After Britain’s great World War II victory at El Alamein, Winston Churchill famously observed of the progress of the war: “Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.” In so observing, Churchill both honored his country’s greatest victory in three years of conflict, while reminding his audience that much struggle and sacrifice lay ahead.

As Churchill himself would later acknowledge, victory still remained very much in the balance. In particular, as he would write in his post-war memoirs, the U-Boat threat to Britain’s trans-Atlantic lifeline remained acute, reaching a crisis stage in early 1943. On more than one occasion, in private conversations, he would remind his war cabinet, his generals, his admirals — and his great friend, Franklin D. Roosevelt — that “we can still lose this war.”

We stand today at a similar moment with respect to our 47-year-old struggle with the radical Islam promoted by Iran. We will soon mark the one-year anniversary of what’s now called the “Twelve-Day War,” in which the U.S. and Israel smashed Iranian air defenses, eliminated various senior Iranian leaders, and, crucially, heavily damaged the most critical Iranian nuclear weapons facilities. (RELATED: The Mission Is Never Accomplished)

Not quite three months ago, on Feb. 28, major hostilities resumed with the famous “decapitation strikes” that killed “Supreme Leader” Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and a host of other senior Iranian officials, including, notably, Mohammed Pakpour, the head of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). This was followed by a sustained bombing campaign that crippled Iran’s military, air, and naval capabilities.

In the immediate aftermath of the elimination of Khamenei, thousands of Iranians took to the streets to celebrate, raising hopes that the regime might be overthrown. Indeed, President Trump and others repeatedly called upon the Iranian people to rise up and throw out the cabal of thugs who had ruled the country. Instead, the IRGC brutally suppressed the internal opposition, taking advantage of its monopoly on the instruments of force within the country. (RELATED: If Iran Had a Second Amendment, the Regime Would Already Be Gone)

Now, after weeks of bombing followed by various pauses, by attacks and counterattacks involving Iran’s neighbors, by the back-and-forth blockade and counter-blockade of the Straits of Hormuz, and, finally, by a series of “cease-fires” that scarcely merit the name, we find ourselves at yet another crossroads. We’re told, variously, that negotiations still have a chance, and then that time is running out, with the resumption of a major bombing campaign possible at any time. (RELATED: The Cease-Fire Fiction)

President Trump is, again variously, totally unsatisfied with Iran’s response to the latest peace proposals and yet willing to stay his hand in deference to requests from the several Gulf states, above all Saudi Arabia, to give negotiations “one more try.” Here at American Spectator, both Martin Arostegui and Frank Schell have offered thoughtful analyses of what is likely to come in the next few days and weeks. (RELATED: Moving Ahead on the Iran Front)

My purpose today is to look beyond the next few days and offer a few thoughts about the long-term prospects for our conflict with Iran. It’s a topic I’ve returned to frequently over the last several years. Two years ago, I contended that we were at war with Iran’s mullahs, a war that began 47 years ago with the Iranian revolution and the hostage crisis — those of us of a certain age vividly remember the 444 days of “American Held Hostage.”

In that essay, I insisted on a distinction between the thuggish theocracy of the mullahs and the Iranian people as a whole. I returned to this theme several months later in a more detailed discussion of Iran’s monstrous dictatorship and the monstrous repression it has visited on its long-suffering population. On that occasion, I also called out our own “morally obtuse progressives” for their inability to recognize the horrors routinely perpetrated by Iran’s Islamist regime.

I’ve consistently bemoaned the fact that, while the Iranian regime had been waging war against us since 1979, our own leadership, particularly the several subsequent Democratic administrations, had largely ignored the extent to which we were under attack. In large part, and for decades, we’ve approached Iran with both hands tied behind our backs — except in those instances when Obama and Biden offered massive handouts to the ayatollahs.

The coming of the second Trump Administration changed all that. No longer hampered by a RINO foreign policy, we finally began to fight back. Writing in the early days of the 2025 “Twelve Day War,” I noted that Israel and the U.S. had, collectively, the capacity to decapitate the Iranian regime, a capability exercised to decisive effect on Feb. 28, at the beginning of the current conflict. I also argued that the time had come to directly attack Iran’s nuclear weapons facility, an attack that ensued only days later. (RELATED: Ending the Ayatollah’s Nuclear Threat: No Better Time Than Now)

In that same article, I also suggested that, while nothing short of regime change would end the threat from Iran, the Iranian people were not yet in a position to rise up and throw the mullahs out. The will was there, but the means were lacking. The opposition groups were still inchoate, not yet able to unite behind an effective and coherent leadership. Above all, however, they lacked the weapons necessary to wrest control from the heavily armed Basij street thugs on whom the regime relied to control the streets.

Since then, much has changed, not least because of the Feb. 28 decapitation strike and the following six weeks of relentless aerial bombardment aimed at Iranian military and naval assets. Coupled with Israel’s continued pounding of Hezbollah, the tools the Iranian regime once relied on to project power have been neutered, if not yet completely neutralized. Furthermore, the government itself has been fractured.

Predictably, the hardline Islamists of the IRGC have taken center stage, taking advantage of their monopoly on the remaining instruments of force and their continued ability to manipulate the oil markets. Countries that have relied on Gulf oil now find themselves, to varying degrees, prisoners of fear as much as of actual Iranian military capabilities, and it is this fear, as much as any residual military capability, that the IRGC now relies upon.

