Trump's Iran Bomb Threats: A History of Backfire
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- The U.S. and Israel launched their war with Iran by striking leadership, nuclear facilities, command centers, air defenses and missile launch sites, but have since expanded targets to bridges, railroads, port facilities and energy infrastructure.
- Robert Pape and other air-power experts cited in the piece conclude that bombing alone rarely compels capitulation, noting attacks causing widespread civilian suffering typically strengthen national resolve.
- Britain's Blitz, North Vietnam's Operation Rolling Thunder, and Ukraine's response to Russian electrical-grid strikes are cited as historical cases where civilian-infrastructure bombing hardened rather than broke resistance.
- The 1991 Gulf War coalition attacked Iraq's electrical grid, bridges, transportation networks and oil facilities, devastating food systems, hospitals and water treatment at enormous long-term civilian cost — yet still required a ground invasion to force Iraq out of Kuwait.
- NATO's 1999 Kosovo campaign expanded its target list from military assets to government ministries, the electrical grid, refineries and TV broadcast facilities, blacking out entire cities and drawing war-crimes accusations from Yugoslavia and human-rights groups.
- The authors warn U.S. policymakers that the apparent goal — degrading Iran's ability to threaten Strait of Hormuz shipping and pressuring settlement demands — risks deepening the conflict and dragging down the global economy instead.
Why it matters: The argument cuts against the Trump administration's stated logic for widening strikes: that degrading Iranian infrastructure will pressure Tehran to meet U.S. demands. Two of the article's three modern case studies — Kosovo 1999 and North Vietnam's Rolling Thunder — saw civilian bombing fail to force capitulation even when it succeeded militarily, while the third (Iraq 1991) only worked after a ground invasion followed.
