Dr David Bennett argues that the Trump administration should consider the option of despatching American troops to Iran to facilitate regime change. In this article Dr Bennett advocates that Anerican troops be deployed according to the precepts of the late British general, Orde Wingate.
The current military action undertaken by the United States and Israel against Iran is necessary because Tehran was on the brink of developing nuclear weapons. This was inspite of the fact that the United States had bombed three Iranian nuclear enrichment plants in June 2025 as part of 'Operation Midnight Hammer`. Therefore had the United States not launched its bombing campaign (‘Operation Epic Fury`) in late February 2026 then Iran would have developed nuclear weapons which it probably would have used against Israel.
Indeed, should Operation Epic Fury be prematurely terminated by the United States with the clerical/miltary regime in Tehran left in place, then Iran might still be able to proceed to develop nuclear weapons! Consequently, the objectives of Operation Epic Fury should be expanded to encopass regime change in Iran by the United States sending in ground troops (‘boots on the ground`) to expiate such an outcome. President Trump as a neo-isolationist leader is inherently loathe to take US military action outside of ‘America’s backyard`. However, had President Trump not approved Operation Epic Fury, then Iran would have possessed and subsequently used nuclear weapons against Israel. Future historians will hence judge that President Trump not only acted correctly by initiating Operation Epic Fury but that under the circumstances he had no choice but to do so.
The question therefore remains as to whether the United States will expand the objective of Operation Epic Fury by quickly despatching American troops to Iran to dislodge the regime and then expeditiously withdraw once this has been achieved. At the moment the military advantage is with the Iranian regime of the new Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khameini. This is becasue the United States and Israel will relatively soon exhaust their stockpiles of misiles which they are using in Operation Epic Fury.
The impending exhaustion of American missile stockpiles is also putting paid to any notion that the United States or its allies will supply Ukraine with the weapons which the Ukrainians need to stop Russia from eventually overrunning their nation. It is therefore a matter of urgency that European NATO nations despatch troops to western Ukraine to deter the Russian Federation from advancing into that part of Ukraine. If it is beyond realms of possibilty that European NATO nations will act collectively to save Ukraine (and therefore themselves from future Russian expansionism) then Finland, Poland and Sweden could do so by militarily entering western Ukraine to deter Vladimir Putin from continuing his westward advance. Time is therefore of the essence with regard to European nations acting to save Ukraine.
Concerning the factor of time, all the Iranian regime has to do is wait it out until the American missile supply is exhausted and to be in a position to crush any post-bombing internal revolutionary uprising. Given the the decntralised command structure of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, combined with their mobility, these security forces will be in a position to adapt to maintain the regime once the US led aerial bombing campaign has ended. This adaptability of the regime has already been demonstrated by the speed in which Mojtaba Khameini suceeded his father Ayotollah Ali Khameini after he was killed in an Ameircan aerial bombing at the commencement of Opertion Epic Fury. The American expectation that the Iranian regime would disintegrate from within by killing Ayotollah Khmeinin has not been met. Furthermore, the American hope that Revolutionary Guard commanders would defect or refrain from supporting the gvenrment has not yet, and probably will not evenuate given the regime’s ideological and stratgic cohension.
There is the option of the United States and Israel funneling arms to anti-regime ethnic minorities such as the Arabs, Baluchis and Kurds as well as to the Iraninan people themselves . However, an internal rebellion willl take too much time to come to fruition with regard to achieveing the regime’s ouster. Indeed, time is of the essence with Mojaba Khameini’s regime now effectively blocking the narow Strait of Hormuz in the Persian Gulf through which over twenty-percent of the world’s oil passes. The resulting economic disrupiton to the world’s economy (as already reflected by higher oil prices) is another factor which necessitates that American troops be quickly despatched to Iran to help facilitate regime change. While higher oil prices are a short-term ramification of the clerical-military regime staying in place there are wider ramifications which imperil the viablity of the United States if regime change is not achieved in Iran.
The wider ramifications of an American failure to achieve regime change in Iran will be to embolden mainland China to invade the Republic of China in Taiwan due to a lack of American resolution becoming apparent. It should also be pointed out at this juncture that should there be a regime change in Iran, that leverage to prevent a Chinese communist regime’s invasion of Taiwan will be tremendously expanded because over ninety percent of mainland China’s oil goes through the Strait of Hormuz. The United State also must take care to ensure the American dollar remains the currency with which American Treasury bonds are purchased. BRICS nations are already trying to arrange that there be an alternative currency to the American dollar for the buying and selling of oil transactions in order to bankrupt the United States. Having a post- clerical regime in Tehran will consequently invaluably help anchor the oil-producing Gulf nations in the pro-American camp by ensuring that oil transactions remain denominated in American dollars so that the United States remains financially solvent.
Due to the stakes being so high with regard to facilitating regime change in Tehran, the policy option of the United States sending combat troops into Iran must be seriously considered by the Trump administration. The adoption of such a policy will invariably raise the spectre of another so-called ‘forever war` which could cause the Democrats to unfortunately win the crucial November 2026 mid-term congressional elections. However, if the ideas of the late British general, Orde Wingate (1903 to 1944) are applied by the United States to the current Iran context, then a quagmire can be avoided. The essence of General Wingate’s ideas were that flexiblity and mobility be assiduosly applied to a military context. Under the Wingate paradigm American troops could be landed to fight in Iran so that once their military objective had been achieved, they could be speedily withdrawn. The vaccum could be soon filled by US and Isreali armed Iranians who are opposed to the clerical-military regime.
The application of the Wingate type military strategy by the United States in Iran will entail a pardigmatic shift in US military strategy. It should not however be forgotten that perhaps the greatest twentieth century US army general, Douglas Mac Arthur, had warned President Kennedy against deploying combat troops to Indo-China on a permanent basis. With the considerable benefit of hindsight American troops could have been deployed to Indochina on a combat needs only basis before expeditiously withdrawaring to US warships off the coast. It is only a matter of willpower that this Wingate type of military strategy be applied by the United States so that by the second half of 2026 there are no American troops stationed in an Iran which is free from a very dangerous world-threatening dictatorship.
It is only a matter of willpower that this Wingate military type of strategy be applied by the United States in Iran so that by the second half of 2026 there are no American troops stationed in an Iran which is free from a very dangerous world-threatening dictatorship.