President Donald Trump said operations in Iran could continue for four to five weeks.
Karl Kaltenthaler, a political science professor at the University of Akron, predicts that the conflict may not go on for long but also might not achieve all of its goals.
“This could be something where it escalates before it de-escalates,” said Kaltenthaler, who is also director of the Michael J. Morell Center for Intelligence and Security Studies. “In terms of bringing the Iranians to their knees, I’m skeptical of that.”
The United States and Israel launched attacks on Iran’s nuclear facilities, senior leaders and military sites Feb. 28, intending to eliminate any nuclear threat from the country.
Since the conflict began, Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has been killed, Trump has called for Iranians to overthrow the government and Iran has launched attacks across the Middle East.
Kaltenthaler has done consulting work for the U.S. and other governments on national security issues, mostly centered on the Middle East and counterterrorism.
He shared his insight into the Iranian conflict with the Beacon Journal and Signal Akron.
Can you explain what’s happening with the U.S., Israel and Iran?
First of all, the United States and Israel fundamentally do not trust the Iranian government to not build a nuclear weapon. … For Israel and the United States, … they think the Iranians having a nuclear weapon could potentially be used on Israel and could also potentially be used on the United States eventually, once Iran gets the technology to have intercontinental ballistic missiles. … The Iranians claim [their nuclear program] is for peaceful purposes.
The second issue is that Iran has a large and very capable supply of missiles, and these missiles can hit not only Israel. They can hit other allies that the United States has in the Middle East. … We’re seeing that now, where Iran is using those missiles to punish other countries that are viewed as being allies to the United States, even though those countries aren’t involved in the war right now.
The third thing is what we call Iran’s proxies. Iran has several groups in the Middle East that are allies of it. … These groups can be called upon to help Iran if Iran gets in a condition where it needs a group to attack, say, Israel or American targets, to try to protect Iran or its interests.
The United States and Israel have basically told the Iranians, ‘You’ve got to get rid of anything that could be used potentially for a nuclear weapons program, you have to dismantle your array of missiles that you have … and you have to stop supporting and financing these proxy groups that are there in the Middle East.’ The Iranians were willing to talk a bit about the nuclear program, but they said it was their right to be able to enrich uranium, so they weren’t willing to give up all the things that could be used potentially for their nuclear program.
It was really considered self-defense on the part of the United States and Israel for starting this conflict, but this is becoming a much wider war now, so it’s a complicated situation, and I’m not sure any of us really know where this ends.
Do you think the U.S. attacks will end up escalating or de-escalating tensions and violence in the region?
I think, in the short run, we’re seeing the answer to your question in real time, and that is that it’s escalating tensions. It was never possible to completely take out the leadership of the Islamic regime in Iran and bring about the collapse of the government. … The regime in Iran was created in a way that it is very, very resilient to outside attack. … Iran will keep on fighting, and Iran will probably, along with its proxies, escalate this.
The reason why they want to escalate this is they want to cause pain to the United States and to America’s allies, such that the United States says, “OK, maybe we’ll declare victory and stop the campaign.” There’s very little public support in this country for this — only 25% of the American public supports this attack. The Iranians are aware of that. They know that the United States may not have the stomach for a long conflict.
It may, in the short run, lead to more attacks on Iran, and … not just the tempo of the attacks, but the severity of the attacks will increase.
What do you think is the possible impact of these attacks on U.S. and Middle East relations?
I think the U.S. relationship with Israel is very strong right now because of the Trump administration’s views on Israel. I think the Israelis really trust the Trump administration, but I think there we’re also seeing a bit of a divide within the United States about how people think about Israel. I think many people do view this as a war of necessity, but others view it as a war of choice, and that this is a war of choice that’s more about protecting Israel than it is about protecting American interests. That may increase the divide between Americans and Israelis, which really started with the Israeli operations in Gaza [in 2023].
In terms of American relations with the Arab countries, I don’t think this will fundamentally change the relationship between the United States and its Arab allies. The United States and the Arab countries that are allies all view Iran as a threat. I don’t think that’s going to change because of this.
