcome, he argued, would still represent a major strategic victory if Iran also loses its missile production capacity, military bases, and other elements of its regional power projection.
“A regime that remains in place but without its navy, without its missile factories, without its nuclear infrastructure, and without its military bases would be dramatically weaker,” Berkowitz said.
The conflict has also raised concerns about the security of global shipping lanes, particularly the Strait of Hormuz, through which a significant share of the world’s oil supply passes.
Iran has historically threatened to disrupt shipping in the region by deploying naval mines and attacking commercial vessels.
Berkowitz said those risks were likely considered in advance by U.S. planners and noted that global energy markets are less vulnerable today than they were during previous Middle East crises.
The United States has become a major oil and natural gas producer in recent years, and additional pipelines in the Gulf region allow some energy exports to bypass the Strait of Hormuz entirely.
“So far the United States and the world have avoided an oil crisis,” Berkowitz said.
He added that Iran’s limited attempts to interfere with shipping have been surprising given the extent of damage the country has suffered during the campaign.
Beyond the battlefield, Berkowitz said the conflict may also have strengthened relationships between the United States, Israel, and several Arab states that view Iran as a major regional threat.
Iran’s decision to strike targets in Gulf countries may have reinforced those alliances rather than weakening them.
“Iran made a significant blunder by attacking countries like Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and the Emirates,” Berkowitz said. “Those states already saw Iran as a threat, and those attacks removed any lingering doubt.”
While critics warn that military action could inspire retaliatory terrorism, Berkowitz said historical evidence does not strongly support the idea that strikes against hostile regimes inevitably produce waves of new attacks.
“You cannot allow your national security to be held hostage to the threat of terrorism,” he said.
He also emphasized that the campaign has primarily targeted military infrastructure rather than civilian populations.
“The effort is aimed at destroying physical assets—boats, missiles, bases, and nuclear facilities,” Berkowitz said. “Those are things that can be successfully eliminated through air power.”
For now, Berkowitz said the central question is whether the coalition can finish dismantling the remaining elements of Iran’s military infrastructure before ending the campaign.
If those goals are achieved, he said, the operation could significantly reduce Iran’s ability to threaten American forces and regional partners for years to come.