Tehran, David Hume and The Who

March 29th, 2026

The war continues and anyone who thinks it should be over by now hasn’t been keeping up on their studies. 

If there’s any complaint it would be with anyone who wrote in the net assessment that air strikes might break a bunch of gear in the first 4 to 6 weeks and then the government would collapse and the populace would rise up and overthrow the regime.

Politicians believe that sort of thing, politicians are creatures of hope; but since Ramses went after the Hittites, wars haven’t gone quite the way the planners suggest,

That said, this war absolutely needed to be conducted, though arguably 20 years ago. Iran must never be allowed to have a nuclear weapon and should never have been allowed to develop ballistic missiles. 

And, despite hyperventilating in the press, the war has been proceeding well, with US and Israeli forces having struck, reportedly 10,000 aim points. Keep going.

And, the number of casualties is astoundingly low. One human rights organization claims that some 5,900 total people have been killed, to include some 600 civilians (as of a few days ago). John Donne would insist that every soul counts, and they do. But the civilian casualties, sad as they might be, are still incredibly light. One civilian killed for every 10 aim points is a testimony to careful targeting and accurate weapon delivery.

There’ve been losses on the US-Israel-Arab side, as to be expected. These too have been remarkably light, thankfully. But we need to continually remind ourselves of the reason for all this, and necessity to continue (and what the world would be like if otherwise): the need to prevent Iran from having nuclear weapons or ballistic missiles, 

It’s also worth noting that the so very “obsolete” and terribly “easy to hit” aircraft carriers remain untouched by enemy fire while, remarkably, the stationary airfields have not dodged any missiles and have taken several hits, some quite expensive. Even with, reportedly, Russian and Chinese intelligence assistance, the carriers remain untouched; in fact all USN ships remain untouched. Could it be that mobil targets are harder to hit than stationary ones? Who’d a thunk?

But the fat lady still hasn't sung. Why not? Because getting a government to roll over is tough (and mobile targets are hard to find). The “drop bombs on the following facilities and the Iranian people will rise up and overthrow the government” idea borders on wishful thinking. It arguably falls into the category of “hope” - again the terrain of politicians. But, hope is not a plan. 

And even if a government collapses, do we have enough control to ensure the folks we want grab power? In such a scenario all you can do is guarantee what you’ll do, not what anyone else will do, certainly not what the population of country “X” will do.

David Hume, the Scottish philosopher, noted that people are loyal to a government as long as it functions and provides minimum services. But for any individual, or society as a whole, that’s an unknown; what will anyone consider to be the minimums? To stand on the outside and look in and forecast when a majority of the people of a given country will decide the government is no longer providing the minimums and therefore rise up against it, that is a nearly impossible task, and the intelligence communities around the world, for decades, have found it nearly impossible to accurately forecast that point in time and space. 

Further, even if the people rise up against the sitting government, with what will they replace it?

During 38 years of the Shah’s rule, despite later claims of tens of thousands killed, the Shah’s forces killed perhaps 3,000 in various riots. Not a wonderful statistic, but it’s of note that at the same time the Shah’s regime engaged in a great deal of modernization. Then they were forced out and in the 47 years of the rule of the two Ayatollahs the Iranian Islamic government was an order of magnitude more violent than the Shah - at least. In riots in 1988 Khomeini’s regime reportedly killed more rioters than all the violent deaths under the Shah. Last year’s riots alone resulted in more than 10,000 deaths, some estimates place the count as high as 60,000. 

As Peter Townsend observed: Meet the New Boss, same as the old boss.

And right now we have no idea who will rule Iran if the current government is replaced. We might get someone better, or we might get someone just as violent.

So, if we are to prevent the next regime from building a nuclear weapon, we need to eliminate that capability right now; we must not leave them any capability to rebuilt their forces, to close the Strait of Hormuz, or to restart their nuclear weapons program.

That is where we sit.

And no matter who’s in charge in Iran in 6 months, we need to make sure they have no “toys” nor the ability to make “toys.” Because we don’t know who will be in charge in 6 months, we need to sustain the ability to deny them any capability if they start to rebuild. Using the idiom of dealing with terrorist groups, we must be ready and able and willing to “mow the grass.” 

That is the only acceptable end state. So, we continue to strike targets until all their weapons are destroyed and all their production capabilities are destroyed. The Iranian people will have an opportunity, but it is their opportunity. They just need to understand that if they start “growing grass,” we will be back to “mow.”