Is having no war plan Trump’s ‘plan’?

Alastair Crooke, 12 March 2026

The US-Israeli stand-off air-strike model of waging war is being challenged by a quite different strategic asymmetric war — one first planned by Iran more than 20 years ago.

This is important to understand when trying to judge where the war balance sheet truly lies. It is like comparing oranges with lemons; they are essentially different in character.

The US and Israel are dropping a lot of stand-off munitions at Iran, but to what point and to what effect? We don’t know.

We do, however, know that Iran has its asymmetric war plan. And it is only just starting, incrementally moving towards full implementation. The full armoury of Iranian missiles has not yet been revealed — neither its latest missiles, nor its submersible drones and anti-ship-equipped missile speed boats that have yet to be deployed. So we do not know Iran’s full potential — and we cannot say to what effect its full deployment might yet be. Hizbullah is now fully operational, and the Houthi’s (seemingly) are waiting for the ‘green light’ to gate Bab al-Mandeb, in tandem to the Hormuz blockade.

The root to the move of this Iranian asymmetric paradigm arose in the wake of the US’ utter destruction of Iraq’s centralised military command in 2003 -- the result of a three week massive air assault.

The issue for the Iranians that arose in the Iraq war’s wake was how Iran might build a deterrent military structure when it did not have -- and could not have -- anything resembling a peer air capability. And when the US could also look down upon the extent of Iran military infrastructure from their high-resolution satellite cameras.

Well, the first answer simply was to have as little of the Iranian military structure out in the open to be observed from above -- from space. Its components had to be buried, and buried deeply (beyond the reach of most bombs).