As military operations against Iran entered their fourth week, competing assessments of where the campaign stands continued to divide analysts on both sides of the Atlantic. Central Command Admiral Brad Cooper’s latest operational update described the destruction of ninety-two percent of Iran’s largest naval vessels, a more than ninety percent reduction in Iranian drone and missile launch rates, and damage or destruction to over two-thirds of Iran’s missile, drone, and naval production facilities.
Against that backdrop, former National Security Advisor John Bolton joined Dan Proft on Chicago’s Morning Answer to argue that the military gains, however impressive, will mean nothing in the long run if the Islamic Republic is left standing to rebuild.
Proft framed the discussion around a divergence in expert opinion that has emerged publicly. Former MI6 director Sir Alex Younger told The Economist that the United States underestimated the task, lost the initiative to Iran roughly two weeks into the campaign, and that Iran had played a weak hand surprisingly well by pursuing what Younger called horizontal escalation, firing indiscriminately at neighbors within range in a way that globalized the conflict and put indirect economic pressure on the United States through the energy markets. Bolton rejected the characterization that the United States has lost the military initiative, while acknowledging that some planning mistakes have been made and are being corrected. He said the more significant critique is not of the campaign’s execution but of its initial scope, specifically the failure to move rapidly at the outset against Iran’s mine-laying fleet, fast boats, anti-ship weapons, and other capabilities threatening tanker traffic through the Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz. Those threats were entirely foreseeable, he said, had been discussed during Trump’s first term, and should have been targeted from the opening of the campaign alongside the strikes on Iran’s ballistic missile capacity.
Bolton’s central argument throughout the conversation was that the only durable solution to the threat Iran poses is the removal of the regime itself, and that any outcome short of that will simply restart the clock on the same cycle. If the strait is reopened and oil revenues resume flowing to whatever government remains in Tehran, he said, that government will use those resources to rebuild its nuclear program, reconstitute its ballistic missile capabilities, reestablish its network of terrorist proxies, and eventually restore its ability to close the strait again. He pointed to the twelve-day Israeli campaign against Iran’s nuclear program last summer as evidence, noting that Iran had already begun rebuilding its nuclear infrastructure before the current conflict began. The regime’s ideology, he argued, is not a negotiating position. It is a foundational commitment that has driven Iranian policy since 1979 and will continue to do so as long as the people who hold it remain in power.
Proft raised the argument being made by figures including Senator Josh Hawley and David Sacks that reopening the strait and neutralizing Iran’s nuclear and proxy capabilities would represent a generational setback sufficient to justify declaring victory and withdrawing, even without regime change. Bolton dismissed that argument directly, saying the premise that Iran’s capacity for terrorism and nuclear development would be pushed out a generation is simply not true given the speed with which oil revenues could be redirected toward rebuilding those programs.
On the question of how regime change could actually be achieved without a large-scale ground invasion, Bolton outlined what he described as a more realistic path. He said the combination of continued military pressure destroying the instruments of Iranian state power and active material support for the domestic opposition, including resources, communications, and weapons, could produce the internal fragmentation necessary to bring the regime down without requiring American boots on the ground in significant numbers. He said the Kurdish population, which constitutes roughly ten percent of Iran and maintains organized connections to Kurdish networks in Iraq and Turkey, represents the most coherent starting point for that effort, and that the administration had contemplated arming them at the outset before deciding against it. He said he would proceed with that support.
Bolton expressed skepticism about the figure of Muhammad Baqer Qalibaf, the former Tehran mayor and IRGC commander who has been reported as a potential interlocutor representing a more pragmatic faction of the regime. He said there is no fundamental ideological difference between Qalibaf and the hardliners who have run Iran since the revolution, and that genuine change would more likely emerge from within the regular Iranian army, which while not natural allies of the United States represents a world of difference compared to the Revolutionary Guard and the clerical establishment. A military-led transition, he suggested, could at minimum create the space for Iranians themselves to determine what kind of government follows the Islamic Republic.
Bolton also addressed the Gulf Arab dimension of the conflict, noting that Saudi Arabia and the UAE understand clearly, even if they do not say so explicitly, that only regime change in Tehran can provide the security guarantees they need to move their oil into international commerce without ongoing disruption. The UAE’s minister of state, appearing on Fox News, described the country as standing with the United States against what she called a rogue actor threatening not just the region but the international community, and indicated the UAE is committed to doubling down on its partnership with Washington in regional security. Bolton said leaving a wounded Iranian regime in place would betray precisely those partners who have taken the political risk of aligning openly with the American and Israeli effort.