What’s Goin’ On?

I must have read a dozen different opinion pieces on the war with Iran and know little more than I did when I last posted. Rather than dwelling on the things I didn’t like or agree with in these opinions, I’ll consider only the passages in them with which I agreed.

Thomas Friedman, New York Times

As this column has noted before, in the Middle East the opposite of autocracy is not necessarily democracy. Often it is “disorder.” Because when Middle East dictatorships are decapitated, one of two things happens. They either implode, like Libya did, or they explode, like Syria did.

Persians are only around 60 percent of Iran’s population. The other 40 percent is a mosaic of minorities, mainly Azeris, Kurds, Lurs, Arabs and Baloch. Each has links with lands outside of Iran, especially Azeris with Azerbaijan and Kurds with Kurdistan. Prolonged chaos in Tehran could lead any of them to split off and for Iran to, in effect, explode.

George Will, Washington Post

Iran’s protesters dramatically underscored the regime’s barbarism, so those who today regret the regime’s demise reveal their barbarism.

Editors, Wall Street Journal

All of this reveals the risks of ending the bombing campaign before Mr. Trump’s stated war aims are achieved. Mr. Trump has said he will respond to continued Iran retaliation with more bombing, but he also told Axios that he is open to “off-ramps” if the regime seeks to resume diplomacy. What precisely those ramps are isn’t clear, but he told The Atlantic on Sunday that Iran’s new leaders “want to talk, and I have agreed to talk.” The regime may promise more seeming concessions to entice Mr. Trump to stop the bombing and give it a lifeline.

This would raise the risk of ending before Iran’s navy and its missile stocks, launchers and productive capacity are destroyed. It would also leave most of the IRGC and its basij enforcers intact. As long as these remain in control, the regime will be able to shoot to kill protesters and cow any domestic uprising.

Reuel Marc Gerecht and Ray Takeyh, WSJ

Mossad now has an Iran regime-change department; it probably has already discovered that killing the Islamic Republic’s leadership is a hell of a lot easier than helping Iranians overcome security services that have shown they are willing to kill thousands to stay in power.

Ali Shamkhani, head of Iran’s National Defense Council, was recently asked whether he regrets not developing the bomb in the 1990s, when he was defense minister. “I wish I had,” he said. “Today it is evident that Iran should have developed this capability itself.” Shamkhani was killed Saturday, and he surely speaks for those left behind.

Sen. Tim Kaine, WSJ

The U.S. and Iran have both constructed narratives whereby the other is the aggressor in this longstanding conflict. More war isn’t the answer. If it were, the past 70 years would have produced a better outcome than what we see today.

George Friedman, Geopolitical Futures

More will come to light, of course, but it seems clear to me that the purpose of the attack was regime change. Regime change is not easy. Destroying a government requires more than random assassinations; it requires the destruction of the physical infrastructure of how a government functions – office buildings, communications capabilities, computers that contain information on citizens, and so on. Decapitation and regime change require disabling the government from functioning and, at times, permitting chaos (dangerous if the public favored the government’s ideology and policies). A new version of the old government might emerge, as could a regime even more hostile to the U.S. and Israel.

John Limbert, Responsible Statecraft

Few people, Iranian or non-Iranian, will mourn the downfall of the Islamic Republic. Most will welcome an Iranian government that treats all its citizens decently and which does not threaten other countries, near and far. Bombing Iran’s military sites and eliminating top officials, however, will not bring such a happy outcome. The Islamic Republic, in its dismal 47-year history, has shown unexpected resilience. It has survived assassinations, sanctions, war, and incompetence. It has a cadre of supporters among some Iranians who are willing to slaughter their compatriots rather than give up their privileges and face retribution for 47 years of abuse.

The entirety of the symposium at RS, linked above, is worth reading.

I could fisk each of those pieces and about a dozen more but it isn’t really worth the trouble.