What will happen if Trump attacks Iran’s electricity grid?
The Iranian military won't be degraded
U.S. President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have both expressed an intent to destroy the Iranian electricity grid. This action would do little to achieve U.S. and Israeli war objectives. It would fail to degrade the Iranian military’s operational capacity or open the Strait of Hormuz, while killing thousands of the very civilians the war was supposedly fought to protect. Perhaps most ominously, it would set a dangerous precedent for future conflicts against vastly more powerful actors.
The Iranian grid will be destroyed
There is no doubt that U.S. and Israeli forces can destroy the Iranian electricity system: the U.S. and Israeli forces have near-total control over Iranian airspace. But just because the United States can do something does not mean that it should.
The Iranian population of 92 million individuals will plunge into a crisis of disease, deprivation of water, and hunger
Iran’s mismanaged water system is largely tied to ground wells powered by electricity; in the event of a grid collapse, basic sanitation and sewage systems in Iran would fail, incubating waterborne disease. There is ample precedent: in the wake of the First Gulf War, destruction of the Iraqi grid led to tens of thousands of excess civilian deaths from cholera and other waterborne diseases, with a New England Journal of Medicine analysis finding over 46,900 excess deaths among Iraqi children under five. Individuals cut down by American or Israeli bombing of Iranian electricity infrastructure would include the brave protesters who have repeatedly risked their lives opposing the Khamenei regime. Their children will also die.
The Iranian military’s operational ability will be little affected by striking grids or refineries
In his seminal study, Strategic Attack of National Electrical Systems, then-United States Air Force Major Thomas E. Griffith noted: “National electrical systems are not a viable target. If the wars of the near future will be limited wars and not total wars of attrition, then attacks on electric power should not be considered. Although national power systems are vulnerable to air attack, the military is largely insulated from a loss of power, and civilian discomfort has not been shown to influence government policy.”
Griffith’s hard-won wisdom should be heeded, including in the present crisis: attacking electricity grids is highly escalatory, and generally ineffective. Iranian military operations will suffer from the loss of power. Still, Iran’s transport erector launchers (TELs) for ballistic missiles and Shahed drones bedeviling the U.S. and its coalition partners require very little fuel or electricity to operate – and, as Griffith noted, the military will secure first access to these items in any event. The Khamenei regime will continue to retain offensive capacity even if the Iranian grid is destroyed.
The Iranian military is largely running on diesel for both transportation and its own islanded electricity networks. Most military ground vehicles and generators run on diesel, which can be stored for months, and military fuel needs are limited. At the peak of U.S. counterinsurgency operations in Iraq, for instance, military distillate annual demand reached 67,000 barrels per day in 2008, or just 1.7 percent of total U.S. distillate demand. Iran’s total diesel consumption in 2024 totaled 684,000 barrels per day. The Iranian military has more than enough diesel to fight the war: bombing refineries and the electricity grid will only damage the civilian sector.
The remnants of the Khamenei regime will strike back across the Middle East, and potentially even in the United States homeland
Iranian officials have repeatedly vowed to respond to attacks on the Iranian grid by targeting regional energy and water infrastructure. This is a credible threat. Iranian drones and missiles are increasingly overwhelming the coalition’s point defenses at key infrastructure nodes, all it takes is one missile or drone to get through, and Iranian fire rates remain consistently high, while it may have ample drones remaining in inventory. Escalating the crisis by destroying the electricity grid would further convince the Khamenei regime that they are in a struggle for survival, incentivizing Iranian forces to strike critical infrastructure targets across the Middle East or worldwide.
If the Strait of Hormuz is closed for several more weeks – or months – a global recession will almost inevitably occur. About 20 percent of oil and liquefied natural gas transits the Strait of Hormuz, along with other critical commodities such as fertilizer, sulfur, and petrochemicals.
The Strait of Hormuz does not open
Destroying the Iranian grid would do little to open the Strait of Hormuz. Iranian forces would likely be even more motivated to close the Strait in the wake of the evisceration of Iran’s electricity grid, and will retain the capacity to do so. While the Iranian civilian economy will be devastated, Iranian military forces will have ample diesel fuel to continue the fight for months, even assuming total and immediate loss of all refinery capacity and electricity access.
Civilian grids will be targeted in future wars
Finally, if President Trump or President Netanyahu destroy the Iranian grid, they may inaugurate a new and dangerous world where civilian electricity grids are considered dual-use infrastructure. If electricity grids are now battlefields, the consequences for civilians in future conflicts may be profound. If the United States destroys Iran’s civilian grid, Beijing will notice. China holds dominant positions across global electricity supply chains, and a U.S. attack on civilian power infrastructure would hand Beijing a pretext to threaten similar actions in a future crisis.
Joseph Webster is a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Global Energy Center and the Indo-Pacific Security Initiative; he also edits the independent China-Russia Report. This analysis reflects his own personal opinion.
The China-Russia Report is an independent, nonpartisan newsletter covering political, economic, and security affairs within and between China and Russia. All articles, comments, op-eds, etc represent only the personal opinion of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent the position(s) of The China-Russia Report.