Tag: iran

In the first chapter of his 1874 novel The Gilded Age, Mark Twain offered a telling observation about the connection between past and present: “History never repeats itself, but the… present often seems to be constructed out of the broken fragments of antique legends.”Among the “antique legends” most helpful in understanding the likely outcome of the current U.S. intervention in Iran is the Suez Crisis of 1956, which I describe in my new book Cold War on Five Continents. After Egyptian leader Gamal Abdel Nasser nationalized the Suez Canal in July 1956, a joint British-French armada of six aircraft carriers destroyed Egypt’s air force, while Israeli troops smashed Egyptian tanks in the sands of the Sinai Peninsula. Within less than a week of war, Nasser had lost his strategic forces and Egypt seemed helpless before the overwhelming might of that massive imperial juggernaut.

But by the time Anglo-French forces came storming ashore at the north end of the Suez Canal, Nasser had executed a geopolitical masterstroke by sinking dozens of rusting ships filled with rocks at the canal’s northern entrance. In doing so, he automatically cut off Europe’s lifeline to its oil fields in the Persian Gulf. By the time British forces retreated in defeat from Suez, Britain had been sanctioned at the U.N., its currency was at the brink of collapse, its aura of imperial power had evaporated, and its global empire was heading for extinction.

Historians now refer to the phenomenon of a dying empire launching a desperate military intervention to recover its fading imperial glory as “micro-militarism.” And coming in the wake of imperial Washington’s receding influence over the broad Eurasian land mass, the recent U.S. military assault on Iran is starting to look like an American version of just such micro-militarism.

Even if history never truly repeats itself, right now it seems all too appropriate to wonder whether the current U.S. intervention in Iran might indeed be America’s version of the Suez Crisis. And should Washington’s attempt at regime change in Tehran somehow “succeed,” don’t for a second think that the result will be a successfully stable new government that will be able to serve its people well.

70 Years of Regime Change

Let’s return to the historical record to uncover the likely consequences of regime change in Iran. Over the past 70 years, Washington has made repeated attempts at regime change across the span of five continents — initially via CIA covert action during the 44 years of the Cold War and, in the decades since the end of that global conflict, through conventional military operations. Although the methods have changed, the results — plunging the affected societies into decades of searing social conflict and incessant political instability — have been sadly similar. This pattern can be seen in a few of the CIA’s most famous covert interventions during the Cold War.

In 1953, Iran’s new parliament decided to nationalize the British imperial oil concession there to fund social services for its emerging democracy. In response, a joint CIA-MI6 coup ousted the reformist prime minister and installed the son of the long-deposed former Shah in power. Unfortunately for the Iranian people, he proved to be a strikingly inept leader who transformed his country’s oil wealth into mass poverty — thereby precipitating Iran’s 1979 Islamic revolution.

By 1954, Guatemala was implementing an historic land reform program that was investing its mostly Mayan indigenous population with the requisites for full citizenship. Unfortunately, a CIA-sponsored invasion installed a brutal military dictatorship, plunging the country into 30 years of civil war that left 200,000 people dead in a population of only five million.

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The notion of a short and decisive war has always been a temptation for politicians. This notion holds a promise of quick victories, low costs, and clear triumphs. However, the course of history over the last few decades has indicated that wars do not always follow this pattern. The current conflict between the United States and Iran seems to be a clear manifestation of this reality, as the early indications of a quick victory are not supported by the fundamental realities of the conflict.

The fundamental reason why a quick victory might not be possible in this conflict is not related to military capabilities. The military capabilities of the United States are overwhelming, as they are far ahead of Iran in terms of technology, logistics, and global reach. In the early phases of this conflict, the U.S. forces, along with the Israeli military, struck thousands of targets in Iran, targeting its missile capabilities, naval forces, and military installations. According to experts, the initial objective of this campaign was to destroy the Iranian naval capabilities, missile systems, and nuclear facilities, as well as weakening Iranian influence in the region.

However, military success does not automatically translate into a corresponding level of political achievement. As many a strategic analyst has noted, “destroying capabilities does not necessarily translate into regime collapse, political transformation, or stability.” While military instruments are effective at destroying capabilities, they are not as effective at creating alternatives.

This tension represents the heart of the strategic problem facing the United States.

