The On-Again, Never-Really-Off-Again war with Iran is most definitely on again.
U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) forces completed a new round of offensive strikes against Iran, July 7, hitting over 80 targets with precision munitions as an immediate response to Iran’s latest attacks on commercial vessels transiting the Strait of Hormuz.
U.S. forces struck Iranian air defense systems, command and control networks, coastal radar sites, anti-ship missile capabilities, and more than 60 Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps small boats in and near the strait to degrade Iran’s ability to continue attacking international commerce flowing through the international trade corridor.
Iran recently attacked three commercial vessels transiting the strait including Marshall Islands-flagged M/T Al Rekayyat, Saudi Arabia-flagged M/T Wedyan, and Liberian-flagged M/T Cyprus Prosperity. The unwarranted aggression by Iranian forces is a clear and dangerous violation of the ceasefire and undermines freedom of navigation.
U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) forces completed an additional round of strikes against Iran, July 8, to further degrade Iran’s ability to attack commercial shipping and innocent civilian mariners in the Strait of Hormuz.
U.S. forces struck approximately 90 Iranian military targets including air defense systems, coastal surveillance assets, missile and drone storage sites, naval capabilities, and military logistics infrastructure along Iran’s coastline. The latest strikes follow successful execution of offensive strikes in Iran the night before.
CENTCOM forces hit approximately 80 Iranian military targets July 7, including more than 60 Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps small boats, to impose heavy costs for Iran violating the ceasefire by attacking three commercial vessels navigating the Strait of Hormuz.
So it turns out I didn’t actually need to read the complete “Memorandum of Understanding” between the U.S. and Iran after all. Sometimes sloth is a great time saver.
During the “ceasefire” that was mostly fire and very little cease, a recurring pattern emerged: Iran would launch attacks on shipping, claiming all traffic needed to offer up danegeld for safe passage, all while asserting the most ludicrous series of lies about what the United States had agreed to. The U.S. was immediately going to unfreeze all Iranian assets. Iran would be allowed to charge ships for safe passage through the straits. Hamas and Hezbollah were free from all Israeli attacks. Etc.
So President Trump finally tired of these shenanigans and hit the unpause button, and now U.S. forces are pounding the snot out of Iran (again), while Iran launches missiles and drones at U.S. bases and other gulf states (again). Sure, Iran may be suffering from hyperinflation and it now takes some 1.3 million rials to buy a single dollar, but they always manages to produce enough missiles and drones to keep up the illusion of puissance, much like they they were able to fund their nuclear program and international terrorism for decades rather than meet their citizen’s basic needs.
Trump tends to view the world through the twin lenses of persuasion and tit-for-tat strategy. Make an agreement with me and we’ll both prosper. Attack me and I’ll attack you back even harder. His methods have produced impressive results in all sorts of unexpected areas, but for them to work, his counterparts need to be rational actors capable of understanding and acting in their own self interest.
The Islamic Republic of Iran is not a rational actor.
From its very earliest inception, the Islamic Republic of Iran has mirrored founder Ayatollah Khomeini’s belief that the United States (“the Great Satan”) and Israel (“the Little Satan”) are affronts to Islam that must be fought and destroyed. Catspaws Hezbollah and Hamas believe that the founding of Israel (“the Zionist entity”) was a literal affront to God that must be expunged through violent jihad.
‘The day the enemies usurp part of Moslem land, Jihad becomes the individual duty of every Moslem. In the face of the Jews’ usurpation, it is compulsory that the banner of Jihad be raised.’ (Article 15)
‘Ranks will close, fighters joining other fighters, and masse everywhere in the Islamic world will come forward in response to the call of duty, loudly proclaiming: ‘Hail to Jihad!’. This cry will reach the heavens and will go on being resounded until liberation is achieved, the invaders vanquished and Allah’s victory comes about.’ (Article 33)…
‘[Peace] initiatives, and so-called peaceful solutions and international conferences are in contradiction to the principles of the Islamic Resistance Movement… Those conferences are no more than a means to appoint the infidels as arbitrators in the lands of Islam… There is no solution for the Palestinian problem except by Jihad. Initiatives, proposals and international conferences are but a waste of time, an exercise in futility.’ (Article 13)
Honestly, until late into Trump’s first term, I would have agreed with Hamas that international conferences on peace in the middle east were exercises in futility. But the unexpected success of the Abraham Accords indicate that most Sunni states have finally come to believe that peaceful co-existence with Israel is a much more profitable proposition than fighting endless losing wars against it.
