Asked and Answered

Many of us have been saying this from the start. But now that CENTCOM is actually asking, Melanie Phillips answered.

Treat Iran Like Terrorists, Not a State

My message to CENTCOM

How America can get out of its fix over Iran

By: Melanie Phillips, Aug 4, 2026:

ADVERTISEMENT

CENTCOM is soliciting ideas “for new, creative and unconventional ways to pressure and punish Iran”.

It turns out that this is not satire. After five months of war, America’s top military brass apparently hasn’t got a clue how to defeat Iran. They’re stuck, and scratching their heads. And now, thanks to an internal message that was bound to find its way into the media, the entire world knows that too.

CENTCOM’s appeal, made by an officer in its intelligence branch, was sent to its own troops. But given its obvious distress, here’s a creative and unconventional response from a mere observer.

Dear CENTCOM,

Your entire strategy is totally wrong from start to finish. Your aim is to wear down the regime until it agrees to your terms. This is a foundational error. Your aim should be instead regime change by destroying the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) that wields power in Iran.

ADVERTISEMENT

I would say this to your Commander-in-Chief, but he hasn’t asked.

This is why America should change its strategy.

• Understand that all negotiation with the regime is worse than pointless. Their agenda is non-negotiable. You cannot negotiate with fanatics who believe that producing an apocalypse will bring to earth the Shia messiah. They never, ever negotiate in good faith. They always lie. Negotiation to them is merely an opportunity to delay, to obfuscate and to exploit the weakness of America, which refracts everything through the Western belief in the overriding impulse of self-interest. This is laughable. The Iranian regime believes it has a divine command to destroy the west. America’s attachment to negotiation merely tells the regime it’s on course to achieve America’s defeat.
• End the incoherent thinking. President Trump talks of forcing the regime to surrender. But he’s also pushing for a negotiated deal. Surrender is the outcome of defeat. A negotiated deal is the outcome of concessions on both sides. So which is it? It can’t be both.
• Stop thinking that the regime has a pain threshold. Trump said last week: “We’ll be hitting them very hard, and you know, at some point, they’re going to say, ‘We just can’t take it anymore.’”

That point will never arrive. The regime can take infinite pain. It’s prepared to sacrifice the Iranian people and see the country’s infrastructure destroyed. As long as the regime survives in some form, it will think it’s won because it can always regroup and continue with its infernal agenda, however long it takes. Which it will do. Bombing even more stuff will therefore have only a limited effect.

• Change your war aim to regime change — the only way to neutralise the unconscionable menace those fanatics represent for their people, the region and the world. That means empowering the heroic people of Iran to take their country back. That means in turn preventing the IRGC from being able to continue to jail and torture them, hang them and mow them down in the streets. That means destroying the IRGC.

How? Ask the Israelis.

• Bid farewell to Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner. They are hopelessly compromised by their financial interests in the region. Their negotiations in both Gaza and Iran have been demonstrably farcical. Many lives have been needlessly lost as a result. They should be removed forthwith from all involvement in the war against Iran and its proxies.

Now persuade the President.

You’re welcome.