Thoughts on the Iran War
I have nothing new to add, but I had to try to get this out of my head
How to describe what I’m trying to do with this post? I’m not cheering for Iran, though I feel they are the injured party here (obviously enough, I hope). I’m not hoping the US crashes and burns, loses an aircraft carrier, or anything of the sort. If anything, my somewhat realistic hope is that Trump just walks away, saying he won or whatever, regardless of it being BS. Less realistically, I’d like to see regime change in Iran, with the attendant benefits its people hope for with that. I’d love to see the US finally learn the lesson about regime change. Or, hey, to just start respect international law.
What I am going to talk about is how Trump and those around him have engaged in racist hubris and arrogance of the highest order, ignoring decades of evidence and similar actions that ended in disaster, the advice of the Pentagon and intelligence sources, and common sense. That it seems not to have occurred to them that Iran might be prepared for an attack that they knew was coming. Indeed, even ignoring Trump’s threats, history has surely taught Iran that another attack from Israel, possibly with some help from the US, is coming eventually.
I’ve been following US politics closely since Trump won the election. Indeed, it’s been hard to ignore, and that’s become even more true since the attack on Venezuela and war with Iran. Nevertheless, I’ve avoided posting about it. That’s partly because it doesn’t really fit with what I usually post. Of course, I can hardly claim to have a theme or focus here, having written autism, autobiographical, book review, and fiction posts, but I’ve never posted anything purely political.
I also don’t think I have anything new to say about it. The facts and speculations below have all been aired multiple times by multiple people. But since I can’t seem to focus on any of the articles I have in progress, here we are. Perhaps my presentation of this will resonate more with some people the stuff I’m drawing on. If nothing else, this will hopefully get it out of my system.
The Stupidity of War with Iran
Netanyahu recently said that he’d been trying for 40 years to get some superpower to help him attack Iran. He wants to turn it into a failed state, a la Iraq. It’s long been Pentagon orthodoxy, and I would guess likewise in other countries, that attacking Iran would be a Very Bad Idea. Too big, too many people, and could easily close that pesky straight through which flows a big chunk of the world’s oil. For three decades the Pentagon has managed to convince US presidents who thought attacking Iran would work out for them that it would not in fact go well at all.
Then came Trump and his very fragile but very large ego. Netanyahu was pretty sure he finally had the useful idiot he needed. And he was right. Israel went to work manipulating and gaslighting Trump. Convincing him that Iran was behind the campaign trail assassination attempts and that Iran would collapse after a bit of intense bombing and killing of its leaders.
It’s hard to say what Netanyahu believes. Though, it seems unlikely that he thinks Iran was behind the assassination attempts. That was an obvious fabrication that Trump swallowed hook, line, and sinker.
On the other hand, it seems likely that Netanyahu does, or at least did, believe that Iran would fall apart easily. Almost no one else with any knowledge of Iran did though. Being blinded by ideology has that effect.
That Iran has uranium refined to 60% purity is true, but that level of purity is not enough to make a nuclear weapon. It does not substantiate the claim that Iran was mere weeks away from building a nuclear bomb. And Israel has been trotting out this alarmist claim for decades and, yet, no bomb. It is crying wolf to lamely justify attacks and sanctions.
One could hardly blame Iran if they were trying to make nuclear weapons. As far as keeping the West at bay goes, having nukes has worked out pretty well for North Korea.
Nevertheless, it seems that Iran opted to put most of its efforts and resources into building and acquiring drones and missiles. After all, you can buy or build an awful lot of drones and conventional missiles for what it takes to develop nuclear weapons.
The US claims Iran has used 90% of its missiles. But do they even know how many Iran has? I can’t see how. They’ve buried them deep in the earth, all over an area the size of Western Europe. This 90% figure sits in an evidence-free bubble; it’s only purpose being to make the gullible feel better.
Meanwhile, the US is dropping 5,000 pound bombs on suspected launch sites to try to disable them and destroy the buried armaments. Do we know if this is working? Does the United States have enough of these to cover even a modest fraction of this area? I bet not.
A Long War
When Iran says it’s prepared for a long war, I think we should take them at their word. To be sure, they are suffering horribly.
But what can they do? They knew they were going to be attacked again at some point. They knew they wouldn’t be able to go toe-to-toe with US and Israeli fighter jets and ships, even if they had poured all their resources into new jets and ships. So, they took a different path. So they didn’t upgrade their air force and navy. The war would be asymmetric, so Iran chose to prepare for that, even though it would mean terrible sacrifices.
