Should We Escalate in Iran?
Or "I almost called this post 'Should the US Bomb Iran?' and then Trump bombed Iran while I was still writing it"
While I was still writing this post, Trump chose to attack Iran. That made its original title - “Should the US Bomb Iran?” - moot. Fortunately, it’s all still correct, just less hypothetical.
First of all, while I thought I may end up writing more Iran blog posts, I didn’t expect it to be quite so… rosy. Holy shit. Israel is already pretty close to accomplishing their war aims and we're barely a week in.
As they say online, Iran has fucked around one too many times. This is the most epic finding-out since Iraq state TV insisted Baghdad was not under attack as U.S. armor and helos were visible behind them.
Initially, I set out to write a pro-or-con to the US striking Iran, but besides the obvious, I realized the question that I really ought to answer is “what is in the US’s best interest?” Remember, the US is a very successful state. You don’t become global hegemon by doing more wrong than right. Criticize or quibble about methods, other countries have seen the US as a model to emulate for as long as there’s been a US. So the president should do what’s best for the country.
OKAY BUT FIRST TELL ME WHY
At the time of this writing, the US executed a strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities. Trump signaled this was the entirety of American involvement. Israel continues to hammer Iran, checking high-value targets off one after another.
When a country is winning a war, there is always a temptation to expand the war's scope - to escalate. But if the US or Israel want to escalate in Iran, they must first explain what is the benefit of doing so. With Iran in such a weak position, the only sensible end goal to escalation is intervention - AKA regime change.
We should proceed from the negative (the US does not default to invading other countries!) Intervention is expensive. It both burns political capital (straining relations with every country that wants to see this situation resolved soon) and costs expensive ordinance. “Why buy the cow when the milk is free?” The Israelis are doing a perfectly good job of bombing Iran, and the US is free to provide missile defense, targeting, airspace access, et al. For a price, Washington can also refill Israeli missile stocks and keep them shooting.
Above all, I urge patience. So long as Israel controls Iranian airspace, the US can choose to strike at their leisure. Let the Israelis, as the Germans elegantly put it, “do the dirty work”, and pick our spots.
WHAT HAPPENS NOW?
Iran will have to respond to US involvement. Unlike Israel, U.S. positions in Iraq can be hit with Iran's short-range ballistic missiles, and they have thousands of those. But Iran still wants to maintain their capability because it gives them leverage over the U.S. not to attack. The U.S. would of course win, but Iran could kill U.S. soldiers, damage U.S. bases, and maybe even sink a USN ship. However, this would probably give Washington the mandate it needs for its own series of airstrikes.
The Israelis are free to pwn Iran by destroying most of their air force, launchers, IRGC leaders, nuclear sites, etc. After that, they can either stop (or reduce tempo to fewer strikes over Iran) or escalate (attempt to destroy Iran’s military completely, attack Iran’s oil industry, etc.) Israel has no reason to escalate – they’ve already gotten all they wanted. The US probably won’t want to escalate either. Regime change would be nice, but this was a great victory and they’d be satisfied with a decisive show of strength over their chief rival.
From there, it’s back to the negotiating table. Except now Iran has a fraction of its previous leverage. A competent dealmaker1 would push them to permanently limit the nuclear program, cap ballistics production, destroy some of their sea mines, and most importantly, end their support for their proxies. Israel, of course, will be interested in getting Hamas to hand over the remaining hostages. And maybe, if things go very, very well, we can even make them liberalize a little bit. Perhaps international observers for their next election?
Negotiations run their course. If they go well, war’s won, great work team. If they go poorly… we wait some more. Why? Because the only point for us to get involved (when Israel can so easily keep Iran in this diminished state) is if we decide to change the Iranian regime. And you can't do that from the air alone.
I don’t see the US public with the appetite for a war of regime change in Iran, and Israel doesn’t have the ability to wage that war alone. So if an organic, or semi-organic rebellion begins, then the conversation becomes much more interesting. I don't think Israel is going to commit to regime change, I think they’re going to place their full attentions on Gaza as soon as they can. Regardless, we have the upper hand. We’ve won. Now we just need to not waste our victory.
