A golden opportunity for victory

Let's not squander it

Iran has been at war with Israel and with the United States for many years. All of Iran’s proxies have now been defeated or are in the process of being defeated, and Israel has brought the fight to Iran with stunning success.

This represents a huge opportunity for the United States to support the first true victory in World War III, against the alliance of China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea. Choices in the coming weeks can do a great deal to shore up U.S. deterrence in this century’s ongoing war with the CRINK alliance.

There are three versions of ‘victory’ that are plausible:

1. Israel destroys all of Iran’s nuclear sites and associated infrastructure but does not cause the regime to collapse or the country to break apart. This scenario avoids the risk associated with a regime-change strategy, but ensures that Iran will continue trying to develop a nuclear weapon and will retool their missile capabilities over the next few years. Leaving the regime intact would buy time but would result in a continuation of the existing state of affairs, where Iran’s nuclear program has to be continuously monitored and damaged through intelligence operations and grey-zone warfare. Iran will continue to innovate around new ways of war and terrorism. Wherever Shiites are to be found in the fertile crescent, Iran will seek to reactivate proxies against Israel and against the West.

2. Israel and the United States impose some form of regime change in Iran. It seems to me that there is no capacity or appetite for this from the US side. This course of action seems most unlikely, not only because of American’s general exhaustion from the recent GWOT, but also because the administration has clearly signaled its intent to prioritize competition with China in the Indo-Pacific as its fundamental concern. Anyone who doubts this can simply watch the Vice President’s speech at the Naval Academy Commencement, 2025. There is a zero percent chance that the US will be willing to put troops on the ground in order to impose a new regime in Iran, and the Israelis do not have the capacity to do so. There is some possibility that the Israelis have a revolutionary movement queued up to take power in Iran with their backing, but I have no idea how to evaluate the probability of this.

3. Israel, with or without the backing of the United States, engages in an air campaign that amounts to a Clausewitzian total war, within the bounds of the modern understanding of the laws of war: In such a scenario, all infrastructure that could be used by the regime to exercise power would be targeted – either with conventional kinetic weapons, or with cyber and other means. This strategy would aim to cripple the regime’s hold on power by destroying its ability to threaten its enemies, both foreign and domestic. The target list would include prisons, power plants, dams, oil infrastructure – especially the export terminals, railroad crossings, roads, bridges, ports, research facilities and laboratories, border posts, police stations, military bases, telecommunications infrastructure, etc. Such a strategy is entirely legitimate, given Iran’s consistent use of terrorism, atrocity, and their explicitly genocidal war aims. A war with these aims would end only with the unconditional surrender of the regime and the imposition of some form of international monitoring to prevent any future nuclear efforts. The most likely outcome of such a campaign would be Iran turning into a failed state, with ethnic enclaves of Arabs, Kurds, Baluch, Azeris and others at least attempting to break free as new states. This is, from a US perspective, a perfectly acceptable outcome. We have no stake in the maintenance of the current borders of Iran.

For Israel and the United States to create this third outcome would mean that the Mullahs who run Iran have utterly miscalculated their ‘strategic opening’ in attacking Israel, both directly, and through proxies, over the past two years. Defeat by Israel will undermine their claim to religious authority and discredit them in the Islamic world – perhaps not unlike the way that the chaos generated by the US invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan generated accusations that Bin Laden had committed fitna.

I believe that the best strategic goal for the United States is (3) above.

Air power cannot dictate an outcome on the ground in terms of who comes to power, or even who stays in power. But an air-based total war can utterly remove the capability for the regime to make war and to oppress their own people, which can create an opening for disaffected groups to carve out their own paths. Removing the regime’s ability to make war on Israel and the West is an achievable goal for an air war, but will require a ‘total war’ attitude toward dual-use infrastructure that supports the regime. This ‘total war’ from the air posture is also consistent with the President’s apparent instinct, which is to secure a real and lasting victory, wherever possible.

Now, the world is wondering what the United States will do. Here is a short outline of American strategic options:

1) Restrain Israel: Since World War II, the United States has a history of preventing our allies from fighting wars to an unquestioned victory and an unconditional surrender. This results in never-ending frozen conflicts and long, attritional wars. It also discredits the US as a useful ally and erodes deterrence.

2) Do nothing: The British used to refer to this category of strategies as “Masterly Inactivity.” In this case, doing nothing would mean allowing Israel to finish this war on their own terms, while continuing to sell them the weapons they need in order to support the war effort. This requires overcoming the deep tendency to “do something,” even when taking action is strategically inferior to doing nothing.

