Following President Donald Trump’s announcement that the U.S. began major combat operations in Iran this weekend, experts joined Audacy to discuss the attack and its implications.
“What we don’t know is what this is going to actually produce,” Oakland University political science professor Peter Trumbore told WWJ Newsradio in Detroit. “And I think, frankly, I’d be surprised if the administration really has any idea of what the aftermath of this could look like.”
This attack comes after student protests in Iran and a violent crackdown on those protestors. According to a United Nations update from last week, “Iranian authorities have acknowledged 3,117 deaths and approximately 3,000 arrests, whereas human rights organizations estimate these figures to be in the tens of thousands.”
Ahead of the president’s announcement, the U.S. was also in negotiations with Iran over a its nuclear program with help from Oman. According to reports, the U.S. side was disappointed this week that Iran did not seem open to abandoning its uranium enrichment activities and dismantling its nuclear facilities.
“They rejected every opportunity to renounce their nuclear ambitions, and we can’t take it anymore,” said Trump in his announcement. Last summer, the U.S. bombed Iranian nuclear facilities at several sites in another surprise attack called Operation Midnight Hammer.
KYW Newsradio reported Saturday that some of the first bombs in the new operation fell near the offices of Iran’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei. Israeli sources were claiming Saturday that the 86-year-old and other regime officials had been killed, according to The Jerusalem Post.
In his announcement, Trump said that the objective of the current operation, conducted along with Israel, “is to defend the American people by eliminating eminent threats from the Iranian regime,” which he called “a vicious group of very hard, terrible people.”
Iran’s current regime took power of the Middle Eastern nation with the 1979 Islamic Revolution that overthrew a pro-U.S. government in Iran. This takeover included the Iranian hostage crisis – a detention of 50 American hostages who were held for over a year.
“For 47 years, the Iranian regime has chanted ‘death to America’ and waged an unending campaign of bloodshed and mass murder, targeting the United States, our troops and the innocent people in many, many countries,” said Trump.
However, Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-Mich.), told WWJ some lawmakers are questioning why the U.S. is engaging in this attack now.
“We’ve all seen the brutality of the Iranian regime and the violent killing of protesters in the last few weeks has been horrific, but what is our plan?” she said.
Dingell also said that some lawmakers and even ambassadors in the region did not get a heads up about the attack.
“The reports that we all had was progress had been made on the diplomatic discussions that had occurred last week,” she told WWJ. “So, it’s just… it’s very concerning. And I’m just going to be blunt, the president’s decision to use military force, without authorization from Congress, I believe it is unconstitutional.”
While some people were shocked by the news of the attack, Dr. Saeed Kahn from Wayne State University, an expert in Middle Eastern politics and U.S. foreign policy in the region, told WWJ that Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “clearly projected” it.
“I think it’s safe to say that this is now war,” Kahn said.
He added that “there has been the amassment of the largest, at least Air Force presence of the United States in decades,” with some reports are saying 40% of U.S. Air Force equipment and material is in the region.
“And yet we still have not heard why… there is a rationale for this,” Kahn said. “There has been no immediate or imminent threat by Iran.”
As Trump noted, there have been tensions between Iran and the U.S. for decades. In 2024, Audacy reported that research indicated Iran, along with Russia and China, were all working to influence U.S. elections. Last summer, we also reported on a comment from a former senior advisor to Iran’s Supreme Leader that indicated Iran could attack Trump while he was “sunbathing” at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida.
Trump called the Iranian government a “terrorist regime,” in his announcement this weekend. He also said the U.S. plans to destroy Iran’s missiles and annihilate their navy.
His plans for the aftermath of these actions leave questions, according to the experts who spoke to Audacy. KYW News explained that Trump has called on the Iranian people to rise up and overthrow the current leadership – something that would be no easy feat.
“If we are trying to engineer regime change, which is what the president has said, then there is no historical precedent for doing that with just air power,” said Trumbore. “And to somehow assume that the Iranian people will now rise up and overthrow their government and that that will produce a friendlier government to us strikes me as a lot of wishful thinking.”
Kahn had a similar assessment.
“I’m not sure that the regime will fall, because I suspect that it probably has several layers of depth to it when it comes to succession, and it’s going to be next to impossible to go ahead and eliminate all of that,” he explained.
During the administration of former President George W. Bush, the U.S. attempted a similar takeover of the government in Iraq. In that case, there were significantly more ground troops, Trumbore said.
“We essentially defeated the military in a conventional war,” he said of Iraq in 2003. “And we’re not doing that with Iran.”
In Trumbore’s view, an on-the-ground presence in Iran would be necessary to carry out the type of operation Trump described. In particular, he said it would be difficult to know who would come to power.
“The security apparatus in Iran is extensive, and it… has been brutally repressive, and I don’t really know how you... you know remove all of that just by launching missiles and dropping bombs.”
If the U.S. manages a military success like in Iraq, Dr. Nolan Higden, Cal State East Bay history and communication professor and political analyst, reminded KCBS Radio in the Bay Area said the outcome of that takeover doesn’t paint a hopeful picture of the future.
“The United States has not really had good luck installing leaders on populations,” he said. “And I think a transformation like that taking place is going to be led by the United States, which means it’s not going to come by and for the Iranian people. And if you look at other places where we’ve tried that, such as Iraq, it has not really gone well.”
Furthermore, Higden said that a much larger and more complicated operation would be needed to take over Iran than the one that took over Iraq. Even with the recent protests, he thinks successfully ending and replacing the current regime would be a challenge.
It’s very clear that there are divisions within Iran, as evidenced by the protests and the response to them. But another country coming in to try and settle those divisions often doesn’t work well,” he told KCBS.
KYW reported that Iran “is stressing it’s right to defend itself” and that Iranian state media claim that at least 40 people have been killed at a girl’s school. It also said that Iran already started retaliating against the U.S. by hitting US military assets in several neighboring Arab countries.
Trumbore said that Iran does have a significant missile capability. He said attacks against U.S. assets are likely to continue, including cyberattacks.
“I do think that the network of proxy forces that Iran has long supported is going to be a significant potential threat,” Trumbore also told WWJ. “And there are networks of Iranian operatives across Europe, and according to some reports in the United States as well. And there’s a very distinct possibility that those operatives could be put into motion.”
“Sources in the Middle East are saying that so far, Hezbollah has been told to sit back,” Kahn told WWJ. He added that he isn’t sure if a similar directive was given to the Houthis.
“I do suspect that if there is an escalation beyond this weekend where there is even further bombings and attacks by the Israelis and the U.S. Forces, then I imagine that some of those regional actors will start to activate,” Kahn said.
In the U.S., Dingell said that she expects the attack on Iran will “seriously impact” a vote coming up in the House of Representatives next week on the War Powers Act.