Originally published April 24, 2026 for our weekly Issue of Mindful Intelligence Advisor. Subscribe to get weekly issues.
By Michael A. Cessna, Military Affairs Correspondent
“I think NATO is obsolete. NATO was done at a time you had the Soviet Union, which was obviously larger – much larger than Russia is today. I’m not saying Russia is not a threat. But we have other threats. We have the threat of terrorism. And NATO doesn’t discuss terrorism. NATO’s not meant for terrorism. NATO doesn’t have the right countries in it for terrorism.” – President Donald J Trump
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Beginning in the first week of January 2026, US President Donald Trump launched into a high-stakes gamble, with a large number of moving parts, and a high chance of failure. The Trump administration’s Panama-styled “Operation Just Cause” takedown of Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro opened the year.
Delta Force “operators” swiftly inserted themselves into the country and captured the drug-trafficking dictator and his wife, then successfully extracted them from the country. Both are now in custody in New York City on Federal drug charges.
No sooner was Maduro in custody than the Machine inside the Washington, DC Beltway turned its attention to the other side of the world.
In Iran, economic protests that began on December 28th of 2025 had suddenly morphed into a massive ‘street revolution.’
For the first time in forty-seven years, these protests seemed to have the potential to overthrow the financial lynchpin that held many of the worst terror groups in the Middle East together, keeping them in operation for far longer than they should have been.
Now, as we enter the third week of April of 2026, a massive month-long air and naval campaign – the largest the United States has conducted since the 2003 invasion of Iraq – has severely degraded the military and governmental structure of the Islamist regime in Tehran.
A. BACKGROUND
THE CLERICS – When the late Shah of Iran, Reza Muhammad Pahlavi, was forced to flee Iran in February of 1979, what had been our strongest ally in the Middle East – stronger by far than Israel at that time – suddenly, almost literally overnight, became a blood-enemy.
When the religious zealots in charge of the country led chants of “DEATH TO AMERICA!”, they meant it. This continued, even as the country was invaded by Saddam Hussein’s Iraq in 1980, kicking off the bloodbath now known as the Iran-Iraq War.
Today, the radical Shi’a clerics controlling the country – many of them not at all Iranian – not only still chant “Death to America!” and “DEATH TO ISRAEL!”, but directly sponsor all manner of proxy terror groups throughout the Middle East.
They don’t just sponsor Hezbollah, who were the group that carried out the bombing of the Marine Barracks in Beirut in 1983, they also sponsor Hamas, who perpetrated the gory bloodbath of the October 7 attacks in Israel.
In addition to Hamas, they’re also supporting the Houthi Movement in Yemen. These same Houthis just recently effectively closed off the Red Sea to commercial merchant vessel traffic for a time, while launching Iran-supplied SCUD-derived ballistic missiles at anyone within range.
These are the major agents of the Islamic Republic, but many other such agents, or groups, exist, albeit smaller and less capable, but no less bloodthirsty.
The clerics were able to sustain this for the last forty-odd years, because of the succession of administrations. Democrats seemed to want to appease Iran while Republicans seemed to want to simply detain, not destroy Iran.
However, Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Iran drove the bulk of the people on the side of the mullahs – not because the people liked the mullahs, but because they were loyal to the idea of Iran.
The blunders and missteps of these U.S. administrations, examined through a neutral lens, display either unimaginable levels of incompetence, or outright treasonous behavior; there really are no third options.
THE PROTESTS – Throughout it all, the religious zealots in Tehran have engaged in levels of open and naked corruption internally such that the Iranian Rial collapsed on December 28, 2025, to a staggering IRR 1.4 million to $1.
At the same time, corrupt regime leaders – religious, secular and military – have pushed out so many worthless dam projects, they have critically damaged the nation’s artesian water supplies.
This has led to many villages in the country’s interior being abandoned for lack of water, with the population migrating to the large cities, further increasing stress on those water systems.
The industrial sector has fared no better.
While Iran still has some level of civilian industrial production, it is hamstrung by old plant equipment and gross inefficiencies.
Car and truck manufacturing does continue, but those exports bring in only minimal revenue, under $9 million. Exports of mining and agricultural equipment, while better, have highly suspicious and unreliable sourcing, making hard figures not worth reporting.
The one area where Iranian industry has been working overtime is in the war-materials production sphere.
Iran does have the capability to manufacture battalion-organic weapons and ammunition (from handguns to mortars, heavy machine guns, light artillery and some light anti-tank missiles).
