Why “Mowing the Grass” Won’t Work in Iran

At some point—whether sooner or later—major hostilities against Iran will come to an end. When the formal war with Iran concludes, Israel may hope that the United States would agree to pivot to a “mowing the grass” strategy against Iran—periodic attacks to degrade Iran’s missile and drone capabilities and keep Tehran off balance. Yet this approach will not work. Instead, it will lay the foundation for prolonged regional instability and global disruption.

In search of an Iran war off-ramp, President Trump has signaled his desire for an exit strategy—whether through a successful ceasefire negotiation or by some other, yet to be announced, deus ex machina. His claims of regime change, entombed enriched uranium, and a devastated Iranian military set the stage for a near-term U.S. withdrawal from the conflict. Yet, the president has also highlighted the possibility that the United States could return to undertake “spot hits” on Iran as needed. In practice, such a plan could easily evolve into “mowing the grass” in Iran, enduring low-intensity conflict punctuated by more intensive interventions.

Israel is well acquainted with this strategy. Two Israeli academics coined the term in 2013 for a strategy to address Israel’s “protracted intractable conflict” with “hostile non-state groups.” The strategy became synonymous with Israel’s longstanding conflict with Hamas in Gaza. While the approach may have served as a stopgap measure to manage conflict with Hamas, the strategy was often criticized for its dehumanizing framing, resulting disproportionate civilian deaths, and its failure to address the conflict’s political underpinnings. Following Hamas’s unprecedented October 7 attack on Israel, the longer-term limitations of “mowing the grass” became painfully clear.

Beyond the shortcomings of “mowing the grass” against nonstate adversaries, the strategy was never intended for state actors. Indeed, the authors specifically reference Iran as a challenge of a different magnitude—given Iran’s nuclear ambitions—that “requires separate treatment.” The last sentence of the Israeli scholars’ article is prescient; the authors warn, “if the non-state actors are to acquire statist characteristics and/or more powerful capabilities, ‘Mowing the Grass’ might become an outdated military strategy.”

Fast forward to today. It will be virtually impossible to entirely eliminate Iran’s drone and missile capabilities. Rather than return to full-scale war, the United States and/or Israel may be tempted to “mow the grass”—conduct periodic strikes to degrade Iran’s drone and missile capabilities whenever assessments point to Tehran significantly reconstituting its arsenal. Under this logic, the United States and Israel can simply “manage” the threat from Iran, returning to conduct strikes as needed without engaging the political challenges inherent in the conflict with Iran—a Sisyphean attrition strategy without end.

Except that it won’t work. Iran is not Hamas. It is the second-largest country in the Middle East with a population of more than 90 million; it currently possesses 400 kilograms of highly enriched uranium and now exercises de facto control over the Strait of Hormuz. Most importantly, Iran will continue to have enough drones and missiles to re-up its newfound disruption strategy if it feels significantly threatened. Even if current negotiations yield an arrangement on the strait, Tehran has demonstrated both the ability and the will to disrupt traffic through the strategic chokepoint if attacked. (Interestingly, Tehran adapted this approach from the Houthis—the Yemeni terrorist group that deployed the tactic to great effect in the Red Sea and Bab al-Mandab Strait after October 7.) 

In essence, a Rubicon has been crossed. At least for the foreseeable future, Iran can wield its asymmetric drone and missile threat to wreak regional chaos and global disruption if it believes circumstances dictate. Iranian drone attacks on ships attempting to traverse the Strait of Hormuz or on airports in Dubai or Doha, let alone Gulf energy infrastructure, will once again plunge the region and global markets into disarray.

Nor will a “mowing the grass” strategy address the challenge of Iran’s nuclear ambitions. Instead, pursuing a policy of episodic attacks on Iran will reaffirm Tehran’s ambitions for lasting deterrence—likely via pursuit of a nuclear weapon. Following multiple attacks on Iran starting in 2024, Iran’s leadership already may have concluded that possessing even a crude nuclear device could be its hope for deterrence. “Mowing the grass” in Iran will only further incentivize these ambitions.

In its original inception, “mowing the grass” was designed to erode capabilities of terror groups, not resolve conflict or even address political dimensions of the challenge. The doctrine accepts conflict as inevitable and enduring, only seeking to extend periods of relative calm between wars. Yet in the case of Iran, adopting this approach would yield a more ominous reality. “Mowing the grass” in Iran would trigger Tehran to respond with destabilizing drone and missile strikes. Even a badly degraded Iran can create the conditions for more acute challenges, with dangerous regional and global repercussions. It could leave the region highly unstable, destroy investor confidence and, with it, Gulf economies, shatter Gulf aspirations for a globally connected region, and usher the Middle East into a Hobbesian era devoid of norms, laws, and order.

Mona Yacoubian is director and senior adviser of the Middle East Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C.