A lot of smoke is going up around the Persian Gulf—metaphorical for now. In response to the Islamic Republic’s brutal crackdown on protests earlier this month, President Donald Trump announced that he’d let slip the dogs of war if the regime started shooting people in the streets. The usual sort of excitement ensued among the usual suspects. The U.S. is continuing to sanction the bejeebus out of Iran—per Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, “Make Iran Broke Again”—and, for the time being, it seems as if all is quiet on the Greenlandic and Venezuelan fronts. Pivoting to the Western Hemisphere is hard work; why not take a little break with our favorite leisure activity, lobbing ordnance into the desert?
What are we actually going to do? The tea leaves are contradictory. On the one hand, it is not clear what the target would be, or what the provoking incident would be—in the sequel to the crackdown, Trump has downplayed reprisals and has largely stopped talking about Iran. The administration has shown a strong preference for making a very loud case for why high-profile military actions must be taken: In last June’s strikes on Iran, restricting the nuclear program had already been a theme for months, capped by the usual laughable claims about imminent breakout; in the months leading up to the bizarre capture of Nicolas Maduro, there was a hurricane of specious claims about drug trafficking, oil, peer adversaries, and so on. (The exception to this, as always, is AFRICOM operations, which often receive just bare recognition after the fact.) So but really: What are we going to do? Extradite the ayatollah to the Southern District of New York? Use the discombobulator on Araghchi? Invite the loose ends of the Syrian Defense Forces to cut up a little bit in Iranian Kurdistan? I would say that none of this seems terribly serious, and, while that is hardly a guarantee it won’t be tried, it nevertheless is true that nothing here leaps out as the obvious Trump preference.
On the other hand, we have chopped a carrier group into CENTCOM, and usually you don’t mass warships in a theater if you aren’t planning to do something with them. Trump is on the internet bellowing about how he’s prepared to reprise Venezuela: “Hopefully Iran will ‘Come to the Table’ and negotiate a fair and equitable deal - NO NUCLEAR WEAPONS - one that is good for all parties.” (Of course, the U.S. at this point has rejected multiple deal frameworks kiboshing Iranian nuclear weapons, which does not inspire confidence that this is a good-faith call for talks. It also bears pointing out that the administration now has a well-established record of engaging in diplomacy and then using force in the midst of negotiations.) The Europeans are doing their usual embarrassing Freudian thing of aping American aggression. Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian is clearly worried—worried enough that he’s issuing directives for what to do if the central government is functionally wiped out. The hawkish factions have built up a narrative of strength if Trump strikes and weakness if he doesn’t; Obama’s Syrian redlines are the gift that keeps on giving.
So let’s say we go for it—try to bring down the whole thing. Immediately before last June’s strikes, in a column predicting that bandwagoning on Israel’s air campaign would leave unfinished business that encourages further intervention down the road (that has aged well, hasn’t it?), I gave a quick run-down on why the prospects of regime collapse are unappealing:
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It is worth repeating in detailed terms that regime change, whether spontaneous or by some near-to-middle future intervention, is not an attractive prospect. While the ayatollahs are not popular—low voter turnout in Iranian elections does not speak to enthusiastic support for the system—it is not clear that there is a desirable alternative waiting in the wings. Reza Pahlavi, the eldest son of the last shah of Iran, does not seem like a serious man, and the fact that his own PR is casting him in the role of Israeli client seems unlikely to make him popular among his countrymen who just got bombed by the Israelis. The MEK is, for the lay audience, Baathism without the charm or sophistication, with some light cultism mixed in to keep things fun. If the army seizes power, would you bet against revanchism following a national humiliation like this? And, at the same time, do you feel confident that a Shia ISIS equivalent will not emerge? Chaos in Iran, especially an Iran with the technical base of a nuclear threshold state, is not good for an America that is trying desperately to pay less attention to the region so it can play whack-a-mole in more important theaters.
None of the fundamentals have changed since when I wrote that last June (although we do now know that our strikes did something less than “obliterate” the Iranian nuclear sites). It’s lazy to drop block quotes from things you’ve already published, but it’s also lazy to keep playing with the same stupid policies. I’ll wait for the White House to give me something fresh to work with.
Perhaps most likely (as suggested by my colleague Andrew Day) is some sort of choreographed strike and counterstrike that keeps everyone’s domestic audiences basically happy and doesn’t really change anything. This would be a relief on some level. But the question then is Why, and that’s a tough one for the gang at 1600 Penn.; the answer is, I suppose, Because.
