All Trump has are bombs – an attack on Iran could be devastating
Published 2026-02-19 21.31A US attack on Iran is getting closer.
What Trump wants to achieve is clear. However, the risk is that he will wield US military power like an axe, believing it to be a scalpel.
The consequences could be catastrophic.
The US military buildup has been monitored for weeks.
An aircraft carrier group, with destroyers and submarines, is already in place off Oman. Another aircraft carrier is on its way. Fighter jets, aerial refueling planes and command planes have been forward-based. Large bombers based in the US have been put on high alert.
New air defense systems have been flown in and grouped at US bases in the Middle East to meet Iranian counterattacks.
An American attack could come as early as this weekend.
The US is demanding that Iran stop enriching uranium, limit the construction of ballistic missiles and stop supporting proxy fighters like Hezbollah.
Indirect negotiations are underway, and the military buildup can be seen as a way to increase pressure on Iran.
But Trump's gun-happy foreign policy over the past year suggests that military power will actually be used.
The question is what an attack can achieve. History gives little reason for optimism.
The Iranian regime has always stubbornly resisted dismantling its nuclear program under threat.
Take the situation in 2003.
Then the regime experienced its worst existential crisis ever.
In just a few weeks, the US had crushed Saddam Hussein's Iraq, the arch-enemy that Iran, despite hundreds of thousands of deaths, had been unable to defeat in the long major war of 1980–1988.
Now, suddenly, hundreds of thousands of victorious American soldiers with heavy equipment stood a few hours from Tehran in both the West and the East, in Iraq and Afghanistan – with a proven willingness and ability to replace unpopular governments through total conquest.
The point:
Even then, Iran did not consider agreeing to a complete dismantling of its nuclear program.
The situation is somewhat different now.
After the fall of Bashar al-Assad, Iran has lost influence in Syria. Its support force, Hezbollah, has been decimated. Israel and the US have been able to bomb Iran's air defenses and nuclear facilities without hindrance, and Iran's counterattacks have proven toothless.
Iran is vulnerable and exposed, with fewer cards in hand and fewer opportunities to fight back.
The regime has also started the year by brutally suppressing large uprising-like protests.
The situation is anything but stable. The grip on power is shaky.
It is possible that the regime's representatives are now so afraid for their own skins that the previously unthinkable has become conceivable, and that a negotiated solution is actually on the table.
But if they do not back down, Donald Trump faces a dilemma he is ill-equipped to handle.
The US hand is in reality not as strong as it looks.
The military superiority is admittedly immense. Trump can bomb anything, at any time.
But what will that achieve?
If you destroy the nuclear facilities, they can be rebuilt.
If you kill the leaders, maybe their successors will back down – but maybe not.
And what happens then?
The US is not interes a free, democracies Iran. The failed attempts to build democracies in Afghanistan and Iraq are still a red flag for the Maga movement.
The actions in Venezuela after the kidnapping of Nicolás Maduro show that subservience and lucrative deals for American companies take precedence over idealism.
Trump therefore has neither the will, instincts nor resources to take a holistic approach to the situation.
What he has are bombs.
Unfortunately, military power is not a precision instrument.
Rather than a scalpel that cuts away the rot of the mules, we can imagine an axe that splits Pandora's box in two.
If the regime's grip on power is finally shaken, the result will not necessarily be a peaceful transition to a more US-friendly rule.
Rather, there is a risk of implosion and chaos, with different factions resorting to large-scale violence to maintain or establish control.
The experience of Western-backed regime changes in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya is horrifying.
Such a collapse in Iran, one of the largest countries in the Middle East, would lead to an earthquake of instability that would shake the entire region from the Mediterranean to Pakistan – and have repercussions for the entire world.
This is what worried high-ranking people in Europe all last year.
Right now, they can only watch, like us, in fear and awe.
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