The US appears poised to strike Iran within days.
While the potential targets are largely predictable, the outcome is not.
So, if no last-minute deal can be reached with Tehran and President Donald Trump decides to order US forces to attack, then what are the possible outcomes?
- US air and naval forces conduct limited, precision strikes targeting military bases of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) and the Basij unit – a paramilitary force under the control of the IRGC – ballistic missile launch and storage sites as well as Iran’s nuclear programme. An already weakened regime is toppled, transitioning eventually to a genuine democracy where Iran can rejoin the rest of the world. This is a highly optimistic scenario.
- Regime survives but moderates its policies. This would mean the Islamic Republic survived, which won’t satisfy large numbers of Iranians, but is forced to curtail its support for violent militias across the Middle East, cease or curtail its domestic nuclear and ballistic missile programmes as well as easing up on its suppression of protests.
- Regime collapses, replaced by military rule. While the regime is clearly unpopular with many, and each successive wave of protests over the years weakens it further, there remains a huge and pervasive security deep state with a vested interest in the status quo.
- Iran retaliates by attacking US forces and neighbours. It is clearly no match for the might of the US Navy and Air Force but it could still lash out with its arsenal of ballistic missiles and drones, many concealed in caves, underground or in remote mountainsides.
- Iran retaliates by laying mines in the Gulf. This has long loomed as a potential threat to global shipping and oil supplies ever since the Iran-Iraq war of 1980-88 when Iran did indeed mine the shipping lanes and Royal Navy minesweepers helped clear them.
- Regime collapses, replaced by chaos. This is a very real danger and is one of the major concerns of neighbours like Qatar and Saudi Arabia. As well as the possibility of a civil war, such as experienced by Syria, Yemen and Libya, there is also the risk that in the chaos and confusion, ethnic tensions could spill over into armed conflict as Kurds, Baluchis and other minorities look to safeguard their own people amid a nationwide power vacuum.
