Abraham Lincoln vs. the Ayatollahs: Can the United States topple Iran’s regime, too?

The aviation component of CSG-3 includes Carrier Air Wing Nine, which boasts fifth-generation multirole fighters F-35C Lightning II (10 to 12 aircraft), F/A-18E/F Super Hornet fighter-bombers (30 to 36 aircraft), EA-18G Growler electronic warfare aircraft (7 aircraft), E-2D Hawkeye airborne early warning and control aircraft (4 to 5 aircraft), CMV-22B Osprey tiltrotors (3 aircraft), and MH-60R/S Sea Hawk multirole helicopters (19 to 22 aircraft).

In addition, U.S. Central Command has confirmed the deployment of additional F-15E Strike Eagle fighters to a base in Jordan, bringing their total there to 37 aircraft, along with a significant number of aerial refueling and military transport planes to various bases in the Middle East and Europe. Additional air defense systems are being deployed in the region, including Patriot and THAAD batteries at the large Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar. The UK Ministry of Defence has also reported transferring Typhoon fighters to Qatar.

Since the UAE and Saudi Arabia have stated that they will not allow their territory or airspace to be used for attacks on Iran, a prolonged air campaign may require a second carrier strike group to operate within range of Iranian territory. Notably, the USS George H. W. Bush (CVN-77) is already underway from Norfolk, but even without its presence the United States has assembled enough forces and capabilities for a military operation.

Possible scenarios

Based on publicly available information, the only realistic option for now is an air campaign similar to Operation Midnight Hammer, which was conducted in June 2025. A ground operation by the U.S. and its allies currently appears impossible, since it would require assembling an invasion force of roughly the same size and composition as those that fought the wars against Iraq in 1991 (Operation Desert Storm) and 2003 (Operation Iraqi Freedom). In the first case, it took about six months to deploy more than 500,000 American troops (not counting allies) and several thousand tanks, aircraft, and artillery systems to the region. In the second case, the number of U.S. service members in the theater reached 340,000 before the operation began. At present, U.S. bases in the Persian Gulf region host around 50,000 personnel, and most of them belong to the Air Force and Navy rather than to infantry units.

Israel has forces on the scale required, but the country has never taken part in major expeditionary operations, and there are political objections to Israeli involvement in such a campaign — both from America’s Arab allies and within Israeli society itself.

In the future the United States could mobilize forces comparable to those deployed during the Iraq war, but given the limited amount of assets currently in the region, Trump has at his immediate disposal only the following set of scenarios:

• Symbolic strikes on facilities of the Iranian military–industrial complex or the nuclear program
• Strikes on sites belonging to Iran’s security apparatus — primarily the IRGC and the Basij, which are responsible for the brutal suppression of the protests
• Strikes on industrial centers and on transport and energy infrastructure to inflict economic damage on the ruling regime
• Strikes targeting the top military–political leadership, including Ali Khamenei

The problem is that none of these scenarios guarantees a change of regime in Tehran — certainly not to a government friendly to the United States. Symbolic strikes are unlikely to have any meaningful impact on the stability of Iran’s theocracy, and while attacks on security infrastructure could have a greater effect, they would require days’ worth of air raids and careful target reconnaissance to disrupt command and control, thereby giving the protests at least a chance to reignite. Meanwhile, the consequences of strikes aimed at inflicting economic damage or physically eliminating Khamenei are even harder to predict.