President Donald Trump cannot want war with Iran.
Such
a war, no matter how long, would be fought in and around the Persian
Gulf, through which a third of the world’s seaborne oil travels. It
could trigger a worldwide recession and imperil Trump’s reelection.
It would widen the “forever war,” which Trump said he would end, to a
nation of 80 million people, three times as large as Iraq. It would
become the defining issue of his presidency, as the Iraq War became the
defining issue of George W. Bush’s presidency.
And if war comes now, it would be known as “Trump’s War.”
For it was Trump who pulled us out of the Iran nuclear deal, though,
according to U.N. inspectors and the other signatories – Britain,
France, Germany, Russia, China – Tehran was complying with its terms.
Trump’s repudiation of the treaty was followed by his reimposition of
sanctions and a policy of maximum pressure. This was followed by the
designation of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard as a “terrorist” organization.
Then came the threats of U.S. secondary sanctions on nations, some of
them friends and allies, that continued to buy oil from Iran.
U.S. policy has been to squeeze Iran’s economy until the
regime buckles to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s 12 demands, including
an end to Tehran’s support of its allies in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and
Yemen.
Sunday, Pompeo said Iran was behind the attacks on the tankers in the
Gulf of Oman and that Tehran instigated an attack that injured four
U.S. soldiers in Kabul, though the Taliban claimed responsibility.
The war hawks are back.
“This unprovoked attack on commercial shipping warrants retaliatory military strikes,” said Sen. Tom Cotton on Sunday.
But as Trump does not want war with Iran, Iran does not want war with
us. Tehran has denied any role in the tanker attacks, helped put out
the fire on one tanker and accused its enemies of “false flag” attacks
to instigate a war.
If the Revolutionary Guard, which answers to the ayatollah, did
attach explosives to the hull of the tankers, it was most likely to send
a direct message: If our exports are halted by U.S. sanctions, the oil
exports of the Saudis and Gulf Arabs can be made to experience similar
problems.
Yet if the president and the ayatollah do not want war, who does?
Not the Germans or Japanese, both of whom are asking for more proof
that Iran instigated the tanker attacks. Japan’s prime minster was
meeting with the ayatollah when the attacks occurred, and one of the
tankers was a Japanese vessel.
Writing in the Wall Street Journal Monday were Ray Takeyh and Reuel
Marc Gerecht, a senior fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of
Democracies, a neocon nest funded by Paul Singer and Sheldon Adelson.
In a piece titled, “America Can Face Down a Fragile Iran,” the pair
make the case that Trump should squeeze the Iranian regime relentlessly
and not fear a military clash, and a war with Iran would be a cakewalk.
“Iran is in no shape for a prolonged confrontation with the U.S. The
regime is in a politically precarious position. The sullen Iranian
middle class has given up on the possibility of reform or prosperity.
The lower classes, once tethered to the regime by the expansive welfare
state, have also grown disloyal. The intelligentsia no longer believes
that faith and freedom can be harmonized. And the youth have become the
regime’s most unrelenting critics.
“Iran’s fragile theocracy can’t absorb a massive external shock.
That’s why Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has, for the most part, adhered
to the JCPOA (the nuclear pact) and why he is likely angling for
negotiation over confrontation with the Great Satan.”
This depiction of Iran’s political crisis and economic decline
invites a question: If the Tehran regime is so fragile and the Iranian
people are so alienated, why not avoid a war and wait for the regime’s
collapse?
Trump seems to have several options:
- Negotiate with the Tehran regime for some tolerable detente.
- Refuse to negotiate and await the regime’s collapse, in which case
the president must be prepared for Iranian actions that raise the cost
of choking that nation to death.
- Strike militarily, as Cotton urges, and accept the war that follows,
if Iran chooses to fight rather than be humiliated and capitulate to
Pompeo’s demands.
One recalls: Saddam Hussein accepted war with the United States in
1991 rather than yield to Bush I’s demand he get his army out of Kuwait.
Who wants a U.S. war with Iran?
Primarily the same people who goaded us into wars in Iraq, Syria,
Libya and Yemen, and who oppose every effort of Trump’s to extricate us
from those wars.
Should they succeed in Iran, it is hard to see how we will ever be
able to extricate our country from this blood-soaked region that holds
no vital strategic interest save oil, and America, thanks to fracking,
has become independent of that.
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