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Trump has given a "red line" to Iran about killing protestors, but we still aren't seeing US involvement as deaths move into the thousands, reportedly. If the regime follows through with its claims, it will be executing many if not most of the thousands it has arrested.
I have an essay on my view that the US/West/Israel should clearly intervene in the Transnational Thursday thread, but the Culture War dynamics strike me as interesting in that it's not really Culture War Classic material. Traditionally, the Left has been soft on Iran and the Right has been hawkish. Iran has tried to kill Trump and Trump officials, as revenge for the Soleimani assassination.
There's a strong anti-interventionist Right and Left. During the 12-Day War, Trump went from tweeting about regime change, to abruptly demanding cessation of hostilities, which Israel and Iran complied with. (I think had the war continued the regime would already have fallen, given how easily Israel was bombing them.) This is something that's already kicked off, unlike the Maduro rendition. My understanding is that action got more popular in the polls having succeeded, though it's an open question what Venezuela's fate will be.
The Right strongly criticized Obama for declaring a red line in Syria, and then backing off. In hindsight, I think it would have been correct to have intervened against Assad. Here, I think there's a clear cost-benefit analysis case, whether you care about the plight of the Iranian people or the amoral realist power dynamics for America First Global Superpower Edition.
If Trump sends in Delta force and they manage to successfully yoink the Ayatollah with minimal casualties, I will buy $15,000 worth of Raytheon and Northrop Grumman stock.
Toppling the regime may or may not play out in the U.S.'s favor, but supporting the protestors in some material way also seems like an obvious win. I'm not sure what other leverage Trump can gain over Iran that doesn't involve another 'kinetic' action.
And I'm also unsure what 'Carrot' can be offered to the current regime to somehow play nice after like 50 years of entrenching as America's biggest hater.
I do know that of the few friends I have who feel strongly about the situation (because they or their family is from Iran/Persia) they are pretty vehement that it'd be worth significant amounts of death to remove the existing regime.
Can you please point out any regime-toppling exercises that played out in the U.S.'s favor from the past 70 years? I legitimately can't think of any.
It's hard to tell what played out in the favor of the US compared to a counterfactual baseline that doesn't exist, but Grenada, Panama, Haiti and Brazil don't really seem to have backfired.
Haiti was / is a success?
If Haiti is a success then Guatemala, Congo, Indonesia, Chile and Libya should be on your list too.
The intervention (where we prepared an invasion, showed the ruler of the country a videotape of paratroopers en route, and then he decided to step down) seems to have played out in the US' favor in the sense of accomplishing our objectives at low cost.
I suppose it's fair to question whether or not the benefits from that were worth the cost, but OP didn't ask if regime-toppling exercises had solved all of the problems of the countries we toppled, just whether they had played out in the US' favor.
Probably some of those other ones should be on my list...
OP ( @FirmWeird) in his comment up thread seems to suggest a more comprehensive metric or expansive definition of US favor than the narrow 'decided to step down' = success metric.
Arguably it may yet be too soon to say in Venezuela.
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But notably not their death. If they actually thought this way---from a revealed preferences angle---they'd be out guerilla-ing.
I'm not so certain that's true.
At least in a couple cases it would also be irresponsible for them to break up their extant lives in the U.S. to go over and maybe die for a regime change.
In one case, though, the guy is single and otherwise not attached to much and owns a decent number of guns.
Just like it's irresponsible for the parents in the US military to disrupt their child's development to go on deployment.
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Maybe they’re being more efficient by getting high-earning jobs in America, then sending that money to fund guerillas?
Effective insurrectionists.
slow clap
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If they did that, would it actually help the protestors? Ayatollah Khamenei is 86 years old, so presumably not as sharp or energetic as he once was. He stays in power by inertia, and probably also because there's a certain amount of hardline islamists in Iran who like having a theocracy. It's very possible that taking him out would just end up replacing him with a younger, sharper ayatollah. Possibly his son.
Definitely a worrisome failure mode there.
I just like the idea of demonstrating the impotence of an authoritarian in such an embarrassing manner.
What I also find amusing is that if you yoink the current leader without killing him, suddenly their 'replacement' has a dilemma. They can either try to seize power for themselves and supplant their predecessor... at which point the U.S. can force a legitimacy crisis by returning the previous one, or the new leader can insist he's just a placeholder until the return of the captive leader... while admitting his own inability to effect that return.
I feel like this sort of thing happened semi-commonly in Medieval Europe when King got captured and held for ransom.
Seems completely unprecedented in the modern era though.
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You are correct that it's not about taking out one person.
Iran is generally ruled by committees of senior officials and advisors, with the Supreme Leader ultimately signing off. It gives him the ability to blame whoever advocated for a course of action if things go poorly. The Supreme Leader has ultimate authority, but is shielded from any direct accountability. Classic "good Tsar, bad Boyars" government design.
Basically the entire reason for the Iranian president is to be the fall guy for economic policies failing. You can vote him out.
What would matter is taking on the security agencies, such that they stop performing effectively at killing protestors and begin switching sides. Just the very act of intervention would probably have a large impact on people's views on the ultimate outcome. Gotta get a preference cascade started.
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Not that I'd advocate for it, but Delta probably wants another try at a major Iran op, just out of unit pride.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Eagle_Claw
Incidentally that would be why I DON'T expect Trump to pull something audacious and highly risky, since he's presumably sensitive to how a failure would crack his popularity and image. He has been VERY blessed in the success of his deployment of U.S. forces into dangerous situations. Hasn't had to reckon with a version of the Benghazi or Black Hawk Down situations, let alone the Iran Hostage Crisis. Biden even did him the favor of a hasty Afghanistan withdrawal in the interim.
I'm still in awe of the Venezuela gambit, he must have been assured there was such a disparity in capability (or they had SO MANY insiders to help out) that it would be virtually impossible to truly fail.
I'm not exactly sure what sort of material support for the protestors is most likely to help them succeed, but I do like that this tangibly reduces the likelihood of a real boots-on-ground invasion, from my perspective.
They literally didn't turn on their air defences. It's not impressive from a military angle at all.
Long-range air defenses are not very effective against low-flying aircraft* (unless essentially colocated with the target, in which case they don't perform better and may perform worse than other cheaper systems) – you can see this in Ukraine, where Russian and Ukrainian aircraft have been able to operate despite the presence of air defenses much superior to those of Venezuela. Being able to get in, yoink a leader defended by small arms and MANPADS (as Maduro was) and fly off without (allegedly) loss of life or destruction of equipment is impressive. Frankly, just coordinating a joint-services time-on-target operation is difficult enough without any sort of resistance at all.
*you might be wondering "what's the point of long range missiles then?" and the answer is that is if all you are doing is forcing the enemy to do risky nap-of-the-earth operations where they will be susceptible to small-arms fire and have worse performance then your long-ranged missiles have paid for themselves already.
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Did all of Maduro's security forget to take their guns off 'safe' as well?
Maybe he lost popular military support? They intentionally let the US take him?
I'm getting too cynical, it just doesn't feel real to me, but it's going to be years before we can parse it. It's an odd strategic move, akin to terrorism on its face, to kidnap a head of state as a naked threat to hang over his successor. So I have to imagine that there was some under the radar deal with the venezuelan deep state to accept this turn of events in exchange for letting them stay in power.
Of course, deals with the USA aren't worth the paper they're printed on.
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Sorry what? I don't follow. If it wasn't clear, I was implying that the "disparity" was assured because the other side did not engage in a defense.
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Now do Greenland, lol [cries].
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-15452323/Donald-Trump-orders-army-chiefs-plan-invade-Greenland-President.html
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