The drought on analysis of our war with Iran continues. This Wall Street Journal column from Walter Russell Mead is typical of what I’m seeing. In the column Dr. Mead divides the possible outcomes into three categories: the U.S. loses, the U.S. wins, or something in between. That taxonomy is logically exhaustive but analytically empty. Every war ends in one of those states. What is missing is any discussion of the mechanisms that would produce one outcome rather than another: Iranian escalation capacity, American political endurance, the vulnerability of Gulf shipping, or the stability of the Iranian regime. Without identifying the drivers of the conflict, the analysis amounts to little more than labeling the possible endings:
The war looks set to end in one of three ways. One would be a clear and damaging American defeat. If a mix of global pressure and domestic opposition forces the Trump administration to end the conflict before full trade is restored through the Gulf, a battered Iran will emerge having demonstrated its ability to close the Gulf against everything the world’s greatest military power can throw at it. America’s power and prestige, not to mention Mr. Trump’s, would struggle to recover from such a fiasco.
Alternatively, the Americans could reopen the Gulf as a new Iranian government more focused on developing the country than on dominating its neighbors emerges. This would be a major victory for the Trump administration.
Most likely is an in-between scenario in which the U.S. largely clears the Gulf but the current regime survives. Operation Epic Fury would in that case be remembered as the Mother of All Lawnmowers, solving nothing fundamental but preserving a fragile balance of power in a vital part of the world.
Well, yes. Even a casually informed reader could have said that six months or six years ago. It is an exhaustive list of possibilities, but it tells us nothing about which is likely or why.
He ignores the most likely outcome. Trump just declares victory. He claims we have damaged Iran enough to stop. Since we didnt have any announced goals before the war who could disagree? Since this was AFAICT mostly driven by Israel the idea that we would just go back every few years and mow the place like Israel does in Gaza and the West Bank its probably acceptable to Israel though I suspect that Israel would prefer we put troops on the ground as they would be willing to fight Iran right down to the last American soldier.
Steve
The lack of analysis and Mead’s pablum are, IMO, entirely due to the incoherent and constantly conflicting narratives about the purpose and goals of this war. It’s hard to analyze potential outcomes and evaluate likely scenarios when the administration seems to have not set clear goals or conditions for war termination.
And despite the effectiveness of our efforts at attacking Iran’s military capabilities, the administration seems bizarrely unprepared to deal with the predictable effects, stuff I knew about back in the 1990’s when I was involved in Iran contingency planning.
There is now a lot of evidence that the right hand doesn’t know what the left hand is doing. It seems there is no current plan to open the SOH or escort merchant ships. And even there, we don’t have enough ships in the region. There doesn’t seem to be any minesweeping capability except for three shitty LCS’. Ironically, we just retired the four minesweepers we’d forward deployed there for the last two decades.
I know from friends that the preparation to get Americans out of the region did not happen until two days after the war started. This should have been preplanned. Even Northcom did not increase domestic security measures until a couple days after the war started. Again, should have been preplanned.
Then we have Trump saying merchant ships should be brave and just go through the straits. Meanwhile, the administration’s own maritime agency is telling mariners the opposite. The administration mustered up funds for war insurance premiums for ships, but too late for it to be effective.
The very predictable economic impacts were pretty clearly not planned for. And now Iran is taking advantage of this, as they’ve directly said they plan to win/survive this war via economic pressure.
So now this conflict will probably hinge entirely on our ability to prevent Iran from keeping the SOH closed and to convince shipping companies it is safe to transit. It’s already happening with China, but increasingly other countries will probably make deals with Iran to allow their ships to pass unmolested.
All this has been known and expected effects of a war with Iran going back decades, and yet this adminstration is unprepared.