Everyone is waiting for a comment on the strike against Iran. But anything I wrote right now would be a first take. A second look requires more time.
Let me instead recall something from the late psychologist and Nobel laureate Daniel Kahneman. The question of whether the Iranian regime will fall — and what, if anything, might replace it (or whether we end up with some uneasy compromise, as in Venezuela) — is extraordinarily complex. We would need to account for dozens of variables, many of which we simply do not know. We might search for historical analogies, but every regime is unique. To truly get to the bottom of it would require hours of exhausting thought — and even then, it is unclear whether we would arrive at the correct conclusion.
Fortunately, we possess a brain that spares us such effort. It quietly substitutes a far simpler question. Then it persuades us that this very simple question — one we can answer in a matter of seconds — is in fact the product of sophisticated analysis. And just like that, we have clarity. No strain required.
After that, the mind shifts gears. It no longer asks, “How will this end?” Instead, it hunts for arguments proving that the quick, surface-level answer was right all along. In a complicated reality, it selects only what confirms the prior judgment. Everything else is filtered out — not by conscious choice, but by the architecture of the mind itself.
And what is the substituted question? More often than not, it is this: “Which side do I want to win?” Assigning sympathies costs nothing. Notice how rarely one encounters an analyst who openly favors one side yet predicts victory for the other. Such intellectual separation is uncommon.
I have tried to proceed differently. I drafted a list of possible outcomes and assigned each a probability. In my first iteration, the most likely scenario was that the ayatollahs would remain in power. After every significant development, I revise the estimates. On the basis of logic. If an event does not alter the forecast, then either the event was insignificant — or the forecast is insulated from facts.
A brief summary of what may not have reached you. “Big Serge” — in my view the only military analyst currently worth reading — anticipates several weeks of reciprocal missile and strike exchanges. He argues that nothing meaningful can be inferred from the opening salvo. Meanwhile, parts of the Israeli press sketch a different vision: after major missile barrages, swarms of drones would take over, “hunting” specific individuals and in effect replacing a ground army.
I offer no prediction. Only a caution: before we congratulate ourselves on our clarity, we might ask whether we are answering the hard question — or merely the easy one.