It also remains capable of at least making bespoke spare parts for things like main battle tanks and some jet aircraft (the fact that a few F-14 ‘Tomcat’ fighters left over from the Shah’s air force are still flying is frankly astounding), but the main Iranian arms export is its unmanned drone fleet.
While presented as an impressive array of remote weaponry, the regime’s drone fleet has been very underwhelming when pitted against an active and ready air defense network.
Their drone and missile exchanges with Israel in 2024 and 2025 saw Iran fire c.1800 drones and ballistic missiles at Israel in total, with fewer than fifty actually hitting close to any targets.
All the same, Iran has supplied a steady stream of its Shahed-131 and -136 drones to Russia for its long-running war in Ukraine…but significantly, Russia has to extensively modify them for use against a Ukrainian air defense network supported by U.S. and NATO air defense systems.
Lastly, there is the dilapidated state of Iran’s oil production industry. Iran, as of 2026, is no longer able to refine the oil that emerges from its own fields. It can pump raw crude to tankers for export, but it has to import refined fuels for all of its internal vehicles and aircraft.
Decades of mismanagement, corruption, lack of internal investment and an inability to maintain the physical plant have severely hampered Iran’s ability to push out oil, which is the country’s main financial lifeline.
B. CURRENT SITUATION
BEFORE EPIC FURY – After an initial period of confusion and fear inside the Islamic regimes’ leadership over what to do about the mass protests throughout the nation, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and its Basiji Militia adjunct moved into the streets in forces, and commenced a series of massacres across the country.
Concentrated on January 8 and 9, and continuing throughout January, the numbers of dead Iranian civilians could be somewhere around 40-45,000 people, conservatively.
In a direct response, the USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN 72) and its escorting strike group were ordered to the vicinity of the Arabian Sea, adjacent to the Strait of Hormuz, in mid-January. It was here that the first danger point appeared.
As of January 1, 2026, the United States had only two out of eleven aircraft carriers and their strike groups ready to deploy. The Lincoln was in the South China Sea, while the USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN 78) and its strike group were operating in the Caribbean, overseeing operations against Maduro’s Venezuelan regime and keeping an eye on Cuba (which is still a developing situation).
All of the other nine carriers were in various states of maintenance; only the USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN 71) and the USS George H.W. Bush (CVN 77) were “active”, in that they were in the process of “work-ups” – the process of ensuring that all of the many working components of a carrier strike group are functional and capable of working together – but were weeks from being available for deployment. The USS Eisenhower (CVN 69), in January, was still five or six months from being able to deploy.
This is a critical fail-point that had been building since the defense budget sequestrations of the Obama-era. Severe cuts had to be made to comply, which caused a long-term backlog in critical maintenance required to keep ships in fighting order to begin backing up.
This was aggravated by the Biden administration’s COVID-19 workplace restrictions, which had the immediate effect of delaying the refueling of the USS Stennis’ (CVN 74) nuclear refueling, extending a process that should have taken two years out to five; Stennis is not expected to leave the fueling process until the end of 2026.
This has obviously cut severely into deployment schedules, as the USS Ford – as of April 15, 2026, has been at sea in an operational posture for over 296 days, breaking a record set during the Vietnam War. This is brutal pace for both ship and crew.
This was the prelude to combat operations commencing on February 28th. Even given the terrible posture of the United States Military, the surge of air and naval forces into the region that began in earnest at the end of January was remarkable.
OPERATION EPIC FURY – When “Operation Epic Fury” (or “Operation Roaring Lion” for Israel) commenced on February 28th, US and Israeli forces – to the surprise only of those with no concept of reality – began to destroy Iran’s military and political structure in detail.
The Iranian navies (the regular national navy, as well as the IRGC ‘mosquito fleet’ of armed speedboats) ceased to exist within the first week. This led to the sinking of the 1,500-ton Moudge-class frigate IRIS Dena on March 4th by the Los Angeles-class attack submarine USS Charlotte. This was the first sinking of a hostile vessel by a US Navy warship with a torpedo in combat since World War 2.
In the air, US and Israeli planes hammered the Islamic Republic’s command and control structure with an opening of some 1,500 reported strikes on government and military targets, including the first successful “decapitation strike” – the direct targeting of a nation’s leadership – since the term was coined in the popular vernacular in the 1980’s/
That strike apparently killed the “Supreme Leader” Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, some parliamentary officials and several senior IRGC commanders.