If the current conflict is to be brought to a successful conclusion, we must recognize that the IRGC is in charge and, therefore, any semblance of a negotiated end to the war is illusory. To state this is to define the distance between our many tactical successes and our ultimate strategic challenge. Nothing short of regime change in Iran will accomplish the objectives sought by the U.S., by Israel, and by our Gulf state allies.

And this is also, precisely, why our present posture has become one of dithering in the face of the problem. It has been axiomatic since the aftermath of the Iraq war that “regime change” is a dirty word in Washington, and not just within the old-line national security establishment. Moreover, despite the Trump administration’s frequently expressed disdain for the old guard establishment, it fully shares its horror of anything that might be labelled “regime change.”

It’s no accident that the capture of Nicolas Maduro was followed by deal-making with his almost equally odorous vice-president. Instead of promoting a complete housecleaning or insisting on the return to power of the exiled — but democratically elected — opposition leader, we’ve chosen to work with the existing structure, albeit while exerting significant pressure to bring about our desired outcomes.

Nothing resembling this arrangement is currently available in Iran. If we want to bring this war to a successful conclusion, then a further effort is required to create the conditions that might allow it to emerge. This will require a renewed politico-military campaign with the following components.

First, working with our Gulf allies, we will need to break the IRGC’s residual capability to interfere with shipping along the Strait of Hormuz. This means a renewed bombing campaign and likely also the seizure of strategic real estate. Ideally, the latter would be undertaken by the Gulf states’ military forces, but make no mistake — without a lot of direct naval assistance, and perhaps some American boots on the islands and the shoreline, this will not happen.

Second, and this time working with the Israelis as well as the Gulf states, there will need to be targeted strikes aimed at breaking the hold of the IRGC over critical centers of power within the country. This should also include breaking the rail connection through which the IRGC is currently trying to ship oil overland to China. Hardening the oil blockade remains our most productive pressure point.

A renewed air campaign, however, should be conducted with care, especially with regard to the potential loss of American personnel. For our part, the primary tool of such efforts should be cruise missiles and other unmanned systems — the last thing we need at this critical juncture is giving the IRGC a captured pilot to exploit.

But bombing alone is not enough. The kinetic pressure on the IRGC must also come from within Iran. Last January, amidst the massive anti-regime demonstrations in Tehran and across the country, I expressed the hope that the rank and file of Iran’s regular army, the Artesh, might turn their guns on the Ayatollah, the IRGC, and their own regime-aligned senior officers. This morning, our own Scott McKay cited reports indicating that this might now be finally happening. Scott describes the Artesh as a “sleeping giant,” concluding that “if Artesh soldiers have begun shooting at the IRGC, it’s the game changer we’re looking for.” (RELATED: Five Quick Things: Will Republican Dominance Be Locked In?)

Scott is absolutely right, and this is something we — and the better-connected Israelis — should be at pains to encourage. We understand that many IRGC leaders have already made plans to flee to Moscow if things get too hot — we might call this the “Assad solution” after the former Syrian dictator’s flight into Russian asylum. The message should be “flee and survive” in one of Putin’s dacha colonies or live out your lives — hopefully short lives — in your caves and bunkers.

But if this is to happen, it can only occur if the IRGC leaders are convinced of our resolution, our determination to see things through to a successful conclusion. At present, as they watch the political theater orchestrated by the Democrats in this country, they still can believe that we will soon lose patience and seek a compromise on their terms.

This needs to be tackled head-on. At every turn, the American public needs to be reminded that President Auto-Pen achieved even higher gas prices only a few years ago by enacting precisely the policies that the Democrats promise to restore if they come to power once again. We might also remind our European allies that complaints about disruptions at the Strait of Hormuz ring hollow given their own benighted energy policies.

Having placed climate change fantasy ahead of intelligent energy policy, European governments shouldn’t get a free pass to blame their current energy woes solely on U.S. actions. The British, for example, should be reminded that complaints about the war accord very ill with their refusal to take full advantage of their own North Sea oil reserves. Much the same might be said of how the Germans shut down their nuclear power plants. These are failures that predate the current conflict, and we should emphatically resist all efforts to shift the blame.

Finally, we must continue to insist that Iran can never be allowed to have a nuclear weapon, nor the long range missiles capable of reaching every European capital. When it comes to the nuclear threat, quote Obama back to his face, quote Clinton, quote Biden. It’s not enough to say this now and again — there needs to be a daily drumbeat in support of this message.

Much has been accomplished since Feb. 28. With Churchill then, we might even speak of having reached “the end of the beginning.” But we are nowhere near the beginning of the end, and we will never get there if we walk away from the challenges that lie ahead. We can be relentless, or we can fail — there is no middle ground.

READ MORE from James H. McGee:

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James H. McGee retired in 2018 after nearly four decades as a nuclear security and counter-terrorism professional. Since retiring, he’s begun a second career as a thriller writer. His most recent novel, The Zebras from Minsk, was featured among National Review’s favorite books in 2025.  You can find The Zebras from Minsk (and its predecessor, Letter of Reprisal) on Amazon in Kindle and paperback editions.