Controlling Iran’s skies does not mean the regime will fall to the ground |
When Caroline Levitt says that the United States is “steadily moving toward control of Iranian airspace”
within four to six weeks, she is talking about a military equation, not a rule equation. We have seen this movie before: the skies can be occupied, but the ground is not governed by aircraft.
This type of control, however decisive it may seem, does not necessarily mean the fall of the regime in Tehran. The skies are not the state, and the air does not rule the ground.
The same Western analysts are beginning to question the popular idea that air control means the end of the regime. This is also the belief of British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who believes that attempting to remove the Iranian leadership through air strikes without a ground invasion will succeed, which is one of the reasons why Britain did not join the US-Israeli strikes against Iran.
Starmer told Parliament, “This government does not believe in regime change from the sky,” stressing that military action requires a legal basis and “a well-thought-out, workable plan with an achievable goal”.
The War Zone magazine wrote that there is “a growing misconception that the US and Israel have achieved complete control of Iranian airspace,“ stressing that talk of “absolute air superiority” is inaccurate and that Iranian defences are still capable of operating in large areas.
Fox News quoted US Secretary of War Pete Haggis as saying that the US is “making decisive progress” and that air control “will be complete within days,” but he did not say that this would........