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.
