The choice of Mojtaba Khamenei to replace his father shows that the Islamic Republic of Iran plans to dig in and prolong the war as long as possible with the goal of inflicting maximum damage on the economies of the U.S. and our allies.

This seems like an illogical approach unless you understand The people of Iran and the Islamic Republic of Iran regime are two different things. A regime that routinely detains, tortures, and kills its own citizens doesn’t care if innocent Iranians die in US-Israeli airstrikes. In fact, civilian deaths may galvanize more support for the regime. Despots have no qualms about using their own citizens as human shields in order to maintain the status quo. They’d rather destroy their country than give up power. If they can’t have it, no one can.

Trump has put the US in the position of being directly involved in the proxy war between Saudi Arabia and Iran and even more closely tied to decisions made by Netanyahu, a precarious position given Bibi’s lack of restraint. This could be particularly destabilizing in the U.S. given that a portion of Trump’s base are virulently anti-Semitic. Iranians understood this wing of Trump’s base better than Trump himself and, along with Russia, used social media propaganda to groom them, resulting in a strange overlap of the anti-Semitic wing of the far right and anti-Netanyahu on the far left.

Trump campaigned on the economy and promised no more forever wars. In his February 24 SOTU speech he stood in front of the nation and pretended to be focused on the economy and domestic issues even as he was about to trigger a war he knew would spike fuel prices and destabilize markets. Days later, Feb. 28, he launched a war with Iran.

More disturbing is that this war appears to be an impulsive act. Trump feels free to act on his impulses as the Republican controlled House and Senate won’t do their jobs as a check on the power of the President. Now members of the Trump administration can’t provide a coherent and consistent rationale for starting the war and can’t define the objectives. How much thought did they give to the course and aftermath of the war? It’s astonishing to see Trump make the same mistakes and use the same justifications in Iran that Bush made in Iraq.

While the overthrow of the regime in Iran would be a good thing, all other options should have been exhausted before resorting to war. Even if the war ended tomorrow, what then? What will happen in the power vacuum that will be created?

Andrea Hatfield is a Jamestown resident.