3) Covert and defensive support: The United States can continue to reinforce Israel’s air defenses, share intelligence, perhaps provide refueling support, and could offer to fly the occasional B-2 mission with a MOP to help destroy any key targets that are beyond Israel’s capabilities. But the key to this would be to take no credit, while backing an Israeli victory.

4) Maximalist support: Overt support and cooperation in the air campaign. In this scenario, the United States would start flying missions against Iranian targets, in support of the Israeli war effort.

I believe that (1) would be a catastrophe of the first order. Pursuing (1) would utterly discredit the United States as an ally. If we can’t even do (2) and stay out of the way when an ally is winning their war, what good are we? Furthermore, restraining Israel would incur maximum retaliation from Iran for minimal operational and strategic gains. Restraining Israel must not be the U.S. action here.

(2) and (3) are both perfectly serviceable options based on everything I’m seeing. If the US does nothing, the Israelis will likely win the war and dictate the terms of a peace, which will be a victory for the West. If the US provides clandestine and defensive support, the places that understand what’s going on will see that the US helped, which will enhance our prestige and our credibility as an ally, without incurring enormous costs either economically, militarily, or politically.

However, it is possible that without U.S. support – especially in the case of (2) – Iran could prove more resilient than initial reporting indicates. A prolonged struggle could begin to tax Israel in ways that lead to a messy conflict with no clear definition for a clear end. That case favors Iran and is the one most likely, not only to draw the U.S. into a ground conflict and ultimately either regime change in Iran, or a defeat for Israel and its allies.

In such a case, the US will be faced with a choice of whether to move into (4) and support them, or see a long, attritional air campaign without a decisive outcome.

Better to just do (4) - maximalist support - immediately, rather than waiting to see if it’s needed.

I believe that (4) - maximalist support - would serve the American interest. It would enhance our credibility and prestige as an ally and would harm both Russia (who gets drone technology from Iran) and China (who gets cheap oil from Iran, which supports their economy). It will also utterly cripple the remnants of Iran’s various proxies, most notably Hezbollah, Hamas and the Houthis, all of whom are threatening US and allied interests. But it would come at a significant cost to the Trump administration, both in money and in domestic political capital.

Maximalist support comes with the greatest short-term risk to the Trump administration in both economic and political terms, but it also is most consistent with the administration’s apparent long-term intent to win decisive victories and improve the U.S. advantage over China. Among other things, it would immediately strengthen South Korea’s position because the DPRK is the next closest analog to Iran on the global stage. Removing one of China’s most effective proxies in the Middle East has manifold implications that favor future U.S.- PRC competition and confrontation.

If (4) is the chosen option, as I believe it should be, there are some essential points that must be considered:

1) Our intervention must produce shock and terror in the minds of our adversaries. When the campaign ends, America’s enemies need to have a renewed fear of American will and power – such fear is essential to deterrence, and has been lost to our bungling in Iraq and Afghanistan, and our diffident policy in Ukraine. The most important audiences for any US intervention are in Beijing, Taipei, Seoul, Pyongyang and Moscow, followed by Poland and US allies in the Black Sea littoral. We have an opportunity to re-establish strategic deterrence vis a vis China, and minimize the chances of a war in the Taiwan Strait. The way to do this is to convince the leaders of our enemies that the United States is willing and able to fight and is prepared to be utterly ruthless when the occasion requires it. The Israelis, at enormous risk and cost, have cleared the way.

2) There must be no occupation. U.S. war aims, constraints, and restraints must be absolutely unambiguous: This is a punitive action, aimed at destroying the nuclear capabilities and the regime of Iran, its ability to project power abroad, and its mechanisms of control at home. We must not take responsibility for post-conflict ground conditions. Those conditions are the responsibility of Iran and its highly capable population. Any post bellum intervention would be on a strictly humanitarian and diplomatic basis.

The United States must not be dragged into an occupation, and we have a bad record in this regard. Leave any work on the ground to the Israelis. This war does not end until there is an unconditional surrender, and a regime comes to power that acknowledges Israel’s sovereignty and gives up any hostility toward the United States. That is the endgame.

3) To mitigate the domestic political costs of such an intervention, it might be a useful talking point for the Israelis to offer to pay for all of the ordinance dropped on Iran. After all, this will all need to be replaced as we tool up for war in the Taiwan Straits.

Of course, if Iran escalates to a dirty bomb or some other non-conventional attack, all bets are off on the response.