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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.
How would attacking Iran benefit America?
Throwing missiles around isn't going to do anything significant. How many missiles has Russia dumped on Ukraine, how many thousands of drones and missiles have they fired off? They've largely broken the Ukrainian electrical grid yet Ukraine remains in the struggle after years and years of bombing and a large-scale ground invasion.
The Saudis bombed Yemen. The US bombed Yemen. The bombing did very little.
How many bombs did the Allies drop on Germany, they flattened whole cities with firestorms comparable to nuclear strikes! This did not break the will of Nazi Germany, they fought on till ground troops conquered the country. The US flattened North Korea, they literally razed the entire country such that people were living in holes in the ground because the buildings had been destroyed. The war ended in a draw and from then on North Korea devoted massive resources into armaments and bunkerization and has taken a very hostile stance to America, as one might expect. Bombing Vietnam caused considerable casualties for Vietnam but it did not achieve the political goal, Saigon was lost. The Russians bombed the hell out of Chechnya but needed a ground invasion to secure it.
Bombing has military relevance but the political effect is very weak, often counterproductive. If you want a political effect, you need to have ground troops for an invasion and this invasion needs to be in progress or very likely to succeed to pressure leaders into surrendering. Alternately, you can aim for a military effect in that bombing can swing the tide of a relatively evenly fought civil war as in Syria or Libya. Only the bombing of Serbia worked out per the 'air campaign only' concept. Iran is a lot bigger than Serbia and a lot further away from NATO airbases. Air campaigns only work in special cases, not generally.
The prior Israeli and American bombing of Iran did nothing, there was no significant military or political effect. The bombing of Fordow had no effect since Iran does not want nuclear weapons. The Israelis have been saying the Iranians are 6-18 months away from nuclear weapons for the last 30 years. The Israelis are lying. If the Iranians wanted nuclear weapons, they'd simply acquire them like other countries that want them. Pakistan didn't stay months away from nukes for decades, they just acquired them. Same with North Korea. Iran probably wants to be a latent nuclear state like South Korea or Japan, they'll only change this stance if threatened with imminent disaster.
Bombing Iran more aggressively is the surest path to them nuclearizing.
There are also a myriad of other costs of bombing Iran. Oil prices will rise and economic uncertainty will increase. The cost in munitions will reduce US strength in more important theaters like Asia. It will further worsen US diplomatic standing. Russia and China will support Iran to inflict costs on the US, they won't be alone like Serbia was. The Iranians will fight on since a ground invasion is totally impractical and a ground invasion is the only thing that can actually deliver the goal of regime change, unless there is a civil war.
If you think the regime might be collapsing and is totally unsustainable then why bomb, why should the US not just do nothing and save a lot of effort, risk and blood? If you're right then doing nothing is the most logical choice, if you're wrong (and the semi-annual major Iran riots are another nothingburger) and the US bombs, then it probably won't work?
Trump shouldn't make these rash proclamations, he should take some notes from Xi about doing nothing, developing internally and biding his time. This recent Venezuela campaign seems to be incoherent. Maduro is gone, some people are dead but the whole socialist structure is still there. Maduro is a clown, not some evil wizard holding the whole country under his thrall. Trump could've just unsanctioned Venezuelan oil if he wanted to buy it, would have probably been much cheaper than moving all these troops around. He thinks he owns Venezuela, people are making memes about conquistadors but conquistadors fought ground campaigns and actually conquered territory, putting it under their complete political control. That comes first, then comes resource extraction. Montezuma's vice-emperor didn't take over the Aztecs!
Why do you think in any way it's a good idea to directly compare mass protests and regime change in Iran to Russia's invasion of Ukraine?
Those are not analogous scenarios. You've essentially provided a Gish Gallop of incredibly wrong military analysis.
It's actually something of a prevalent myth that strategic bombing in WWII didn't have a major impact on the outcome of the war, but that's also not an analogous situation.
I love that you leave out "China" when discussing the Korean War.
I don't know what evidence I could possibly provide here to change your mind, given all the available evidence you've presumably had the chance to encounter.
Seriously? I thought they didn't want weapons? What are they waiting for?
Where were they last June?
Ensuring victory of the opposition and reducing the chance of protracted conflict and bloodshed.
Imagine if you will how you would feel if Venezuela had been undergoing mass, violent protests?
At least when people bring up Libya they're conceding that air power in support of on-the-ground opposition can be quite effective at regime change.
You haven't provided military analysis at all, all you say in your little substack post is 'bomb and good things will happen'. At no point do you investigate the value proposition, the historic success rate of these air campaigns, consider relevant factors such as 'what are the risks of starting a major war in a key energy exporting area'? Go read a RAND report, there are far smarter ways to be hawkish.