The regime responded with a massive barrage of ballistic missile and drone attacks on almost every country within range. While most of the strikes aimed at Israel failed to hit many targets of consequence, some strikes did get through, hitting and damaging mostly civilian housing complexes.
In the Persian Gulf, however, the Gulf Emirates and their populations – previously quiet supporters of the Tehran regime – suddenly discovered why that was a very poor choice of friends.
The regime in Tehran (such as that is, since it remains unclear who, exactly, is in charge, as of April 23rd) began firing barrages of Shahed drones at seemingly random targets in all of the Gulf Emirates, including Oman.
While a few military targets associated with the United States were hit, the vast majority of the drone strikes hit residential areas not associated with the US in any way. The attacks continued after the ceasefire began on April 8th.
At sea, with most of the Iranian Navy[s] sunk at anchor, or in suicidal sorties against US forces, on April 20th, the USN disabled, boarded and captured the Iran-flagged M/V TOUSKA in the Arabian Sea after it refused to halt its attempt to enter Iranian ports. Board-and-stop operations continue as this Deep Dive goes to print.
Diplomatically, Operation Epic Fury has brought the fundamental cracks in the NATO alliance into stark focus. Once stalwart allies like Britain and France have refused, point blank, to aid the United States in any way against Tehran, with Leftist-controlled Spain joining in, the whole value of NATO to the U.S. seems to crumble.
Notably, those three countries lack the combat power to aid the US in any way beyond acting as unsinkable aircraft carriers.
C. ASSESSMENT
As of publication, the facts on the ground are clear and stark:
There is no path to victory for the Islamic Revolutionary regime.
Even if Donald Trump commits political suicide by ending Operation Epic Fury prematurely, and unilaterally withdrawing U.S. combat forces from the Persian Gulf Theater, the regime in Tehran has been fatally compromised by combat operations to date.
They have lost too many experienced leaders – those capable of holding down the tensions and rivalries between the various factions of their state – too many physical assets, as their air force, in addition to their navy, is now functionally non-existent.
Even their oil production capacity has been so badly damaged, it is effectively a non-entity in contributing to Iranian state revenues…and that’s before addressing the looming water crisis.
Where Iran had been the major proxy supporter of terror groups throughout the Middle East, they can no longer do so: their internal currency is worthless, and with the current loss of oil revenue, they have no meaningful way to pay for their mercenaries imported from Lebanon, Gaza and Iraq.
This is the trap Machiavelli warned about in The Prince – but then, Machiavelli was an infidel…that rather limits one’s educational options.
And that opens the door to the real endgame.
D. RECOMMENDATIONS
If I were President Trump, I would lean into “staying the course”. The midterms are approaching in November of 2026 and right now, Trump is already facing enough setbacks.
Backing out with a lame deal that leaves the Islamic Revolutionary apparatus in place, even as a rump, would be a major blunder on his part. It would only compound his growing issues at home. A victory, however, in due time, will buoy his flagging support.
If there is one thing to understand about Donald J. Trump, it is that assuming that he will make some colossally stupid blunder is the surest route to handing him a huge win.
However – no one is perfect, and there is always the chance that Trump could decide that continuing to pound the regime is approaching a zero-sum state, and that withdrawing under an agreement is a good strategy. That seems unlikely, but not improbable.
PREDICTIVE ANALYSIS
As of Friday, April 24th, the regime in Tehran – what is left of it – will fail to placate Trump, sparking a massive internal collapse (which is already in progress), and a renewed air offensive that will destroy what little coherent leadership and logistics infrastructure remains under regime control.
The secondary impacts will shape the region for the next century.
Trump’s ploy with the ceasefire – which he must have supposed even an intact regime in Tehran would not be able to adhere to – was more to allow US combat forces to rest and refit for the resumption of combat operations.
While the U.S. rests and re-arms, the regime is not able to do the same. The regime is unable to dig itself out of the rubble and repair its infrastructure for the next round.
When this second hammer comes down in full, the regime will lose the ability to sustain supply to its remaining military strength – the light infantry forces of the IRGC, the Basiji Militia, and their foreign mercenaries – with basic supplies, like rifle and machine gun ammunition…
…Which is the point at which the Iranian Street will reemerge, as it did in the first week of January. But this time, instead of peaceful protestors, the regime’s debilitated forces will face an aroused and enraged civilian population, intent on bloody revenge for the January massacres. It will get very ugly, very fast.
This would be a very dangerous situation, if there were no transitional government waiting in the wings…
In Iran’s case, there is a real exile government in all but name, waiting to step in: the Iran Prosperity Project (IPP).