A WOUNDED LION
So one way or another, Iran is no longer a great power in the Middle East. Eclipsed in military technology, isolated diplomatically, their main proxies have been bombed, toppled, and pager bombed. Iran is a totalitarian dictatorship; their mandate mostly comes from promising to defend the country from the U.S. and Israel to justify all the rights it denies the citizenry. This humiliating defeat is an existential threat to that mandate. Authoritarian regimes rarely survive military embarrassments of this caliber because their entire mandate is built on the threat of force. Knowing that a capitulation may cost them everything, Iran’s leaders may refuse to negotiate in good faith. But with no air force, no launchers, and defeated/weakened proxies, Iran will be unable to project power – unable to directly harm its neighbors.
The IR has brutally suppressed dissent over and over, most recently killing over 500 and arresting 20,000. It's not feasible for the Iranians to overthrow the government on their own. The IR rose to power in a popular revolt/coup; they've done a good job ensuring the same can't happen to them. Even if the IR is weakened, they'll most likely bounce back and crush opposition and we'll be back to square one.
At some point, Iran will have a political crisis. That leads to either a popular revolt, an ethnic separatist movement (Iran has three, two of which are the majority population of several Iranian provinces), brutal government crackdowns, or maybe the army seizes control of Tehran in a coup-type situation. Something Will Happen. This will be the decisive moment: either intervene, or don’t.
REBEL SCUM!
The Islamic Republic is not a rational actor. They are an atrocious global citizen that has spread misery to everyone unfortunate enough to live nearby it, most of all the Iranian people who have spent 46 years under the thumb of a brutal theocracy. More importantly, it is a never-ending security threat to its neighbors, as it can only justify its mandate through oppression. That same irrationality will probably produce a homegrown existential threat, or maybe several. So… do we support the rebels?
That really depends on the situation, doesn’t it? Do the rebels have a chance? Do we think they’ll be an ally to us if we support them? So on and so forth. If it works, then this is the best chance for a peaceful resolution with not only Iran but Palestine too in decades. The Palestinians have learned, with as much certainty as they can, that armed resistance won't work. The absolute best they could hope for is for Israel to leave Gaza in tatters, having won no rights and no concessions. They might be willing to adjust their preferences.
Don’t be afraid of the possibility that things might work out for once. We must always hope for peace. And it doesn’t have to be blind hope: Hezbollah seemed an intractable problem in Lebanon, but as we speak they are being disarmed in Southern Lebanon and under constant Israeli rocket fire that they cannot answer. For the first time in 40+ years, Lebanon has a chance to reunify instead of the weird parallel-state setup they had. Syria was a failed state, a font of misery with no end in sight, and now they have a new government that is, at least, trying to appear pluralistic – they at least care what Westerners think of them.
Like I said last week. If we can do it cheaply, it’s worth doing. Iraq was an object lesson in what it looks like when you do it the expensive way.
I don’t think killing Khamenei is worthwhile. While he has tons of power, he’s replaceable by one of 88 other clerics. Assassinating him would do little harm to Iran in the short-term, but would make a martyr of Khamenei and harden resistance against Israel/the U.S.
SOMEONE SET IRAN UP THE BOMB
Israel will probably not be willing to settle for anything less than a long-term guarantee that Iran will not get the bomb.
Were it not for 10/7, I think Iran may very well have gotten their nukes. Israel would not have had the confidence to strike like this if they still had to worry about a barrage of fire from Gaza and Lebanon, armed by supply lines through Syria. The situation on the ground on 10/6 was one where Iran would eventually have the bomb - just a question of when.
Much online chatter has been about how close Iran was exactly. Besides it all being he-said-she-said, I simply don’t think it matters. Were they a week away, a month, a decade? Unimportant. What’s important is that now was the best chance Israel has ever had to strike Iran and that Iran was getting closer to the bomb—something that every major power was against. Why would it matter if it takes longer? They’re going to do the same things with it regardless of timing.
