An air power expert explains why Iran is more powerful now than before the war
Regime change via air power has a very, very poor track record.
Mar. 21, 2026, 6:00 AM EDT
By
Zeeshan Aleem
President Donald Trump’s war with Iran is not going well. He began the conflict with a promise to use an air campaign to initiate regime change in as little as “two or three days.” But about three weeks in, Iran’s government, military and security forces remain highly functional. No popular uprising has emerged. And Iran’s government has seized control of the Strait of Hormuz, sending global oil prices surging and Trump into a panic.
Robert Pape, a political scientist at the University of Chicago, is one of the analysts who saw this situation coming a long way off. An expert on air power and regime change who has also taught at the U.S. Air Force’s School of Advanced Airpower Studies, Pape is exceptionally well suited to address the core dynamics underlying how the war on Iran is unfolding. His scholarship and his newsletter, “The Escalation Trap,” all point in one direction: Trump’s goal of toppling Iran’s regime from the air alone is doomed, because fighting a war only with air power is by its very nature ill suited to win hearts and minds.
I spoke with Pape on the phone this week, and he explained why this kind of intervention has such a poor track record, what isn’t working strategically, why Iran isn’t losing the war, and what this all means for the possibility of Trump sending in ground troops.
Our conversation, edited for length and clarity, follows.
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https://www.ms.now/opinion/trump-iran-hormuz-air-power-regime-change-winning-war