As a matter of fact, even before the war began, American intelligence assessments reportedly indicated that military intervention was not likely to result in a change of regime in Iran because the Iranian system was so resilient, and there was no opposition to replace it.

Such intelligence assessments are part of a larger trend in modern warfare, wherein systems under military pressure tend to become more, not less, cohesive. Leadership changes occur rapidly without necessarily altering the fundamental structures of power. In this current conflict, the speed with which a new leader was installed into the Iranian leadership structure was a manifestation of this trend.

For the strategist who hopes to achieve a rapid level of regime collapse, this level of resilience represents a formidable obstacle.

Another factor affecting the prospects of a swift victory is the symmetry of the strategic goals and objectives. While the US might hope for a decisive victory in the form of destroying the military capability of the adversary or changing its politics, the same is not necessarily true for Iran. In fact, it is possible that the Iranian strategy is simply to survive.

In an asymmetric war, survival is victory.

The Iranian strategy seems to be one of survival and waiting it out, and analysts are observing how the escalation of the war is less dependent on the ability of the two adversaries to match each other in conventional warfare and more dependent on the ability of one of the adversaries to make the conflict unsustainable for the other. This means the war is now one of endurance rather than one of firepower.

A prime example of this is the energy sector and how it can be considered a part of the strategic environment. The current situation with the Strait of Hormuz, through which one-fifth of the world’s total oil supply is shipped, has already caused economic concerns for the world as a whole. Analysts predict that if the current situation is not rectified, the price of oil could rise significantly, causing economic consequences for the world as a whole.

Similar concerns are now coming from financial institutions as well, with some predictions indicating that the conflict could have significant effects on the world’s markets and economic growth, thus showing the economic consequences of the escalation of the conflict.

The economic consequences of the conflict create a whole new aspect of the strategic environment of the war. The conflict is no longer limited to military facilities and vessels; it is now affecting global trade routes and economic growth, as well as the politics of nations.

History has shown that conflicts of such nature are rarely brief.

The United States has faced similar strategic conundrums in the past. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan both began with rapid military successes that destroyed pre-existing governments within a matter of weeks. However, the political and security aftermaths took years to resolve. The conclusion should not be drawn that military force is ineffectual in these situations but rather that military victories do not necessarily equate to political success.

The case in Iran is more complex.

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There may be no winner in the war on Iran. But, although it is Iran that is under attack, they will not be the only losers. This war, fought without legal reason or political or security justification, will have myriad losers. Here are five.

The first loser of the war on Iran is the Iranians. Iran has an “inalienable right to a civilian program that uses nuclear energy for peaceful purposes” as a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. They signed the JCPOA nuclear agreement that closed all roads to a military nuclear program. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) repeatedly verified that they were in full compliance. They were currently negotiating further voluntary limitations on their civilian nuclear program, which would have assured the world of the impossibility of diverting their civilian nuclear program to a military one. Nothing was illegal or unusual about Iran’s nuclear or missile programs.

But bombs fell on Iranians. The people of Iran live in daily terror. Their cities are being bombed, and their infrastructure and water desalination plants have been devastated. Nearly 20,000 civilian buildings have been damaged, including dozens of hospitals and schools. Their leader has been assassinated. Over 1,300 civilians, hundreds of them children, have been killed.

The second country that will pay a price for the war on Iran is Ukraine. Just as Russia is thought to be massing for a large late spring offensive, its war economy is being pumped full by the rising cost of oil; which was caused by the effective closing of the Strait of Hormuz and the resultant easing of sanctions on Russian oil, while Ukraine’s supply of weapons is being threatened. Russia will have the money to continue launching missiles and drones, and Ukraine will lack the missiles to defend against them.

The U.S. is firing an incredible number of interceptors to defend against Iranian missiles and drones. The war on Iran is using up the defensive weapons that would have been sent to Ukraine. “The biggest and most immediate impact will be on air defense,” Jennifer Kavanagh, Senior Fellow & Director of Military Analysis at Defense Priorities, told me, since “Ukraine depends almost entirely on the United States for air defense, especially Patriot air interceptors and AMRAAMs.” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has said, “We understand that a long war… and the intensity of the fighting will affect the amount of air defence equipment we receive.”

In this war of choice, the U.S. has made a bad choice, and it too will be a loser in this war. The U.S. will lose the war in Iran in four ways.

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