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This "decapitation strategy" seems like a function of the post-GWOT American toolkit, which consists of
It's a great strategy for creating the appearance of victory at a low cost against tribesmen with no air defenses. In terms of actually producing victory, however, as far as I can tell it has never worked except when some significant faction within the targeted regime is secretly working for the enemy. The Onion released an article all the way back in 2006 titled "Eighty Percent Of Al-Qaeda No. 2s Now Dead"; twenty years later, Al Qaeda is more powerful than ever with control over Syria and a significant portion of the Sahel.
If you prefer a more recent example, we've seen this whole song and dance before with Operation Rough Rider and to a lesser extent, Operation Prosperity Guardian. Trump issues dire threats, carrier groups moved into position, Yemen was obliterated with constant airstrikes for over a month, Houthi officials were assassinated yet the Houthi drone and missile capabilities remained intact and Trump ultimately backed down having achieved basically nothing.
If this sort of strategy went nowhere against Yemen then why would there be any expectation of success against Iran, which is larger, more powerful and more populous by several times?
US decapitation strategy goes back at least to WWII with "Operation Vengeance" killing Admiral Yamamoto.
As for Al Qaeda, they're not bothering the US any more and that's what's important to the US. Same goes for Venezuela; the commies are still in charge but they're not buddying up with China and Cuba any more.
The defeat of "Al Qaeda" (the professional terrorist organisation with global reach run out of a cave complex in Afghanistan that did 9-11) involved NATO and their local allies in the Northern Alliance conquering Afghanistan with boots on the ground. (The only reason "Al Qaeda" the meme which inspires Muslim immigrants to drive trucks into European Christmas markets isn't a problem for America is that you have fewer Muslim immigrants). I don't think you can defeat either the professional org or the meme by drone-striking enough "Al Qaeda number 2s".
If black-bagging Maduro out of Venezuela delivers on the Trump administration's goals it will be because (a) Delcy Rodriguez was already compromised and (b) the US can threaten a naval blockade to make sure she stays compromised. If they had done the black-bagging with no blockade the regime would be back in control by now (with Rodriguez either working with Maduro's people or replaced).
If those, specifically, are the people you're talking about, they don't run Syria so your original post was wrong.
We've got sufficient Muslims to do that; they used to. Far fewer lately.
"If". The US had the ability to blockade with Maduro there, it wasn't sufficient.
Not my OP - I don't think the US-backed Salafi-jihadi group that currently controls Damascus "is" Al-Qaeda, although it clearly includes people in senior roles who used to be involved with Al-Qaeda back when Al-Qaeda was a thing. On the other hand, I would make exactly the same statement with "Damascus" replaced by "Riyadh", and that regime is considered uncomplicatedly pro-American. Al-Qaeda the specific terrorist group led by Bin Laden is absolutely defeated (and had been defeated long before Bin Laden himself got taken out in Pakistan), but drone-strikes against large numbers of alleged number 2s were not sufficient to do so.
Agreed - to the extent that US operations in Venezuela are succeeding, it is a combination of a blockade that made capitulation the sane thing to do and a black-bag op to remove someone not sane enough to capitulate.
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Calling it a 'strategy' is rather far-fetched considering that no other Japanese, Italian or German general or admiral was ever a target of US assassination throughout the war, as far as I know.
Fair enough. But assassination was a move that clearly was not off the table.
Yeah, true in the case of rather negligent enemy OPSEC, which apparently did apply to Yamamoto's flight.
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The idea presumably would be that if you can degrade the IRGC's capabilities, since they act as kind of the internal suppression force (being a sizeable army/navy in their own right), the regime won't be able to maintain control over a populace in revolt. At least, that's my take on it.
Another take is that it's a lot easier to cause harm to a sophisticated nation like Iran than to a... less industrialized/urbanized place like Yemen. It's a lot easier to destroy (from the air/sea), say, the US Navy's nuclear shipyard in Newport News than it is to clear out a bunch of people in Appalachia with missiles being smuggled to them.
How would this work when IRGC (presumably) consists largely of true believers and their suppression capabilities are of the "we'll shoot you on the street", and not the "we'll use a highly centralized apparatus to eliminate key dissidents"? That is, when killing a bunch of leaders doesn't actually degrade on the street capabilities of the organization (unlike with the nuclear program or traditional state leadership).
IMO a lot of people question the IRGC is filled with true believers today. It’s been too easy for Israel to take out Iran leadership which implies there are a lot of snitches in the Iranian ranks.
And then you look at their former Presidents pinned tweet Ahmadinejad
He frequently says things that aren’t Iran Supremacy now. There is at least some belief that the Iran regime is hollow now. Sometimes people just keep getting up in the morning and doing their orders until the system changes.
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