I hope to surprise a few regular readers. I’m glad Democratic efforts to reign in President Trump’s Iran war failed in the House and Senate. I certainly agree that the President should have come to Congress for authorization before attacking Iran. But blocking him now would have muddied accountability for what happens next.
That would be a bad idea. Trump launched this war without thinking through what would happen. He should get the blame for anything that goes wrong. That is lots of things.
Now that it has started, how should it end?
Trump wants victory, topped by an unconditional surrender, as soon as possible. He knows that support for the war in the US is weak. He also knows the economic consequences will be compounding. Energy prices will constrain consumer spending. The political consequences in November if the war extends into the spring and summer will be dramatic.
Of course he can announce “mission accomplished” any time he likes. One-third of Americans will believe him, at least for a while. They believe anything he says. But the other two-thirds will remember that President George W. Bush’s announcement presaged years of more war in Iraq.
Even if Trump can install an Iranian leader to surrender, that person will face an insurgency from Islamic Republic diehards. The Americans will end up compelled to support the new regime with military force and economic assistance.
Trump doesn’t care about democracy. His administration is opposed to America getting involved in state-building. He will accept something like a surrender from the Islamic Republic, even if the Israelis will be opposed. They are unequivocal about wanting regime change.
Tehran’s tattered regime won’t surrender exactly, but it will eventually want a ceasefire to prevent further infrastructure damage. They’ll have to let Trump announce it as his own great accomplishment. The Iranians are smart enough to let that happen.
The conditions for a ceasefire, cessation of hostilities, or armistice will be important. The essential one is elimination of the nuclear threat. The Americans and Israelis are doing enormous damage to both the missile inventory and Iran’s Hezbollah allies. Those threats will be largely eliminated for 5-10 years once this war is over. The drone threat will be harder to squash, but without missiles and allies it can be contained.
More important: Iran still has a large stockpile of enriched uranium. If the regime survives, it will want to use it to make nuclear weapons. Ayatollah Khamenei, who was the primary obstacle inside Iran to making nuclear weapons, is gone. Deterrence without them failed. The conclusion is obvious. The Israelis and Americans will want a definitive, verifiable commitment to end the Iranian nuclear program.
The Iranians have a long history of converting near-term failure into something like long-term success. The 1979 seizure of the US embassy and the Iran-Iraq war seemed certain to weaken the new regime. Both ended up strengthening the Islamic Republic domestically.
The Iranians will try to convert their Gulf adversaries in this war to their side. After all, they have suffered harm in a war they did not want. They even found themselves on side with the Israelis. Tehran will also hope to get China more committed to the cause of countering the Americans and Israelis. It won’t be surprising if the war ends with Beijing’s mediation, as did the Saudi/Iranian break in relations in 2023.
The United States won’t be defeated in this war, but it will be militarily exhausted, economically weakened, and diplomatically isolated. Taiwan will be less certain America would come to its aid. Ukraine will be starved for longer-range and air defense missiles. NATO will lack leadership. The nuclear monopoly will be at risk. Those are pluses for Iran.
The war could also end with a democratic regime in Tehran committed to the welfare of Iranians and regional peace. But the odds of that are not good. Ending this war well won’t be easy. The devil is not only in the details, but in a highly uncertain future. This war was a giant wager. There is a lot to lose on both sides.
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