Welcome to Home & Away. This is my third newsletter in the space of one week dedicated to the war with Iran. (The first two can be found here and here, in case you missed them or wish to refer back). Today I will do my best to explain where things stand, how we got here, and the possible path–or, more accurately, paths–ahead.
Where Things Stand
After one week, the Trump administration and the Netanyahu government can claim some significant accomplishments. The two countries have established effective control of Iran’s airspace, and Iran’s ballistic missile inventory is much diminished, as is much of its navy and, quite possibly, its nuclear program. In addition, a good many Iranian religious, political, and military leaders are no longer. The extent of U.S.-Israeli strategic collaboration is profound and unprecedented. In many ways, the war can be understood as a continuation and expansion of Israeli and American efforts over the past two years to weaken Iran in the wake of October 7.
Iran, for its part, has been making heavy use of missiles and drones and has brought oil and gas shipping through the Strait of Hormuz close to a halt. It has also attacked and inflicted damage on more than a dozen countries in the region. And, it has weathered the storm in that the regime remains intact and in control despite the destructive effects of thousands of American and Israeli missiles and bombs.
Oil and gas prices have surged this week to their highest levels in over a year and are higher than they stood when President Trump took office just over a year ago. Stock markets are down. The direct military cost of the war to the U.S. is difficult to estimate but certainly in the billions of dollars. The United States has lost six service men and women. Not surprisingly, polls show a majority of Americans oppose the war.
The U.S. and its allies are using up weapons, and in particular air defense systems, at an unsustainable rate. To be clear, it is unsustainable for two reasons. First, systems are being used far faster than they can be replaced given severe limits on how quickly they can be manufactured. Second, the difference in cost between inexpensive Iranian missiles and drones and highly expensive U.S. missile defenses is stark. The battlefield math simply doesn’t add up in our favor.
U.S. objectives for the war remain unclear and then some. They have included obliterating (for a second time) Iran’s nuclear capabilities, reducing as much as possible its ballistic missile force, forcing it to cut back its support of terrorism and proxies, and bringing about regime change. Adding to the confusion is that the last of these goals has not been consistently defined.
How We Got Here
This was a classic war of choice, not a war of necessity, a concept I introduced in an op-ed that appeared in the Washington Post in November 2003 and developed six years later in the book War of Necessity, War of Choice. The Trump administration has not put forward convincing evidence that Iran posed an imminent threat to vital U.S. interests requiring a military response. In addition, what was executed fell into the controversial category of preventive rather than preemptive action.
In particular, the administration has not explained to the satisfaction of many (including yours truly) why it attacked rather than continued with negotiations. It is difficult to accept at face value that negotiations with Iran had no chance to succeed on the nuclear issue given that the same administration, and indeed the same two negotiators, have shown unlimited patience and a marked willingness to compromise when it comes to Russia and its aggression against Ukraine. It is worth checking out this assessment of the talks by Laura Rozen as well as what Steve Witkoff said to Mark Levin.
Why the administration initiated the war when it did remains a mystery shrouded in competing and often incorrect assertions. We have heard from the president and his senior team that Iran was one or two weeks away from a nuclear weapon, that the U.S. had no choice but to attack Iran as it would inevitably attack us after Israel attacked it, and that the opportunity of killing the Ayatollah and so many other leaders was too good to pass up.
Outsiders speculate that Trump was persuaded that success here would cement his legacy as a great president and/or provide a distraction to domestic problems ranging from the Epstein scandal to the economy. There is also reason to believe the president was over-confident in the wake of Venezuela as to what he and the U.S. military could accomplish in Iran despite the many deep differences between the two countries. Here with Iran, in many ways reminiscent of the 2003 war with Iraq, the United States violated one of the cardinal rules of warfare, namely, never attack a country you do not adequately understand.
Whatever the motive or motives, the president has been able to carry out the policy with a free hand. This is nothing new, as the imperial presidency has been a fact of American political life and foreign policy for upwards of half a century now. What is different is that he has designed and carried out this policy with little in the way of a formal national security process, having spent the better part of the last year hollowing out the national security apparatus.
What Next?
Wars tend to have dynamics all their own, as what led to them can be superseded by what follows (and often is). One party’s behavior can alter the war aims of the other, as can the results of military action. Domestic politics, battlefield costs, economic fallout -- all these variables can and do play a role. Making this war even harder to predict and project is that there are three principal actors (The United States, Israel, and Iran) and a number of lesser ones (Saudi Arabia, Turkey, China, the list goes on).
