Marching towards different wars

Both Iran and the United States are signaling escalation in the wake of the assassination of Quds force commander Qasem Soleimani. Tehran said it had identified 35 targets. President Trump responded with a tweet threat against 52:

Let this serve as a WARNING that if Iran strikes any Americans, or American assets, we have targeted 52 Iranian sites (representing the 52 American hostages taken by Iran many years ago), some at a very high level & important to Iran & the Iranian culture, and those targets, and Iran itself, WILL BE HIT VERY FAST AND VERY HARD. The USA wants no more threats!

Both have the capability, and perhaps the will. It all sounds strikingly symmetrical.

But there the parallel ends. The wars they are contemplating are different. Iran can hit 35 US targets, but only using proxy forces in other countries or cyber attacks. The US can hit 52 sites, but only with stand-off weapons like drones and cruise missiles, in addition to cyber attacks. That I suspect makes cyber attacks less likely: the Americans presumably have the greater capability in that domain, but they also have far more to lose if the Iranians prove even marginally competent. Will Tehran care much if its citizens don’t have internet access?

Neither the US nor Iran wants a traditional ground war. The Iranians because they would lose, should the Americans deploy the kind of force they did in attacking Iraq in 2003. But that isn’t happening. The American electorate is not prepared to support that kind of effort, and the Administration has done nothing to try to mobilize it. President Trump can deploy a few thousand additional troops to the Middle East to protect American embassies and other facilities, but hundreds of thousands are not in the cards.

Trump is hoping his threats of escalation will bring Iran to the negotiating table, where he hopes to get a “better” agreement than President Obama’s nuclear deal. It’s the North Korea gambit: loud threats, some action, then hugs and kisses. If that fails, he will try a stand-off and cyber attack. If he has a game plan beyond that, he has kept it a good secret. He has so far been unwilling to loosen sanctions, which is what the Iranians want.

The Iranians are fighting on different battlefields. They may threaten proxy and cyber attacks, and even indulge in some, but their better bets are forcing the US troops out of Iraq (there is an advisory vote tomorrow on that in the Iraqi parliament) and acquiring all the material and technology they need to build nuclear weapons. Kim Jong-un got respect once he had nukes. Why shouldn’t the Supreme Leader expect the same?

Nothing about American intervention in the Middle East in the past two decades has brought much more than grief to the United States. Trillions of dollars and thousands of American deaths later, we have accomplished little. Iran has gained from the removal of arch-rival Saddam Hussein, protected its ally Bashar al Assad from insurgency, strengthened its position on Israel’s northern borders, and helped the Houthis in Yemen to harass Saudi Arabia.

President Trump had it right when he ran in 2016 on avoiding new Middle East wars and bringing American troops home. But that requires a serious strategy and commitment to diplomacy and alliances that he has been unwilling to make. Now he risks getting the Americans sent home and confronting an Iran that has nuclear capabilities. You tell me who is fighting on the right battlefield.