News Analysis: Toppling Iraq’s Hussein unleashed chaos. Why Iran war poses similar risks

Shock and awe campaign that unleashed a tsunami bomb. An enemy who quickly succumbed to overwhelming firepower. And a victorious US president trumpeting a quick and easy campaign.

In 2003, President George W. Bush walked confidently across the deck of an aircraft carrier, less than five weeks after ordering the invasion of Iraq and declaring “the end of major combat operations” under a banner reading “Mission Accomplished.”

But this proved everything.

The occupation became a meat grinder that left thousands of Americans and possibly more than a million Iraqis dead. It unleashed forces whose effects are felt throughout the region and beyond to this day.

More than two decades later, another US president attacked another Persian Gulf country and promised quick success in another Middle East adventure that he said would reshape the region.

President Trump and his team have vehemently rejected any comparison between “Operation Epic Rage” and “Operation Iraqi Freedom,” which launched on Saturday. On Monday, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth held a combative press conference to emphasize: “This is not Iraq. This is not forever.”

But the attack on Iran — almost four times larger than Iraq and more than twice its population — is not without its challenges that could extend chaos far beyond Iran’s borders and become a defining feature of Trump’s presidency.

Analysts say overthrowing Iran’s leadership represents, in many ways, a far more complex task than Iraq has ever undertaken. Iraq was a state with deep sectarian divisions, largely dominated by a single dictator, Saddam Hussein.

Iran, which emerged after the 1978-79 Islamic Revolution, had a religious leader, but Iran also developed an elaborate system of governance. This includes a president, a parliament and various government, military and religious hierarchies, said Paul Salem, senior fellow at the Middle East Institute.

“Unlike Saddam’s Iraq, the Iranian state is multi-institutional and therefore much more resilient and, yes, not that vulnerable,” Salem said. “And hostility towards the United States and Israel is at the heart of the Islamic Revolution and is ingrained in the state.”

Here are some of the ways Iran attacks could translate into the scenarios Trump once mocked during his days as the anti-war candidate.

boots on the ground

For now, the US and Israel are using air power to capture Tehran. According to the Israeli army, in the first minutes of the joint operation, a fleet of 200 aircraft, Israel’s largest fleet, hit more than 500 targets in Iran. One such attack killed Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Iran still responds by launching missiles at Israel, the Persian Gulf countries, Jordan and other areas in the region where US bases are located. The United States has the qualitative and quantitative material advantage to eventually prevail, but Iran’s capabilities will not make it easy, as the losses in troops and aircraft over the past two days show.

And wars have never been won by air power alone. Instead of relying on boots on the ground, Trump expects ordinary Iranians to finish the job for him.

“When we’re done, take over your government. It will be yours,” he said in a video speech on the first day of the campaign.

During the 2011 Arab Spring, protesters across the Middle East took to the streets to demand change. But these efforts mostly did not lead to significant reforms and led to further repression in some countries.

It is true that many people in Iran would welcome the collapse of the Islamic Republic; just as many Iraqis rejoiced at the fall of Hussein. But the mostly unarmed protesters are unlikely to triumph in a clash against enforcers of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps or its volunteer wing, the Basij.

It is also difficult to gauge how many of Iran’s 93 million people hate the government enough to rebel against it.

Trump, meanwhile, has left the door open for sending U.S. troops, but the mathematics of such a deployment raises doubts.

According to the US Army, counter-guerrilla doctrine It dictates 20 to 25 soldiers for every 1000 population to ensure stability. In the case of Iran, this would require the deployment of 1.9 million people—almost all of the U.S. military’s active-duty, reserve, and National Guard personnel.

New leadership uncertain

At this point, it’s unclear whether beheading much of Iran’s leadership class would lead to any real change in government, let alone a successor that would bow to U.S. wishes. The upper echelons of the Islamic Republic boast a deep cadre of mostly hard-liners; This is perhaps not surprising for a country that has been preparing for an attack for years, if not decades.

The new leadership that emerges may center around Khamenei’s “martyrdom.” While not very popular in life, it seems to have become a cry of defiance in death. Martyrs are also glorified in Shiite Islam, the widespread belief in Iran.

“He was the religious leader of the Shiites, so it’s kind of like killing the pope,” Salem said. “And it’s more popular to die a martyr than, say, a heart attack. … There’s no doubt he set out in style.”

When the US invaded Iraq, the expectation was that what would come next would be a fierce US ally; This idea was perhaps best captured in the idea that grateful Iraqi people in Washington would shower U.S. soldiers with flowers. This did not happen. And in the Darwin-esque leadership selection process that followed, the victors had little love for the United States.

One of them was Nouri al-Maliki, a Shiite supremacist whose policies have been accused of fueling years of sectarian bloodshed and whose loyalties appear closer to Tehran than to Washington.

Meanwhile, Tehran has managed to draw predominantly Shiite Iraq deeper into its orbit by taking advantage of its proximity and deep ties to Iraq’s new ruling class.

After the Iraqi government, with the help of the US-led coalition, expelled the Islamic State from Iraq in 2017, Iran managed to insert allied militias into Iraq’s armed forces. This created a paradoxical situation in which fighters loyal to Tehran used material supplied by the United States.

Iraq has not yet emerged from Iran’s shadow. Following the recent elections in Iraq, Maliki appeared poised to become prime minister once again, prompting Trump to write on Truth Social: “Because of his crazy policies and ideologies, the United States will no longer help Iraq if elected.”

A fragmented opposition

Iran’s population is diverse; An estimated two-thirds of Iranians are Persian; Minorities include Kurds, Baloch, Arabs and Azeris.

These minorities have long-standing grievances against the ruling majority. It’s possible that Trump’s campaign and the resulting turmoil could fuel separatist tensions.

Just last month, Iranian Kurdish groups came together in a coalition that they say aims to overthrow the Islamic Republic “to achieve the right of self-determination of the Kurdish people and to establish a national and democratic entity in Iranian Kurdistan based on the political will of the Kurdish nation.”

An experienced rebellion

Over the decades, the Islamic Republic built a network that, at its peak, stretched from Pakistan to Lebanon.

It was a fearsome constellation of paramilitary groups and docile governments known as the Axis of Resistance. They included Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in the Palestinian territories, the Houthis in Yemen, and militias in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan.

Following Hamas’ attacks on October 7, 2023, Israel and eventually the United States launched offensive campaigns to neutralize the groups.

Although weakened, the groups still survive and can form a powerful, transnational and motivated insurgency when the time comes to combat whatever will arise if the Islamic Republic falls.

Bulos reported from Khartoum, Sudan, and McDonnell from Mexico City.