Ukraine was in the middle of a civil war when Russia invaded, the rebels there had gotten FAR further than in Iran. They actually controlled territory, were well organized into their own mini-states in Donetsk and Luhansk. And even with the Russian bombing... Even with the Russian invasion... It's still turned into a mess for Russia because Ukraine (considerably smaller than Iran) is not easily toppled. Ukraine has outside support, so would Iran.
Yeah, the Chinese provided the ground troops that retook North Korea. They fought the bulk of the ground campaigns. Ground campaigns matter, I have stressed this. But the US destroying 75-90% of the standing structures in North Korea still didn't bring them to the negotiating table, do you think a few measly missiles are going to knock out Iran? Israel has bombed the shit out of Gaza and marched in troops several times, it took a long long long time to achieve a draw. And that's all they've achieved! Hamas is still in charge on the ground.
It's insanely dumb to go 'yes, the Israelis have managed, after years and years of shelling and bombing and ground invasion against a tiny poor state they outnumber and totally encircle, to get back their captives, while Hamas is still in charge - so the US and Israel can bomb a mountainous country 50x bigger than Gaza in population, 80x the size of Israel in size, a country with much greater military resources and somehow this will overthrow the regime, without even a ground invasion since even in my fantasy world that's still too far'
There's no reason why this would work!
Sending military aid takes time and depends on the situation, whether it's a tit for tat squabble or a major campaign. We've been through over 20 years of interventionists proposing 'easy' campaigns in the Middle East that almost always turn out to be long, expensive, failures and yet no lessons seem to be learnt. Iran is not even an 'easy' campaign, it is an extremely difficult campaign in a mountainous, highly populated, huge territory. It is the hardest campaign.
You understand the concept of theory of a hypothetical scenario, right? If it's warm, I don't need a coat. But if it's cold, I'll wear a coat. I might bring a coat in my bag if I think it'll suddenly get cold enough for me to need it! I'm a latent coat-wearer.
What opposition? Led by who? Can you even name them? What are their goals and ideologies? Have you justified that an air campaign would result in the success of this amorphous political grouping, as opposed to tarring them with comprador status (presumed to be in alliance with foreigners trying to bomb the country)?
'Feelings' are not supposed to come into it. Strategy via 'feelings' is stupid and usually immoral too in its final outcomes, inferior in all respects compared to sober analysis.
You continue to demonstrate you have no ability to understand reality.
You're still peddling "if we attack Iran they will really go for the bomb" AFTER the US and Israel attacked them six months ago.
You're still peddling "if we attack Iran they will get support from China/Russia" AFTER we've seen them do nothing to help Iran when it was getting pummeled six months ago.
You talk a big game about "sober analysis," but you are incapable of recognizing the use of the word "feel" in a context where I'm simply proposing you consider an alternate scenario. Instead of thinking about the posed alternate scenario--which would be inconvenient for you--you jump to a lecture on "feelings" not being a great way to analyze things.
At least the people who bring up Libya concede that air power in support of protests on the ground can be effective at toppling regimes.
Come back when you've worked out the difference between 'skirmishing' and 'attempted regime change'. You have no idea what you're proposing, an incredibly simplistic or outright ignorant view of the relevant dynamics.
Russia and China do not care much about skirmishes, they care more about regime change. The response would be different.
Hypothetical Venezuelan protests have little to do with the situation, unless they're well-armed enough to be credible threats to the state. I already addressed this but you don't seem to understand it.
I have a pretty good idea of what I'm proposing since I've spent some time in the Middle East, uh, working on US foreign policy.
Russia and China will not stick their necks out for Iran. Any support would be a mere token.
You have demonstrated you'll just throw analytic spaghetti at the wall even when it makes zero sense.
I don't think you grok my point about the Venezuela operation, were it to have been done in a context of a mass popular uprising.
It all makes sense now. Reflexive support of a totally unknown opposition. Great confidence in intervention, despite a poor track record. Complete assurance that this time, they really are developing WMDs... Very little interest in detail (what carrier groups are there to use for this attack, there aren't any deployed in CENTCOM right now) or any consequences of the attack. No attempt to weigh up pros and cons.
Yes, I can completely believe you worked on US foreign policy in the Middle East.
If the Venezuelan operation were done in the context of a mass uprising, who knows what would happen? A civil war, a new government or just more chaos? How does that help achieve US goals, how does that secure the oil Trump wants? These are totally different situations with different goals.
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Russia doesn't have the capacity to support Iran now and China just doesn't care (nor does it have the capacity to defend them). They're on their own.
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