Nor does Iran’s exact progress affect Israel’s casus belli. If the Israelis believe there's even a 5% chance Iran would use its bomb on them, they are justified in preventing Iran from getting it. (We know that the risk of Israelis using their bomb first is low, since they’ve had nukes for decades but have yet to use them on Iran.) And even if Iran had no nuclear program at all, Israel would still have casus belli from Iran's support of proxies that have killed thousands of Israelis in recent years, including 10/7. Iran armed, trained, and enabled Hamas (even if they were likely against/surprised by the massacre). Iran is a bad actor and a security challenge, and I would favor any country in the world destroying their missiles and proxies.
What does Iran want to use their uranium for? The Israelis have credible fears of the bomb, but thanks to MAD I doubt the Iranians would ever drop it. However, a nuclear Iran would have a strong hand to play. If the regime seems weak, the nukes are a deterrent to keep foreigners out until they can crack down on dissent. Iran could theoretically do this even without nuclear weapons; they could copy Japan's "soft nuclear power" strategy where they have the enriched uranium necessary to create nuclear warheads, but not the warheads themselves. They wouldn’t have nuclear weapons, but they could assemble them in a matter of months or weeks.
WHAT ABOUT IRAQ THO
The US failed in Iraq. But online commentators are over-indexing on surface-level similarities (They both may or may not have weapons we agreed they shouldn’t have! Their names are similar!) The right lesson away from that failure is that military dominance is not enough. The US had a crushing, overwhelming military advantage over Iraq's government, but failed anyway because of a lack of foresight in what to do after Saddam was deposed.
If you want to topple a government and set up a new one, you need to know the country and its people, you need a plan, you need to be able to execute the plan, and you need the follow-through to keep the course until you’re sure the plan worked. In addition to military, that means political, cultural, and economic engagement.
I think the right play is to push for some political liberalization in Iran, try to carve out a niche for opposition leaders to criticize the regime, and attract supporters without getting immediately beaten to death. If the Iranians agree to it and follow through, the IR will gradually begin to lose power to organic domestic competition. If they agree and then renege, cracking down on the opposition, they'll hurt their international reputation and build support for further military action. And if they refuse altogether, we just keep bombing them until they reconsider.
I see a path to being rid of the IR without invasion or regime change or coups. Instead, we push for IR to gradually liberalize, with the next major step being a US-supported pluralist government where the IR is a major party but no longer holds a monopoly on political power (or perhaps a parallel system like Hezbollah in Lebanon). From there, they can be integrated bit by bit into an increasingly secular and liberal Iran. Not only do I think this is possible, it's a lot easier than any military-based solution because the IRGC is very difficult to get rid of.
THE IRGC
Should Iranian resistance emerge (and I think there's a good chance it will, although not immediately), then the situation will change. If the IR collapses, a new government will need to emerge immediately to avoid chaos. The best candidate is the Iranian military, Artesh.
Unfortunately, the clerics realized this from day one. The biggest obstacle to killing the IR is not Khamenei, or the clerics, or the military leadership. It’s the 150,000 IRGC soldiers organized into 32 parallel command structures across Iran, plus the 600,000 Basij civilian paramilitary2. They are the IR’s guarantor. They will fight and die to protect it - and if it falls, they will fight and die to restore it.
IRGC command structure is decentralized; the regional outfits are instructed to operate independently if central is defeated. They have their own funding sources independent from Tehran. The IRGC isn't too numerous on its own, but they can call on Basij to instantly bolster their numbers and become the strongest military power in Iran.
If the regime in Tehran falls, some IRGC commanders can probably be bribed, others will go warlord, but most will fight for the IR. From there they can turn insurgent, and we’ve seen how successful that strategy can be in Afghanistan. While cosmopolitan Iranians are not friends of the regime; the rural population is ferociously loyal to the IR. A situation similar to Afghanistan, where the US controlled the cities but the Taliban dominated the countryside, is liable to emerge. There are plenty of rural religious conservatives who would happily allow IRGC and Basij militants to embed in their villages. After all, some of those fighters are their sons and brothers.