POST-CLERICS – Led by Crown Prince Reza II Pahlavi, the IPP is the only organization in the greater Iranian Diaspora that has an actual plan for national recovery and governance.
Despite relentless propaganda from the worldwide Left-wing media, most Iranians in and outside of Iran support Pahlavi as at least a transitional leader.
Some are even calling for him to take the Imperial throne outright. This is not hyperbole, and the movement is not insignificant.
Videos of Iranians shot down in the streets of the country writing “JAVID SHAH!” (“Long Live the King!”) on the walls in their own blood create a visual representation of how real and profound that sentiment is.
The “ripple effect” of the regime’s collapse, however, looks to be closer to a global tsunami than a ripple.
Aside from the aforementioned impact in cutting off funding to terror groups and movements like Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis – which, alone, would reshape the Middle East – there would be an immediate cessation of support and sales to Russia. While this would not be a a huge impact on the Russian war effort, it would yet be impactful, nonetheless. The real impact is far greater than this.
NATO – Donald Trump and the main movers and shakers in his administration are done with Europe in general, and NATO, in particular…and what Europe is only now beginning to realize, is that the vast majority of the American people – and the voters – are done with them as well.
For decades, NATO member nations have left the United States and its taxpayers holding the bag to pay for European defense, offering only tepid support – at best – when the United States committed troops and cash in operations that directly benefited them.
And now, they have refused, point-blank, to help the United States finally deal with a criminal regime responsible for terror attacks on their own soil.
What is the track record of the “Orange Man Is Always Bad” global leader crowd? Nations that fit that bill, nations like Britain, France and Spain – have shown just how feckless and corrupt their leadership really is.
BRITAIN – Britain has allowed its military to deteriorate to the point that it is unable to “surge” a single warship to protect its own territories in the Mediterranean.
Keir Starmer should be deliriously happy that Javier Milei is in charge of Argentina, as Milei wants nothing to do with the Falklands.
Looking deeper, the once-mighty Royal Navy now has about twenty-five combat vessels in commission, with another thirty or so support vessels. They have one hundred and thirty-four (134 – not a typo) admirals on active duty. This ratio makes the Republic of South Africa’s 27 admirals for 12 ocean-capable ships appear downright efficient in comparison.
And coupled to this, is the degradation of the British Army, with many of their top tier forces losing personnel to what some might consider lawfare. Members of the SAS (Special Air Service) have been facing prosecution for “crimes” supposedly committed during “The Troubles” in Ireland.
These service members face prosecution based on EU human rights laws ex post facto, including possible “violations” in Afghanistan and Syria, in the form of political point-scoring many would simply call “lawfare”.
FRANCE – In contrast to Britain, France does have about one hundred ships in commission, including roughly thirty combat vessels. The current French political leadership, however, is more dysfunctional than Britain’s, although that may be changing in the aftermath of Emil Macron’s disastrous handling of French relations in Africa.
SPAIN – Meanwhile, Spain – although having a similar-sized navy to France, including minesweeping vessels that would be critical to clearing the Strait of Hormuz – is buried under yet another Leftist government that opposes “Trump-anything” on general principles.
CONCLUSION
The “Trumpian Trap”, here, is that the United States and Israel do not actually need Anglo-French-Spanish support to make Epic Fury work.
Trump asked for help from NATO and the various allied members individually, betting that they would refuse, publicly and messily…which they did. This is the leverage Trump can now use to present unilaterally exiting NATO to the American public, if he chooses to do so, post-EPIC FURY.
It’s not whether a nation has tools, but whether they will use them to aid you when you ask politely for help.
Europe is still quaking in terror at the thought of an all-out Russian invasion of Western Europe, should Ukraine collapse…and is only now starting to grasp that they have abandoned their own national defense – both internal and external – for so long, that alienating the only nation actually capable of defending them, was almost literally “cutting off their nose to spite their face”.
England needs an Alfred the Great. France needs a Charles Martel. Spain needs an El Cid…What they have are Starmer, Macron and Sanchez. But at least the United States has its own Charlemagne, warts and all.
And this is only early 2026, remember – Donald Trump’s term will not end until January of 2029.
FURTHER RESOURCES:
Deterring Armageddon: A Biography of NATO – Peter Apps
NATO: The Dangerous Dinosaur – Ted Carpenter
Iran: A Modern History – Abbas Amanat
The Ayatollahs and the MEK: Iran’s Crumbling Influence Operation – Lincoln P. Bloomfield
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