Adding to the uncertainty is that, on the U.S. side, decision-making is often the result of one man’s preferences more than any formal process, a feature that further increases uncertainty (especially given the man in charge today). The change to Iran’s leadership along with what the survivors have just experienced likewise works against confident predictions.
One scenario is that the war continues. This is clearly the preference of the Israeli government, which is intent on further reducing Iran’s ballistic missile stocks, weakening Hezbollah, and stimulating at least a degree of regime change, i.e., bringing about a non-ideological, secular military leadership in Iran.
Iranian and U.S. preferences are less easy to discern, in part because they are in flux. Iran’s rationales for ending the war are to consolidate authority internally, to keep the country intact, and to avoid further weakening of its military and economy. Its reason to continue fighting is that it may judge that it is better positioned to weather the costs of a long war than is the United States, which faces internal economic and political pressures that it could find hard to manage, not to mention competing international relations priorities. This could lead to Iran having more leverage than the battlefield results might suggest when it comes to negotiating ceasefire terms.
As the above suggests, the Trump administration will have to decide whether it wants to continue the war. Some inside and outside the administration clearly believe there is an opportunity to so weaken Iran that it cannot pose a threat to U.S. interests for years or even decades. Others, both in Israel and the United States, see a chance to transform it. The president, for his part, is talking about choosing Iran’s next leader much as the United States did in Venezuela.
On balance, though, the case for weeks or even months of more war is weak. The Trump administration is running up against diminishing military returns and rising domestic political and economic costs. More specifically, continued military action can further reduce Iranian military capabilities, but those capabilities cannot be eliminated. All it takes is just a handful of drones or missiles to cause incalculable harm to the region’s refineries and water treatment plants, any of which would result in massive economic and social disruption. And, as history teaches us time and time again, capabilities can always be rebuilt when the war stops.
At the same time, continued war would result in more American casualties, be at odds with the administration’s own National Security Strategy, leave the United States in a much-weakened position to deal with security challenges in other regions, and cause real damage to the American economy. This is not something this president wants to see as we approach the midterm elections. That he has reached this point with little in the way of public explanation or congressional consultation only heightens his political vulnerability.
What’s more, there is little reason to believe that additional war will bring about regime change in Iran if it is defined as an outcome that brings about democracy or anything close to it. So far, we have not seen the wholesale defections from the security and political establishments that would be required for this to come about. It is harder to assess whether continued war would usher into power leaders with somewhat different policies, namely those more ready to compromise on issues that have long divided the two countries.
Israeli leaders are certain to disagree with many of these assessments and would argue for both countries to continue attacking Iran. A U.S. decision to press for an end to the war with Iran would thus have to be accompanied by a decision to press Prime Minister Netanyahu to stop military operations sooner that he wants. Trump has the political standing in Israel to do this; the operative question is whether he is willing to make the effort.
Meanwhile, the administration is already in a position to declare “mission accomplished,” to claim it has achieved its military aims and has done as much as any outsider can reasonably be expected to do to bring about internal political reform. In war, as in much else, “good enough” can be preferable to a “best” that is likely to be unavailable.
As always, some links to click on. And feel free to share Home & Away.
Richard Haass in the news
Wednesday, March 4: Alternate Shots Episode 19.
Thursday March 5: Morning Joe on Iran.
Thursday, March 5: Foreign Affairs on Iran.
This is a great point to make: "It is difficult to accept at face value that negotiations with Iran had no chance to succeed on the nuclear issue, given that the same administration, and indeed the same two negotiators, have shown unlimited patience and a marked willingness to compromise when it comes to Russia and its aggression against Ukraine." Of course, they will never come clean on why this is so!
The war has accomished nothing this far. By ending it Iran-US will go back to the negotiation table & Iran will resupply all stocks of weapons, missiles, drones, etc. By continuing the war, regime change is unlikely to happen; thus, Epic FURY will become an Epic FAILURE due to higher cost & military casualties. The best outcome is negotiated nuclear weapon deal & resolution. The likely outcome is a long war so that midterm elections are kept silent for the duration of the Presidency! - Viktor, title: Magnus NUCLEUS for Purity of Thought