Their pilots and seamen in those outdated planes and ships likely knew they were doomed, that they were, are, and will be cannon fodder. That their mission is to get the US and Israel to use as many expensive weapons as possible.
Is this brave? Foolish? A horrific sacrifice imposed by their leaders? I suspect it depends on who you ask. For me, the Iranian soldiers’ answers to this are the ones that matter most, not yours or mine.
So they are sacrificing the nearly useless, old equipment, and the people in it. Bartering lives to force their enemies to waste time and resources destroying lives and junk. Welcome to the logic of the transition to the new era of warfare.
And now we are getting glimpses of the fruits of this harsh planning combined with Israeli and US folly. At the moment, it’s hardly more than a peak because the censorship is in full gear, especially in Israel where it’s nearly absolute. Information about the results of Iranian missile strikes is quashed instantly. News from the attacks in other Gulf states attack has been more available, and it’s not been great. A lot of infrastructure has been damaged. Embassies have been evacuated.
And throughout the first phase of the war, Iran sent out old planes, ships, and missiles and cheap drones for the US to shoot down with thousands of pricey surface-to-air missiles, mainly $4-million Patriots. Iran’s economy is crap from all the sanctions, but they can definitely afford more cheap drones than the US has Patriots, to say nothing of capacity to make thousands more and get them to the Gulf quickly.
And US diplomatic activities belie the rosy statements made about how the war is going. Rather than reinforcing what’s being said, its actions are those of a belligerent who knows they are in deep doo-doo. They are begging European allies to help open the Strait of Hormuz. The Europeans demurred — which doesn’t surprise me after how Trump has treated them for the past year.
Hilariously, Trump also asked China. I think it’s safe to say that no other country has benefited more from Trump’s foreign policies than China, the tariffs alone have netted them huge amounts of trade. Plus, Iran is selling them oil directly. So, shocker, Xi Jinping said no. Even if oil gets tight for China, I bet they’ll be willing to tough it out for at least some time, just to make things harder for their rival.
And who’s asking for a ceasefire amid all this? The US. Not Iran.
Iran doesn’t want a ceasefire. They know they’ll just get attacked again in a year or two. They want serious guarantees. And they appear to be willing to try to hold out for them. And as long as they can keep the strait closed, and their people continue rally around the flag, holding out seems quite possible. Iran is in control.
And to be clear, the Iranian people are indeed rallying to their flag — nothing quells internal dissent like an external attack. So much for encouraging the Iranian people to throw off their theocratic oppressors. Bravo, Trump. Bravo.
The latest news, which I read yesterday, is that the US is going to clear the Strait of Hormuz of Iranian surface ships and then try to escort some civilian ships through. The US can definitely do the former. And I assume the Iranians have planned for something like the latter, as they did with the air war. They know they’re outgunned, that they will lose those ships, and that the US will expend a lot more expensive resources in the process. The question is, then, what have the Iranians squirreled away to attack the big, juicy targets of tankers, cargo vessels, and naval ships?
No one knows.
This could work out for the US. Maybe Iran doesn’t have enough stuff up their sleeve to stop ships with an armed escort. At the same time, maybe they do. It seems wise to at least be prepared for something pretty ugly to happen. What happens if a tanker full of oil is sunk? What about a US Navy ship? How might things escalate?
The Specter
I’ve also heard credible people wondering about Trump or Netanyahu resorting to nuclear weapons if they get frustrated enough. Setting aside the destruction that would cause, the blow-back from that would be catastrophic. I’d like to think that safeguards and saner heads would prevent this from happening in the US. I don’t know enough about Israel’s internal politics and law to have a feeling one way or the other. Surely, Netanyahu knows he’d make himself and his country instant pariahs. I suppose Trump does too, the question is whether he cares.
Again, I’m not cheering for Iran (or the US). I’m pointing out that Trump and those around him are arrogant asshats of the highest order. That they’ve mired the US in a war in which everyone except weapons manufacturers[footnote: Though, the other day I saw a headline that they are warning that if oil gets tight, their ability to make more weapons will be constrained, so their good times may be short-lived.] and Russia (and maybe China) is losing.
This was utterly unnecessary. It is criminally stupid.
I'm not rooting for the Iranian regime, and still I think this while operation is unjustified. As a non-American from a country Trump hates and hostilizes, I would feel completely insulted and injured in case the US decides to invade Brasil to "remove" whatever it deems wrong. My country's problems are ours and no one else's to resolve.
It's a good article and your last 2 sentences say it all, Cary.