But the Islamic Republic of Iran, Hezbollah and Hamas were acting on the doctrine of waqf and Islam’s division of the world into Dar al-Islam (the “House of Submission to Islam” AKA “the House of Peace”) and Dar al-Harb (the House of War). Under Islam, no land consecrated to Islam can ever be ruled by an unbeliever, and it is a duty of every Muslim to wage jihad against the non-Islamic rulers of such lands until they are restored to Dar al-Islam.
But not even that is enough for Hamas, who seek the extermination of all Jews everywhere.
And don’t forget that Iran’s fundamentalist Twelver Shiia regime has devout apocalyptic eschatological beliefs about the return of the occulted Mahdi, one in which the Islamic Republic will create the conditions to hasten his return and reign before the Day of Judgment. Asking them to stop supporting terrorism in the wake of bombing and hyperinflation is like asking an Evangelical to give up their belief in the Rapture and the Second Coming in order to lower their gasoline bill. By the standards of economics, traditional geopolitics and game theory, they cannot be considered “rational actors.”
Some observers have argued that the U.S. has already “won” the war against Iran by shattering its nuclear program, decapitating its leadership and destroying numerous military assets while taking extremely few casualties. But the United States won just about every battle it fought in Afghanistan and Vietnam, but still lost those wars by letting its adversaries survive. If the current cycle continues, the U.S. and Israel will continue to pound the snot out of Iran only for it to proclaim that the U.S. has agreed to not only let it control the Strait, but will give it a new navy to boot.
For war to be decisive, ultimately somebody’s ass must be kicked and instruments of surrender signed. An actual treaty of surrender for Iran would specify that:
- Iran gives up all claim to controlling the Hormuz Strait and pledges to allow free, unconditional passage of vessels.
- Iran pledges to give up every single part of its nuclear program, including surrendering all enriched uranium and enrichment centrifuges, and agrees to unlimited International Atomic Energy Agency inspections of any site throughout the country.
- Iran agrees to allow the supervised destruction of its ballistic missile program.
- Iran agrees to stop all material and financial support of Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis, as well as any other transnational jihadist organization outside Iran.
- Iran pledges an immediate transition to a popularly-elected, secular democracy in which the existing fundamentalist Shiite theocracy has no role, with initial elections overseen by international observers appointed by the United States.
- Iran promises limited autonomy to ethnic minorities (Kurds, Lurs, etc.) and religious freedom and tolerance to persecuted religious minorities (Sufis, Baha’is, Nizari Isma’ilis, etc., not to mention Christians, Jews and Sunnis).
In short, for a real, lasting peace, the Islamic Republic of Iran must stop being the government of Iran. Because its rulers are not rational actors, there is no level of persuasion short of absolute destruction that will prevent its messianic, fundamentalist leaders from pursuing nuclear weapons to wipe the grave offense to Allah that is Israel off the face of the earth. And I’m going to go out on a limb and suggest that a full-scale nuclear exchange between Iran and Israel is not in the best interests of the United States.
Removing the Islamic Republic of Iran from power will not remotely be easy, and will have to be brought about by some combination of continued assassination and destruction of Revolutionary Guard assets, the use of regional proxy armies (such as the Kurds), possibly turning of non-IRGC military leadership and units, a popular uprising by (possibly U.S. armed and trained) Iranian civilians, and yes, even the dreaded “boots on the ground” from Israeli and U.S. forces and the occupation of, at the very least, Tehran and Qom, no matter how many “austere religious scholars” need to be dirtnapped along the way.
The U.S. lost Vietnam and Afghanistan because the insurgents we were fighting had sanctuary in, and were backed by, nation states (North Vietnam and Pakistan). That will not be the case in Iran, as the Sunni-dominated governments of Turkey, Iraq, Pakistan, and Afghanistan are deeply unlikely to back a Shiite insurgency in Iran.
The cost of victory in Iran will be high, but failure to finally rid the world of a radical Islamic regime irredeemably hostile to the United States of America and a backer of transnational terrorism, especially given the considerable military assets already deployed into theater, will be much higher than slightly expensive gas.