What may happen as a consequence of this — and this is really a very serious scenario to think about — is that, if the Iranian regime survives this, it has a big incentive to develop a nuclear weapon as quickly as possible because a nuclear weapon is its way to protect itself. It’s the way to protect the regime to keep it surviving. If that happens … then expect to see Arab countries in the Middle East also developing nuclear weapons. That’s a scenario that could potentially create some real issues in the Middle East.
Is the United States at heightened risk for terrorist attacks, either here or abroad?
Absolutely. I think there may be people in the United States who are not directed by Iran, have no relationship with Iran other than they feel like Iran is being unfairly targeted, who may decide to become a terrorist perpetrator themself and decide to engage in an attack. There’s discussion that the attack that was carried out this weekend in Austin, Texas, may have been by an individual who did so because he was very upset about the U.S. and Israeli attacks on Iran. There can be other attacks like that.
Those proxy groups that Iran has in the Middle East — they’re all designated terrorist groups by the United States. There’s a high probability that some of them will attack civilian targets. For example, with Hezbollah attacking Israel, they’re not aiming at military targets in Israel — they’re aiming at civilian targets. The point is to make the civilians feel unsafe in order to put pressure on their government to say, “Stop this war so we can feel safe again.”
Do you think this action will lead to any changes in freedoms for Iranian citizens?
It possibly could. The regime in Iran knows that it is very, very unpopular — there’s no question about that. This regime right now has basically stayed in power through terrorizing its population. The regime in Iran really has two choices: one choice is that they continue to govern through terrorizing the population, or the other way that they try to maintain their hold on power is that they lighten up a bit. They let people have freedoms, particularly women, and not be so religiously dogmatic about things as they have been.
I hate to say it, but I would predict it’s much more likely that the regime continues with its present repression, if not gets worse. They may very well view that if they allow people to come out on the streets and protest and say, “We want more freedoms,” and even if they give some of those freedoms to people, they may view it as a slippery slope to eventually the regime just falls. This may be a case where the government just decides, “We’re going to use violence, we’re going to use repression to stay in power.”
Do you think drivers will see an increase in gas prices as a result of the tensions?
Absolutely. As a driver myself, I wish it weren’t so, but the chances of gas prices increasing because of this conflict are pretty high. The longer it lasts, the higher the prices will go, and the Iranians well know this. They and their proxies will make every effort to disrupt oil flow going through the Middle East and out to the various countries that buy oil from the Middle East. They’re going to try to make this war painful for the American public, and one of the ways they can do that is through making oil more expensive, and they’ve got ways that they can do that through threatening the supply of oil.
How long do you think the campaign in Iran will go on, and what will end it?
I think some of the goals of this campaign are more realistic than others. I think that significantly degrading the Iranians’ capabilities to stockpile missiles, to have a nuclear enrichment program, that kind of thing, I think some of those things are achievable with this campaign. It wouldn’t necessarily take four to six weeks.
I don’t like to get into [the] prediction business too much, but I think this war will probably not last [that long] for a couple of reasons. One of the reasons is that the American public is going to probably not support this war’s [longevity] … because they’re not going to see that it’s bringing any real, perceivable change in the threat from Iran. Also, the Gulf Arab states didn’t want this war — they didn’t want to be in Iran’s sights, and now they’re getting missiles rained on them. They may very well put more pressure on the United States to stop this.
There are all kinds of costs to the United States for continuing the war … part of it’s political, part of it’s economic, part of it’s military. We don’t have the stockpile of munitions really in place to fight a war at this intensity for four or six weeks — that’s an unfortunate reality of this. I think this will probably be a shorter war where it’s likely that we get some of what we wanted to achieve, Israelis get some of what they wanted to achieve, but we don’t fully achieve our goals.”
Lauren Cohen is a community reporting intern for the Akron Beacon Journal and Signal Akron. The position is funded through a grant from the Knight Foundation.