This approach marks a decisive departure from previous conflicts where strikes were largely limited to nuclear facilities, missile depots, and proxy command centers.
By Hezy Laing
In the event of a direct attack by Iran, the IDF and the United States military have reportedly shifted toward a “maximum pressure” doctrine that targets the full spectrum of Iranian state power, including military command nodes, energy grids, oil and gas export terminals, water desalination plants, and heavy industrial sites.
This approach marks a decisive departure from previous conflicts where strikes were largely limited to nuclear facilities, missile depots, and proxy command centers to avoid regional escalation and humanitarian catastrophes.
The rationale for this escalation in 2026 stems from the assessment that limited strikes failed to deter Iranian aggression following the 2023-2025 period of heightened conflict, necessitating a campaign that degrades the regime’s ability to wage war and sustain its economy.
Prior to 2026, Israel and the US exercised restraint against civilian dual-use infrastructure due to international law concerns, fear of massive refugee flows, and the risk of drawing in global powers like China and Russia who rely on Iranian energy.
However, the integration of AI-driven systems like Lochem has altered the calculus by enabling precise, synchronized strikes that can theoretically disable infrastructure with minimized collateral damage, although the strategic intent remains the total disruption of state function.
Lochem’s ability to coordinate hundreds of simultaneous sorties allows for the saturation of Iranian air defenses, ensuring that critical nodes in the power grid, such as the Bushehr nuclear power plant’s external connections, and major oil terminals like Kharg Island, are hit concurrently to prevent repair and rerouting.
The United States, potentially utilizing B-2 Spirit stealth bombers and Tomahawk cruise missiles launched from naval assets in the Persian Gulf and Red Sea, would likely target similar energy and industrial complexes to enforce a comprehensive embargo by destruction.
Repercussions of such an all-out campaign would be severe, including the potential collapse of Iran’s domestic fuel supply, widespread blackouts affecting 90 million citizens, and a humanitarian crisis involving water shortages due to the targeting of desalination and pumping stations.
Environmentally, strikes on oil facilities could cause catastrophic spills in the Persian Gulf, while the global economy would face immediate oil price shocks, potentially exceeding $200 per barrel.
A collapse of the Islamic Republic is a potential outcome of severing the regime’s fiscal and logistical lifelines.
According to strategic analysts like Umud Shokri of the Middle East Forum the Islamic state is already operating with zero margin for error due to pre-existing sanctions, and that the destruction of critical chokepoints—specifically Kharg Island, which handles 90% of crude exports, and the South Pars gas fields—creates a “five-point failure” in infrastructural, fiscal, logistical, administrative, and service-delivery capacities.
Without the estimated $78 billion in annual oil revenue, the regime loses the ability to pay the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and the Basij militias, whose loyalty is transactional rather than ideological.
Behnam Taleblu of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and Beni Sabti of the Institute for National Security Studies, agree that the elimination of senior IRGC commanders via decapitation strikes creates a power vacuum that the regular army (Artesh) or disillusioned mid-level commanders will fill, potentially triggering a “Soviet-style” internal collapse.
The 2026 campaign aims for total economic asphyxiation, forcing the state to stop performing ordinary functions like subsidizing food or electricity, which historically triggers mass unrest.
Once the “fear barrier” is broken by the regime’s visible inability to protect infrastructure or pay wages, the 80% of the population estimated to oppose the clerics will rise up, aided by the release of political prisoners who can provide immediate leadership.
Furthermore, the new IAF Lochem AI system’s ability to synchronize hundreds of simultaneous strikes prevents the regime from improvising repairs or rerouting supplies, accelerating the timeline from degradation to total paralysis.
Targeting water desalination and power grids, the state’s “service-delivery capacity” evaporates, proving to the populace that the clerical leadership is no longer capable of governance, only coercion.
The sheer scale of the humanitarian crisis caused by the strikes could direct anger inward at the regime for its provocation of the war, rather than outward at Israel and the US.
A failed state” scenario is likely preferable to the current “zombie state” that exports terror, and that the chaos of transition is a necessary price for ending the nuclear threat and theocratic rule permanently.
