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request for assistance. Some or all of these satellite actors might
choose to leave Iran to its fate, especially if initial U.S. strikes
seemed devastating to the point of decisive. But their involvement
would spread the conflict to the entire eastern Mediterranean and
perhaps beyond, complicating both U.S. military operations and
coalition diplomacy.
It seems fairly clear then that a conflict with Iran is unlikely to be an
isolated event in which the U.S. strikes, Iran retaliates, and it’s over—
with Iran either left with a viable nuclear program or not. War is far
more likely to be a series of actions played out over time at varying
levels of intensity and with a strong potential for escalation. Nor can
war with Iran be limited to military action; it will extend to the
diplomatic, economic and social domains. U.S. decision-makers
might prefer a limited war that would privilege U.S. military and
technical advantages, but Iran can force a broader conflict, where it
can employ its own political, economic and social means of waging
war, including terrorist attacks on U.S. soil and against U.S. interests
abroad. The challenge for the United States would be to conduct the
conflict so that the longer and broader the war, the more Iran would
lose. That objective should affect how the U.S. government would
fight in all four domains.
This means that even if the shooting starts at the military tactical or
operational levels, the United States or a U.S.-led coalition must plan
for all four levels of war and organize itself to ensure unity of
command and purpose across those levels. It will, for example, find
itself involved in a “secret war” of terrorist attacks and special
counterterror operations outside the main theater of conflict. It will
find itself in a “political war” involving Iranian and allied diplomatic
and information operations to weaken support from other states and
actors for the U.S. coalition and mobilize support for Iran. It will find
itself in an “economic war” featuring Iranian efforts to disrupt the oil

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