With the US-Israeli military campaign against Iran now into its sixth day, both sides continue to launch attacks amid fears the war could spill over into a broader regional conflict.

Michael Knights, head of research at Horizon Engage, a New Yorkbased strategic advisory firm and an adjunct fellow at The Washington Institute, spoke with RFE/RL's Vazha Taberidze about the likely objectives in the conflict for both sides and what may happen if those aren't achieved.

RFE/RL: What's at stake in this confrontation? What are the strategic objectives of each side?

Michael Knights:The minimal US-Israeli objectives are that Iran's offensive military capability to affect environments outside of Iran has to be reduced to an absolutely maximal extent.

That means that the missile program is crippled for the long term. There's no aircraft available, as few helicopters as possible, no navy, no major long-range rocket systems, [and] ground force capabilities are greatly degraded. That's the minimum.

Michael Knights

The bonus would be if the regime begins to crumble and there is ideally an inside-out change of government, meaning a change of government starting in Tehran, not a change of government starting in the provinces. This is why the president of the United States has been essentially begging Iranians to take over institutions and rise up within the cities.

But what we're starting to see is the other alternative happening, which is the crumbling of the regime from the outside, from Iranian Kurdistan, from the edges. That's not as attractive an outcome for anybody because it can start to break the country up and result in significant civil war-type conditions.

I don't think the Trump administration is going to back off without achieving its minimum objectives, which is an unprecedented destruction of the Iranian regime's military war machine and repressive institutions.

RFE/RL: Does the United States have a Plan Bif the chosen strategy to achieve those objectives doesn't yield the desired results?

Knights:I think Plan B is to do the destruction and then to stop the operation and to leave the Israelis to continually go back and mow the grass as if Iran is a new Lebanon.

If you look at the Israelis after they defeated Hezbollah, they go back whenever they want and they prevent reconstitution. At this point, that would be a feasible option for the Israelis.

So one end point here is that the US only achieves its minimum objectives of taking down Iranian military capabilities. And from that point onward the Israelis just conduct an endless campaign between the wars over Iran, entering whenever they want, destroying any target that they detect. They do a sort of death of a thousand cuts against the regime over a longer period of time, and they foment uprisings at the edges of the Iranian state.