Except the IRGC makes the Taliban look like losers. They are a well-organized, disciplined, and sophisticated paramilitary fighting force. These guys are drilled for this; they know the terrain; they've prepared their entire lives to wage this jihad. Imagine if Thatcherite Britain invaded Ireland—what it would be like to fight the IRA in that environment. I’m not saying they’re invincible. I’m saying defeating an enemy like that requires commitment. And I don’t think even a fully cooperative Artesh could defeat them.
In other words, if our intention is to regime change Iran through coups or decapitation strikes, we should be prepared to invade. Artesh will need foreign muscle. And if the US doesn’t intervene, then someone else can. Assad’s regime seemed on the verge of defeat until Iran and Russia intervened on his behalf, and Iran is a much more significant and central country than Syria. Israel, the Saudis and other Arab countries, Turkey, China, Russia, the EU, even Japan and India have a stake.
Furthermore, you'd probably see the Kurds, Arabs, Azeris, and Baloch pushing independence/autonomy claims. They’ve all tried before, and will take the opportunity to push for their own autonomy. They good news is that they could be natural allies. The bad news is is that all but the Kurds could easily radicalize.
There’ll also be a thriving black market. Chaotic, civil-war-torn states tend to have porous borders. Any unscrupulous state looking to make a quick buck would have little trouble getting military equipment into Iran. I hope I’ve given an idea of just what kind of a shitshow this could turn into if our leaders play their cards wrong.
THE STRAIT OF HORMUZ
90% of Iran's oil moves through the Strait, and about 20% of global oil consumption passes through it because the Strait connects the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman. Iran can use sea mines to close the Strait, which would completely blockade Qatar and Kuwait and partially block the UAE, the Saudis, and Iran itself.
Nearly all of the oil passing through the Strait of Hormuz is bound for Asia. The biggest buyers are China, India, and Japan, as well as Southeast Asian countries like Singapore and Thailand. Europe doesn’t get much oil directly, but their economies are notoriously sensitive to changes in oil prices. It is a waterway of vital strategic interest.
Attacking oil moving through the Strait would be a very high-impact tactic by a militant group—say the IRGC or a militant spin-off or Islamic terrorists. While they probably can’t shut down the Strait altogether, they may be able to threaten individual oil tankers. The visual of a burning tanker sinking beneath the waves, or the funds from capturing a tanker and ransoming it back to its owner, would wreak havoc with global power. Oil tankers prefer not to be captured or sunk. If they have the capacity to perform a high-visibility stunt like this once a month, or even every few months, that would give those militants gigantic leverage.
Then they issue a statement. "We are not going to allow the fraudulent Zionist regime in Tehran to steal the nation's wealth. We offer this tanker as a sacrifice to Allah [workshop?] and will continue to sink tankers until the Islamic Republic is restored to its rightful place." Maybe they offer to stop attacking Chinese-bound oil in exchange for Chinese support. Maybe they only attack Japan-based oil to make Japan pressure the US into a stronger commitment.
Sure, they’d probably all die. But that could well be a win for them too. Remember that the biggest beneficiaries of Hormuz oil are China, India, and Japan: three countries eager to show the strength of their militaries, and with the capability to project power in the Persian Gulf. If the militants are remotely successful, all three will either pressure the US to either meet their demands or use their own militaries. Heavy-handed reprisals feed into Basij recruitment. The superpowers with contradictory aims, different incentives, and often-strained relations could be waging war in the same warzone.
See how successful the Houthis were? Yes, they rely on Iranian support, but they were able to withstand the Saudis, the Israelis, and even the mighty US military. And the IRGC is much more effective than the Houthis.
All of this is to say that Iran is a security crisis in the waiting, the biggest since the collapse of the USSR. That went pretty well, all things considered. It is possible to get this right. But first, we have to figure out how.
Assuming we have one.
Imagine if your least favorite right-wing leader organized his diehard country-boy supporters into a paramilitary to beat up protesters and intimidate/suppress challenges to his power, with ten reservists ready to fight for the regime for every one active-duty soldier.