Tactical Victories, Massive Strategic Loss

Tactical Victories, Massive Strategic Loss

Ego, Oil and Ignorance Decimate Trump’s War

Trump’s MAGA war on higher education is showing its soft underbelly of failure and extreme vulnerability is his unilateral WAR against Iran. We winced as Trump’s HHS Secretary, RFK, Jr led his department to a medical stance that has resulted in the spread of new strains of bacteria and viruses and the resurrection of once extinguished diseases. The rising infections and resulting fatalities reflect our collective ignorance. But those missteps, colossal as they are, pale by comparison to the needless slaughter, our open rejection of the rules of engagement and the Geneva Conventions against targeting civilians (a genuine war crime), and failure to understand that our government’s military efforts in Iran, rejected by every Western nation, are provoking the exactly opposite result from the few announced goals by the Trump administration.

I write this as one who, as the stepson of an American diplomat, has lived in the Middle East (four years) and has actually visited Tehran. Americans tend to bundle their impression of the Middle East, assuming that Islam is a unitary religion and that all the regional nations are pretty much the same. Iran’s predecessor nations, its very identity and culture, is anchored in what may be the oldest organized state on Earth: Persia. Dated at least as old as 3500 years BCE, long before Islam or Christianity even existed. Iran, Persia if you will, has of late been mostly a secular nation – proud and highly educated, seeking a constitutional democracy – starting in its constitutional revolution in 1906. Unlike most of its neighbors, which were defined in a post-WWI carve-up and setting of artificial boundaries by colonial France and the UK, contemporary Iran occupies much of what was central Persia, defined millennia earlier. They speak Farsi, not Arabic, and never considered the upstart Arab neighbors as cultural equals.

Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, etc. are artificial states whose borders were drawn in secret backroom deals (e.g., the Sykes-Picot treaty of 1916), resulting in struggling with disparate factions that never really fit together. Iran’s culture is a unifying force, and to the extent that incumbent governments have been seen as repressive, Iranians have used religion at the vehicle for resistance. Or, if a religious power itself has become repressive, Iranians – noting that educated and urban Iranians are not particularly religious – you get the kind of civil unrest against theocratic dictators we have seen over the last few years.

Persians have never simply accepted external conquests without some strong symbol of protest. The Muslim Conquest of Persia, also known as the Arab Conquest of Iran, was a series of military campaigns conducted by the Rashidun Caliphate between 632 and 654 CE. But Persian resistance was manifest in a subtle reinterpretation of Islam. Instead of accepting the Caliphate’s definition of the strict meaning of the Koran (Sunnism), Persians designated an “Imam” (a Pope-like leader), to tell the newly initiated faithful what the Koran’s mystical meaning really was. Circa the 10th century CE, the 12th Imam disappeared, leaving this new version of Islam (Shia) in shambles, a reality that was course-corrected in 1979, when the repressive Shah was deposed and replaced by the current Shiite theocracy. But the Shiite takeover, where Ayatollahs became the new “Imams,” did not change that profound secular undercurrent that still defines modern Iran.

The theocracy rapidly built the massive paramilitary, led by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), that is one of the most effective and repressive police states in the world. The IRGC reported to the elder Ayatollah Khamenei, a respected and purportedly God-linked autocrat, but his execution and the subsequent appointment of his son as his successor, did not imbue young Khamenei with the same power over the IRGC. Instead, the young Ayatollah is now subservient to the hardline IRGC. No regime change. Even as educated Iranians once believed in the US as a potential savior (no longer!), the persistence of the Persian culture is the backbone of Iran’s ability to withstand the American/Israeli onslaught and escalate the conflict with resolve and sufficient weapons in reserve to apply their symmetrical strength to stop our superior military dead in its tracks.

Look at what the Iranian theocracy has won: when the US said they totally dominated the air and sea above and around Iran, Tehran shot down two US jet aircraft and managed completely to control passage through the Strait of Hormuz. Iranian tankers can pass freely, and Iran can grant safe passage to ships of any approved nation. Oh, by the way, the once “free passage” of ships through the Strait that has existed for decades until Trump’s WAR, assuming a ship is approved by Tehran, must now pay a $2 million toll just to get through. Between the toll and massive increase in the cost of oil, Tehran should have more than enough future cash to rebuild. And what have we gained except high prices and the disdain of most of the rest of the world.

Further, whatever deterrence against Iran’s building a nuclear warhead or bomb is gone; they have enough fissionable to build a functional, if inferior, nuclear weapon. Energy prices are triggering a massive global recession. Russia is smiling; they have profitable oil. And even China is smiling; between Russian oil and their massive deployment of alternative energy power generation (they never thought climate change was a hoax!!!), they are very well prepared to endure this conflict… and are enjoying the unraveling of the once powerful alliance of Western nations… and de facto demise of NATO. Hell, if Western nations will no longer be dependent on buying top-of-the-line US weapons systems, China may be poised to step in to provide substitutes.

This WAR will not be won by superior American military capabilities. We know that our history against asymmetrical enemies is littered with failure. I’ll end this blog with Iran’s response to Trump’s foul-language Truth Social quote above. Mohammad-Bagher Ghalibaf, the speaker of the Parliament of Iran, responded to Trump’s threats in this social media post: “Your reckless moves are dragging the United States into a living HELL for every single family, and our whole region is going to burn because you insist on following Netanyahu’s commands… Make no mistake: You won’t gain anything through war crimes. The only real solution is respecting the rights of the Iranian people and ending this dangerous game.” And no, “Little Man Pete,” God is not on the side of any faction that glorifies war and killing, particularly when it was unilaterally initiated. I am shocked, no “horrified,” at a MAGA minority (represented by Republicans in Congres) failing to understand what is really happening and making inane statements that support and mirror Donald John Trump’s self-destructive ignorance.

I’m Peter Dekom, and I challenge any American to tell me what we have gained or a likely to gain from Trump’s military “excursion” compared to the cost, measured by any standard, that has been imposed on American taxpayers and has resulted our lost global credibility and respect.