I have been greatly disappointed by the dearth of critical analysis of the ongoing war with Iran. Although I have found a small number of generally interesting analyses, e.g. this post at The Diplomat by Youlon Nie on how the war disrupts China’s long-standing foreign policy thrust or this post at RealClearDefense by Ian Hill on how the war strengthens Russia’s position. Unfortunately, both of those articles have serious deficiencies. Dr. Nie’s analysis is interesting but doesn’t address the economic implications for China which seem immediate and grave to me. Although Mr. Hill’s analysis of the implications of the war for Russia seem sound to me and he gestures towards the implications for the war in Ukraine, he doesn’t actually examine them.
It may be that there are other worthwhile but paywalled pieces that I can’t access.
Beyond that most of what I’m seeing depends simply on the domestic political views of the author, i.e. if the author is anti-Trump, the piece opposes the war; if the author is pro-Trump, the piece supports it. I have searched the major media outlets, major policy journals, and think tank publications and found remarkably little strategic analysis.
What I find is silence.
What are the economic consequences for China? How does the war reshape Russia’s strategic position and the Ukraine war? Is regime change achievable without a ground occupation? How will the war affect America’s standing in the world?
I am neither reflexively pro-Trump nor anti-Trump. I can support good policies but will oppose bad ones. War against Iran seems like a very bad policy to me.
The arguments I have seen in favor of it tend to be consequentialist in nature. They emphasize how bad the existing Iranian regime is, a judgment with which I concur. They then make the leap that, if you oppose removing the regime by force, you either support the regime or are indifferent to the suffering of the Iranian people. Such arguments depend on the war producing regime change in Iran and I have seen no one argue convincingly that can be accomplished via air and naval power.
President Trump’s exhortation of the Iranian people which I will summarize as “We’ll remove the regime; you replace it” suffers from the weakness of going against the thrust of human history.
I have seen a few assertions that there is an active alternative “waiting in the wings” but they seem far-fetched to me. Didn’t we hear things like this about Afghanistan and Iraq in the early days of the wars there?
So, that’s where things stand as I see it. I’m confident that the U. S. can achieve every military objective with alacrity. Whether it can achieve the foreign policy objective of regime change is something else again.
If you can refer me to any good, well-argued, evidence-based pieces on the war, please leave links in comments.
