Assessing the first week of the U.S.–Israeli campaign against Iran, retired U.S. Army Major and urban warfare scholar John Spencer sharply rejected what he called the “lazy comparisons” critics have drawn between the operation and the Iraq War.
He told Breitbart News that President Donald Trump’s decision to strike reflects a clear America First action taken squarely in the nation’s national-security interest after diplomacy failed to stop a radical regime racing toward a hardened nuclear threshold — a precision campaign designed not to start another forever war, but to end one, restore American deterrence, and place the region on the precipice of a new Middle Eastern order.
Speaking in an exclusive interview with Breitbart News as the operation entered its second week, Spencer — chair of Urban Warfare Studies at the Madison Policy Forum and a retired U.S. Army officer with two combat deployments to Iraq — assessed the campaign from its unprecedented opening strike through the broader strategic consequences now unfolding across the region.
A Historic Opening Strike Unlike Anything in Modern Warfare
Spencer described the opening phase of the campaign as what he called a “neurological strike” — one that eliminated the regime’s apex leadership and left Tehran in a state of “cognitive paralysis.”
“The opening strike — I don’t even know what to call it,” Spencer said. “It’s more than a decapitation strike. It’s almost like a neurological strike.”
In the opening minutes of the operation, Iran’s supreme leader and roughly four dozen senior regime figures and military commanders were eliminated in coordinated strikes that shattered the regime’s command structure before it could organize a coherent response.
“Taking out leadership after leadership creates what we call cognitive paralysis,” he said.
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To convey the scale of the operation, Spencer reached for a hypothetical World War II comparison.
“It would be like when the United States joined the Allied fight against Germany and Hitler, Rommel, and the entire German leadership were wiped out before the first American boots even touched the beaches of Normandy,” he said.
Even the closest modern parallel, he added, falls short.
“The only parallel I can think of is what Israel did in the opening moments of the 12-day war in June when they eliminated a large number of Iranian commanders,” Spencer said. “But even this goes beyond that.”
Spencer said the strike also reflected a level of intelligence penetration and operational confidence rarely seen in modern warfare.
“Normally we prefer to strike at night,” he said. “Intelligence drives all operations.”
In Spencer’s telling, that unusual daytime timing underscored the depth of the intelligence picture behind the operation and the confidence commanders had in the strike window.
A Precision Campaign Rapidly Achieving Its Objectives
Spencer said the defining feature of the campaign is not the sheer scale of the bombing, but the precision of the targeting.
“This is a very precise operation,” he said. “You’re hunting missile launchers, missile stockpiles, drone manufacturing capability, command nodes, and naval assets.”
He contrasted the campaign with earlier wars measured largely by the volume of ordnance dropped.
“If you look at something like the Gulf War, there were far more sorties and bombs dropped,” Spencer said. “What’s impressive here is the precision.”
An infographic titled “USâ”Israel target oil depots in Tehran” created in Istanbul, Turkiye on March 9, 2026. Violent explosions occurred after USâ”Israel strikes on oil depots in Iran’s capital, Tehran. (Photo by Ufuk Celal Guzel/Anadolu via Getty Images)
Israeli and U.S. officials say strikes have already neutralized roughly three-quarters of Iran’s mobile missile launchers, sharply reducing Tehran’s ability to sustain large-scale missile attacks and vindicating Spencer’s point that the campaign has been systematically hunting the regime’s retaliatory capacity.
Spencer said one of the least appreciated achievements of the opening phase was the campaign against Iran’s navy.
Within the first 24 to 48 hours, large portions of Iran’s naval capability were destroyed or disabled, sharply limiting the regime’s ability to threaten the Strait of Hormuz — the strategic waterway through which roughly one-fifth of the world’s oil passes.
Not Iraq — A Campaign Defined by Context and Objectives
Spencer sharply rejected comparisons between the Iran campaign and the long-term quagmires critics invoke in Iraq and Afghanistan.
“I hate the lazy comparisons — like the Iraq War,” he said.
Unlike the 2003 invasion of Iraq, Spencer said, this operation was launched after diplomacy had been exhausted and against a regime with known nuclear material, an expanding missile arsenal, clearly telegraphed intentions, and hardened infrastructure designed to make later action far more costly.
“This isn’t about nation-building,” he said. “It’s about dismantling threats.”
“War is a contest of wills,” Spencer added. “It’s about forcing your enemy to do your will.”
Diplomacy Failed — And Tehran Told the World Why
Spencer stressed that military action came only after negotiations collapsed.
“Nobody can say the president did not try to negotiate with the Islamic regime,” he said.
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He pointed to the final rounds of diplomacy preceding the strikes, during which U.S. Special Envoy Steve Witkoff later revealed that Iranian negotiators openly acknowledged possessing uranium enriched to 60 percent — enough, if further enriched, for roughly 11 nuclear weapons.
“They were proud of it,” Witkoff said.
“They told us, ‘We’re not going to give you diplomatically what you couldn’t take militarily.’”
The Threat Was Real — Accelerating and Getting Harder to Stop
Spencer argued the threat posed by Iran was not hypothetical but accelerating.
“You don’t get more of an imminent threat than a nuclear-armed terrorist state,” he said.
At the same time Iran retained its stockpile of highly enriched uranium, Spencer said, the regime was rapidly expanding its ballistic missile arsenal — from roughly 2,500 missiles toward an intended force of 8,000 — in a buildup designed to create a conventional shield around its nuclear ambitions.
“Iran’s missile expansion was meant to create a defensive umbrella protecting the nuclear program,” Spencer said.
Iran was also hardening underground facilities intended to place its nuclear infrastructure beyond the reach of military attack.
Spencer pointed to sites such as Pickaxe Mountain, warning that once such facilities become fully operational, parts of the program could move beyond the reach of even the most powerful bunker-penetrating weapons.
“If you wait until the last moment,” he said, “the cost of action becomes far higher.”
Restoring Deterrence
Spencer argued the campaign is already restoring American deterrence after years in which adversaries questioned whether Washington would enforce its red lines.
“Deterrence theory is what keeps the world peaceful,” he said.
“It requires the capability and the willingness to use force after negotiations fail.”
“The opening of this operation should put the fear of God into every enemy of the United States,” Spencer added.
Shock Inside the Iranian Regime — Alignment Across the Region
Spencer said Iran’s response to the campaign reinforced the argument that the opening strike disrupted the regime’s command structure.
Rather than concentrating retaliation against Israel, Tehran lashed out erratically across the Gulf, striking or threatening states including Qatar, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, and Oman — which had helped mediate negotiations just days earlier.
The following day, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian appeared to confirm the disruption, acknowledging that some retaliatory actions had been carried out by forces acting independently after senior commanders and the supreme leader had been killed.
Hardline factions quickly criticized those remarks, exposing fractures inside the regime’s leadership.
America First — Ending a Forever War
Spencer argued the campaign should be understood not as the start of a new forever war, but as an effort to end the one the Islamic Republic has waged against American interests since 1979.
“I don’t personally believe this is a regime-change war,” he said. “I think it’s about ending a forever war.”
He also rejected criticism that military action contradicts President Trump’s America First doctrine.
“America First is not America alone, and it definitely does not mean America isolated,” Spencer said.
“This operation was absolutely in the interest of the nation and our national security.”
“Iran’s proxies are dismantled, destroyed, or degraded,” he said.
If the campaign continues along its current trajectory, Spencer said the consequences will extend far beyond Iran itself.
“We’re on the precipice of a whole new Middle East,” he said.
“The precipice of peace.”
Joshua Klein is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @JoshuaKlein.
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