On Saturday, the United States and Israel struck Iran’s nuclear facilities, missile infrastructure and regime leadership across Tehran, Isfahan, Qom and Kermanshah. Tehran responded with salvos targeting every US base in the Persian Gulf. Hormuz came under threat.

Commentators reached for the most dramatic analogy: World War III. The analogy, while not absurd, overstates the probability. Four structural circuit breakers continue to separate regional catastrophe from systemic breakdown, though none is guaranteed to hold indefinitely.

First, one must understand what is actually being fought over. Center of gravity analysis reveals both sides targeting not each other’s armies but each other’s political foundations. Washington and Tel Aviv have identified Iran’s center of gravity as the regime itself: its survival capacity, nuclear claims, leadership cohesion and Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) loyalty. The targeting of nuclear sites, Khamenei’s compound and IRGC command nodes, combined with US President Donald Trump’s call for Iranians to “take over your government,” confirms the coalition seeks to dismantle the regime’s capacity to function.