GREEN BAY, Wis. (WFRV) – The situation in the Middle East continues to quickly evolve after the United States and Israel attacked Iran over the weekend.
Local 5 News reached out to two local Middle East experts to help contextualize what we’ve seen so far in the region and outline potential paths forward from here. David Coury is a University of Wisconsin-Green Bay professor and Co-Director of the Center for Middle East Studies and Partnerships. Jason Brozek is the Stephen Edward Scarff Professor of International Affairs at Lawrence University.
Why did the U.S. and Israel attack Iran now?
The Associated Press reports that over the weekend, U.S. and Israeli intelligence showed that a large number of Iranian leaders (including Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei) were gathered together, creating an opportunity for a strike.
Professor Coury said other factors contributed to the timing of the attack. Israel has significantly weakened many of Iran’s proxies, including Hamas and Hezbollah, in its retaliatory strikes after the Oct. 7, 2023, attack by Hamas. Iran recently lost an ally in Syria, when several groups overthrew the Bashar al-Assad regime. Coury says that Iran has also lost some of its support from Russia as Vladimir Putin has focused his attention on what’s happening in Ukraine.
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“Iran certainly is in a weakened state, the question is how weak and what capabilities do they have for retaliation,” Coury said.
Last summer, the United States bombed several Iranian nuclear facilities. At the time President Trump described the damage to the nuclear facilities as “completely and fully obliterated.”
In his remarks after the attack over the weekend, President Trump said that Iran refused to negotiate with them on their nuclear program and that they were trying to rebuild their nuclear facilities and nuclear capabilities.
The United States government has long considered Iran a state sponsor of terrorism and does not want the country to have nuclear weapons. In 2015, President Barack Obama struck a nuclear deal with Iran, easing economic sanctions on the country in exchange for the Iranians limiting their nuclear program.
President Trump scrapped that deal in 2018.
Israel, a close ally to the United States, also considers Iran an existential threat.
How long will this war last?
Although he says that these things are very difficult to predict so early in the conflict, Professor Coury says the answer to this question likely comes down to the United States’ military objective for Iran.
“What exactly the goal is, or the end plan, is unclear right now,” Coury said. “Is it to eliminate Iran’s ability to restart its nuclear weapons program, or is it regime change? Those are two different objectives, and that would require different military actions.”
Lawrence University professor Jason Brozek also said its difficult to predict the endgame and how long it will take to get to that endgame.
“I’m having a hard time predicting whether this is going to be a small event or whether this is going to be the defining war of their generation, the way Vietnam, Iraq, or Afghanistan became defining wars of generations before,” Brozek said.
On Monday, U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth told reporters that the attack on Iran “is not Iraq, it’s not endless.”
“Secretary Hegseth this morning promised that this isn’t going to be another Iraq, and I appreciate that because I lived through Iraq,” Brozek said. “But at the same time, Iraq wasn’t meant to be Iraq in 2003 either, so it’s really difficult to predict what’s going to turn into that.”
Some government officials have criticized President Trump for attacking Iran without approval from Congress.
“Even though the power to make war sits with Congress in the Constitution, for all intents and purposes, the modern pragmatic ability to commit the U.S. military sits with the president as commander-in-chief,” Brozek said. “Congress could possibly use the War Powers Act to deny funding, but I can’t imagine a world where Congress denies funding to U.S. troops.
President Trump has said that he thinks the war will last four to five weeks.
Will there be a regime change in Iran?
The U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran over the weekend killed Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and at least 40 other top Iranian officials.
However, according to professor Coury, a lot more needs to happen before a regime change can become a reality. He said a lot of it comes down to what Iran’s Revolutionary Guard (branch of the Iranian military tasked with defending the country’s regime) decides to do.
“The military or the revolutionary guard would have to turn against the power structures for there to be a complete fall of the various levels of government in Iran,” Coury said.
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It also depends on what the Iranian people want. Coury said there’s broad support for the Iranian regime in the more conservative, rural areas of the country. However, in the cities, some people want to see a change in government.
“But of course, when a country is attacked, that can be a unifying force,” Coury said. “So it will be remained to be seen whether the people who oppose the regime will continue to fight to oppose the regime or if they’ll have a sense of patriotism and want to defend the country.”
How will this war impact the United States?
Six Americans have died in the war with Iran so far.
Iran has launched retaliatory attacks on targets throughout the region, raising concern that additional countries could get sucked into the war.
“To the actual country (United States mainland) and being bombed by Iran, no,” Coury said when asked how much of a threat Iran is to the United States. “But interests that the US have like stability in the region, threats to American allies in the region, Iran has presented that threat.”
Professor Brozek at Lawrence University agrees.
“I don’t worry so much about Iran striking the U.S. or allies with nuclear weapons;, there’s no evidence that they have that capacity,” Brozek said. “But they can still do a lot of damage to their neighbors, to our allies even without nuclear capacity. So the question becomes, can the United States, can Israel, can Iran walk this back?”
Professor Brozek said that he doesn’t anticipate that China (focused on economic development) or Russia (focused on Ukraine) would enter the war.
The war has disrupted tanker traffic in the Gulf of Hormuz, through which about a fifth of the world’s oil passes. Gas Buddy officials say that the war could soon begin impacting gas prices in the United States.
“But the question is then what happens after this?” Coury said about the unpredictability of the early stages of the war. “Was it a one-and-done type of strike against the leaders, or is there a greater commitment to ongoing hostilities, which appears to be the case now?”
