KO or Chaos: The War Against the Islamic Republic of Iran

Citizens of Western democracies, in the United States but especially in Europe, do not like war; and when there is war, they want it to be as short as possible, with as few deaths as possible… and with as little impact as possible on the price of their gasoline. Financial markets share the same view, with the added nervousness that characterizes them, especially when war involves oil and gas, and therefore the functioning of the global economy.

Time is therefore the key factor in this war. How long before pressure from the markets or public opinion leads Trump to declare victory and stop the fighting? How long before Iran loses most of its missiles? How long before Israeli and American missile-defense reserves are exhausted? How long before the Islamic Republic is shaken and weakened enough to seek negotiations, or before its overthrow by the Iranian people becomes possible?

After the first ten days of the war launched by the United States and Israel against the Islamic Republic of Iran, impatience—even anxiety—is already noticeable.

Those who hoped the war would end with a knockout in the first round, after the spectacular elimination on the first day of the conflict of the “Supreme Leader,” Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, now see their hopes quickly replaced by a quiet but growing concern: the possibility of widespread chaos. For the Iranian regime still stands, even if it has been severely weakened militarily. It continues to terrorize its population through its bloodthirsty militias, still intact across the country. Despite thousands of bombs and missiles dropped on its territory, despite the elimination of many of its civilian, military, and religious leaders, the Islamic Republic continues to function, as shown by the “election” of a new Supreme Leader—the son of the previous one. Above all, it signals to the world that it will fight to the end with its own weapons, following a deliberate strategy of horizontal escalation: setting the entire Middle East on fire, targeting even desalination plants, airports, Amazon data centers…

Designed to hurt its Arab neighbors, Israel, and American bases in the region, this strategy is above all aimed at holding the global economy hostage by directly striking hydrocarbon production sites throughout the region and, by closing the Strait of Hormuz, literally stopping the delivery of gas and oil essential to many countries, especially in Asia.

The results were not long in coming.

In the United States, Trump is being attacked from all sides for consulting no one—especially not Congress—before embarking on a new potentially “endless” war with questionable legal legitimacy and no clear war objective: in short, the exact opposite of what he proclaimed during his election campaign. In Washington, everyone’s eyes are fixed on the price of a gallon of gasoline and its symbolic limit of four dollars, which would be dangerous to cross (3.5 today). It is easier to understand why Trump, this Tuesday, declared that the war was “almost over,” which immediately caused oil prices to drop.

As for Europe, it is divided and avoids confrontation, as usual. It is content, as Chancellor Merz frankly admits, to “let the Americans and the Israelis do the dirty work,” while giving lectures on international law… When it is not ritually calling for a ceasefire, like the Estonian Kallas, vice-president of the Commission responsible for the supposed “foreign policy of the Union.” At most, Britain, France, and Greece will symbolically come to the aid of Cyprus, a member state of the European Union that, for the first time in history, has been attacked on its southern flank by missiles fired from Lebanon by Iran via Hezbollah.

More ambitious, Emmanuel Macron, aboard the aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle, has announced that he is preparing a mission to secure the Bab el-Mandeb and Hormuz straits, but within what he insists is a “strictly defensive” framework. “France is a balancing power. It is not participating in this war.”

Yet the stakes of this war are existential. For forty-seven years, the Iranian people have been held hostage—and with them the entire Middle East—by a theocratic commando imported directly from the Paris region at the beginning of 1979. After eliminating any opposition in Iran through extreme violence, these fanatics literally poisoned the Arab world, although it is Sunni, by constantly spreading Islamist Brotherhood ideology to impose the final victory of Islamism.

The head of the octopus in Tehran gradually established itself as the main fighter against Israel, the “little Satan,” condemned to total destruction. To do so, the regime of the mullahs sought to literally suffocate the Jewish state through tentacles in Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Yemen, and Gaza: all branches of the Islamic regime, heavily funded and armed with thousands of missiles and drones manufactured in Iran.

But that is not all. The Islamic Republic did not hesitate to attack Western countries directly, especially France, beginning in the early 1980s, to make it pay both its “Eurodif debt” and its military assistance to Saddam Hussein’s regime during the terrible Iran–Iraq War (1980–1988). From the Drakkar bombing to the Rue de Rennes attack, Iran killed around a hundred French citizens and injured several hundred others, not to mention at least a dozen French hostages, two of whom are still held in Tehran today. Terrorism through proxies, as well as hostage-taking, are routine instruments of the Islamic regime’s foreign policy.

Strengthened by the war against Iraq (one million dead), the regime controls a large part of the local economy and, of course, all the instruments of military power and internal repression. Under these conditions, the disappearance of this totalitarian regime is not only existential for Israel: it is for the entire Western world, and especially for Europe, which is directly concerned because of the significant Muslim immigration that has arrived since the late 1970s—a population that could be contaminated by the terrorist interpretation of Islam promoted by the Tehran regime.

Under these circumstances, the only war objective that would justify the effort undertaken today by the United States and Israel would be the eradication of this regime and its replacement with a government coming from a very young people who only aspire to live in freedom and integrate into the global economy. By systematically destroying Iran’s nuclear and ballistic programs, as well as its militias abroad, the war aims to break the lock of the Iranian people’s prison and allow them to push open the door that confines them.

But to achieve this goal in a country of 90 million inhabitants, three times the size of France, one week of air bombardment will obviously not be enough. Strategic patience will be required.

And here lies the greatest uncertainty: how to manage time? How long does Trump have, as the celebration of the 250th anniversary of the American Republic approaches on July 4, and especially with the midterm elections in November? It is extremely doubtful that the Islamic Republic will accept a “Venezuelan scenario,” in which the head of the Islamic Republic would be designated by the President of the United States, as he suggested. It is equally doubtful that, if it manages to maintain its state structure, the Tehran regime would accept capitulation on all the issues under negotiation for twenty years and never accepted so far: the total halt of the nuclear program, the ballistic program, and its attempts to destabilize the region through its Islamic militias.

The only reasonable option for peace and global stability is therefore to end this regime and free its people. Conversely, a war fought halfway or prematurely stopped could only lead to immense chaos. The fanatics who hold the country will have only one idea: revenge for the American–Israeli attack. They will certainly resume and accelerate their nuclear and ballistic programs, and they will seek by all means to destabilize the powers of the region they have just attacked—and even more so the European states and the United States—through terrorism.

A half-war would therefore lead directly to chaos, not only throughout the region but probably also in the Western world if, unfortunately, the Islamic Republic were to survive the confrontation begun ten days ago.

It is therefore deeply regrettable to see the President of the French Republic insist on France’s neutrality, even though we have been attacked, just like our local allies whom we have committed to protect. It is also regrettable to see him call the Iranian president to try to convince him to stop firing on his Arab neighbors and, if possible, to return the two hostages still held in Iran. Even more regrettable is that the statement published by the Élysée the day after that phone call did not even mention the fate of the martyred Iranian people.

In the end, everyone will understand that the option of the status quo is infinitely more dangerous for Europeans. Unfortunately, it is precisely toward this option—the option of chaos rather than knockout—that our leaders may, out of convenience, lead us.

Pierre Lellouche
March 9, 2026