LEXINGTON, Va. – Coordinated attacks on Iran reportedly killed Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and dozens of other senior figures, according to initial reports that authorities and international outlets have circulated.
President Donald Trump said the campaign could take several weeks, and news outlets reported the first U.S. military deaths connected to the conflict. The AP reports other deaths have been confirmed in Israel and Gulf nations, while Iran has said several hundred people have been killed there.
Col. Patrick Rhamey, a professor of international studies and political science at Virginia Military Institute, told 10 News the attacks followed the largest American military buildup in the Middle East since the 2003 Iraq war.
“The timing was a little surprising because the Qatari negotiators in the talks between the United States and Iran said that a deal had been reached, that there was some agreement on some of these key points, and that announcement was just a few hours before the attack came.”
Rhamey said the bigger question is what comes next and criticized mixed messages from U.S. leaders about goals and justifications.
“There seems to be a lack of clarity about what is next. We’ve heard from a lot of different people in the administration about both the justifications as well as our goals for this conflict. Yesterday, the president said that the goal was to remove the missiles and destroy the Navy, which we’ve pretty much done or are successful in doing. And those are military goals that make a lot sense, and it’s easy for us to accomplish them using the military. ”
The AP reports with Khamenei’s death, the Islamic Republic must now choose a supreme leader for the first time since 1989. Trump has urged Iranians to seize the moment and overthrow the theocracy that cracked down on nationwide protests earlier this year. There was no sign that was happening.
Rhamey noted that two other goals — forcing Iran to give up its nuclear program and halting support for proxy groups such as Hezbollah and Hamas — are political, and that military force alone is unlikely to achieve them.
“Those are political goals and military tools are usually ineffective in achieving political goals and it requires often in this case regime change to accomplish that. And so, getting Iran to have a regime change is a very different goal than simply destroying missiles or destroying boats.”
Rhamey warned that a lack of functioning leadership inside Iran could make negotiation and conflict resolution difficult.
“It looks confusing, it looks chaotic, and that’s because it is, with no leadership, either in political or military, nobody is in charge. The lack of a command structure in Iran makes it very difficult right now to figure out who to negotiate with, who to work with, if we’re going to see an end to hostilities.”
Although the president described the operation as a four-week mission, Rhamey said he expects the conflict to last longer.
" I would be very surprised if it’s a short-term kind of thing. I know people in the administration have said, hey, this is a four-week ordeal. Often when you have conflicts throughout history, they give a window. But as Machiavelli said, you know, you can decide when to start wars, but not when to end them. And the degree of disorder right now in the Middle East suggests that we’re likely to see violence for some time."
Rhamey said he doesn’t think Americans have to worry about Iranian attacks on America, but attacks on our military assets in the region are possible.
You can watch our full interview with Rhamey below: