With the US-Israeli war on Iran, historian Adrien Fontanellaz has warned that President Donald Trump is following Russian leader Vladimir Putin’s strategy —beginning with low‑cost operations such as last month’s invasion of Venezuela and last year’s strikes on Iran’s nuclear sites— that fosters overconfidence and ultimately leads to a larger, protracted conflict he cannot control.
With the US-Israeli war on Iran, military historian Adrien Fontanellaz has warned that President Donald Trump is following Russian leader Vladimir Putin’s strategy —beginning with low‑cost operations such as last month’s invasion of Venezuela and last year’s strikes on Iran’s nuclear sites— that fosters overconfidence and ultimately leads to a larger, protracted conflict he cannot control.
The United States and Israel on Saturday
launched a joint offensive against Iran, striking several neighbourhoods in Tehran, including the area where Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei and President Masoud Pezeshkian normally reside. Explosions have also been reported in several other cities such as Isfahan, Karaj, and Chabahar. Iranian state media reported early on Sunday that
Khamenei had been killed in strikes — hours after Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced it.
In an interview at the Rising Bharat Summit, Fontanellaz on Saturday said that Trump has followed a trajectory similar to the one that Putin followed from the invasion of Georgia in 2008 to the full‑scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
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After invading Georgia in 2008 in the name of defending ethnic Russians, Putin invaded and annexed Ukraine’s Crimea in 2014 without a protracted campaign, and then pursued a low‑intensity war in eastern Ukraine’s Donbas region until he launched the full‑scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. While the previous low‑cost missions were successful, the full‑scale invasion —initially expected to conclude within weeks— has become a grinding war of attrition four years later with 1.2 million casualties.
Fontanellaz said that Putin “overstepped” with the full‑scale invasion of Ukraine and warned that Trump could have done the same.
“Out of hubris, Putin thought he could repeat a short operation against entire Ukraine. And now both Russia, Ukraine, and Western Europe are stuck into a protracted conflict without an end and without any political solution in view to stop it. And now we see Trump in power,” said Fontanellaz, drawing a parallel with Trump.
Fontanellaz added, “The armed intervention against Iran last year was just a single strike and most of the war was done by the Israeli Air Force beforehand. And, then, of course, Venezuela was a fantastic PR military operation where they kidnapped a president. So, for him, military operations were easy, well under control, scoring a lot of PR points.”
But, unlike last year when Iran’s retaliation was aimed at resolving the crisis,
Trump might not have left that room this time.
“Last year, Iran opted for a kind of demonstration, diplomatic retaliation with a wave of short‑range missiles against US bases in Qatar. So it was not a retaliation to kill. It was a retaliation to demonstrate. It was signalling,” said Fontanellaz.
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Similarly, in Venezuela, it is now clear that Trump had made a deal with Nicolas Maduro’s deputy, Delcy Rodriguez, and the US invading force did not meet any meaningful resistance as it swept into Caracas and whisked away Maduro. With Iran, Fontanellaz said, the current offensive could prove to be very different.
Iran has lots of options, Trump can’t control this war, says Fontanellaz
Unlike last time, Iran’s retaliation this time would not be about signalling but real, said Fontanellaz.
Iran began retaliating shortly after American and Israeli strikes began. Strikes have been reported across Israel, and American troops and bases have been targeted in Qatar and Bahrain. Impacts have also been reported in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Saudi Arabia, but it is not yet clear whether these were strikes or debris from intercepted missiles, rockets, or drones heading elsewhere. On both sides, the scale of damage and casualties is also not yet known.
“The danger this time is that there is no control over what the Iranian will do. They have plenty of ways to try to retaliate. Iran has serious and several options to retaliate. For example, they could target American ships in the Persian Gulf. They have, according to the Israeli, at least 1,000 long‑range ballistic missiles in stock. They have also thousands of short‑range missiles—enough to reach bases in Saudi Arabia, the Emirates, and Qatar, for instance,” said Fontanellaz.
In Iran, in addition to Khamenei, Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) chief Mohammad Pakpour and Defence Minister Amir Nasirzadeh have been killed, according to the state media.
While the United States and Israel have called their offensive a “pre‑emptive” attack, Fontanellaz said they obviously intend to “try and bring Iran to the negotiating table so they can open up their nuclear facilities to inspections or to push them into demilitarising or deweaponising their nuclear options”. But he does not believe the approach is likely to work.
Fontanellaz added, “I’m very sceptical because the long‑range ballistic missiles and the nuclear‑threshold capability are kind of insurances for Iranians and guardians of the revolution perspectives. So I guess they will not give up the nuclear programme. My assumption is they will not renounce on them so easily. But we’ll see.”
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