Live updates: US and Israel strike Iran

America’s massive use of air power alone against Iran won’t be enough to rid the country of its repressive theocracy unless the U.S. succeeds in persuading the Iranian people and elements of the current government to actively back change, security expert Phillips O’Brien says.

This is crucial to remember because U.S. President Donald Trump appears to have launched this attack for domestic political reasons and so will not want to risk heavy American casualties by putting troops on the ground to back up the air campaign, said O’Brien, a professor of strategic studies at the University of St. Andrew’s in Scotland.

While air power can destroy buildings and weaken the current leadership, lasting government change won’t occur without the cooperation of people within Iran who are willing to support Trump’s aim of replacing the current government, O’Brien told The Associated Press.

“What air power can do is attack the present regime, in some cases quite powerfully, but it cannot guarantee it will be replaced or how it will be replaced,” he said.

We should be able to see within a few days whether support for the ruling theocracy is weakening if Iranian military units start to rebel or members of the regime begin to speak out against the country’s rulers, O’Brien said.