Like Scott, I confess to puzzlement over what the administration is up to in Iran, and concern that President Trump may have snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. Roger Kimball, ever the optimist, notes good news on a number of fronts. He is clearly right about the U.K. (question: why is politics so much more volatile in the U.K. than in the United States?) and trends as we approach the midterms, although I am still not sure whether Republicans have a realistic hope of holding the House.
Roger is also optimistic on Iran:
The war is over. Janitorial work is tidying up the debris. Operation Epic Fury gave way to Project Freedom, which gave way to the cat-and-mouse game we see unfolding now. Donald Trump, for those keeping score, is the cat. The Iranian regime is fielding the mice. CENTCOM just reaffirmed that the US naval blockade of the Strait of Hormuz “continues to be fully enforced.” “As of today [May 9],” their bulletin reports, “CENTCOM forces have redirected 58 commercial vessels and disabled 4 since April 13 to prevent the ships from entering or leaving Iranian ports.”
The cat is there, but the mice don’t care. They send speed boats, drones, and missiles to harass shipping and US vessels. In so doing, they expose a panoply of military assets from IRGC-linked positions on shore to drone and fast attack boat staging sites. ”For years,” one commentator observed, “the Islamic Republic relied on concealment, deniability, underground infrastructure, dispersed launch systems, and swarm tactics designed to complicate retaliation and avoid direct conventional confrontation.” This time, however, their attacks
exposed elements of that network in real time and allowed the U.S. to rapidly strike supporting infrastructure behind it without a prolonged escalation cycle.
This is modern military strategy at its most effective: force the enemy to reveal hidden systems through aggression, map operational networks instantly, and destroy critical nodes before they can reposition or disappear.
The apparent hiatus in hostilities may seem like limbo. If you are part of the Iranian regime, it will seem like hell. The U.S.S. Missouri is anchored in Tokyo Bay. The surrender papers are laid out on the desk. The Iranians just need to find someone with authority to sign. “Is the ceasefire with Iran still on?” a reporter asked President Trump after the US Navy sunk several Iranian “fast boats” attacking them. “Yes,” he replied, “They trifled with us today. We blew ’em away.” Should the ceasefire end, POTUS continued, you won’t have to ask. “You’re just going to have to look at one big glow coming out of Iran. They better sign their agreement fast.” Good advice.
I fervently hope that Roger is right. Others, however, see it differently. My friend Mark Steyn has been pessimistic about our Iranian venture from the beginning. I am linking to this particular post, in part, because of Mark’s kind words about Power Line. Coincidentally, Mark’s post also quotes from an earlier post of ours that, like this one, quoted Roger Kimball. See original for links:
Twenty years ago, President Bush – in a conversation about falling support for the Iraq War – said to me offhandedly that twenty-five per cent of people won’t support any war — or at least, presumably, any war short of the Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry crossing the Montana border or the Royal Bahamas Defence Force shelling Miami. But, for any of the likelier American wars, that twenty-five per cent has grown to thirty, forty, fifty-five per cent straight out of the gate. What is it the majority of their fellow Americans intuit about Washington’s way of war that Mark Levin and Lindsey Graham do not?
Over the weekend, Powerline linked to a piece by a former editor of mine:
Our friend Roger Kimball, an optimist, describes the Last Days of the Iranian Regime.
John writes that Roger is “an optimist” in a way that suggests he himself is no longer quite one such:
I think President Trump erred in trying to find Iranian leaders with whom to negotiate. By doing so, he has handed power over to the regime. All its nameless representatives need to do is say No, and they appear to be in control.
That’s true. One notes also that, after saying on the first day that “all I want is freedom for the people”, the President, in insisting that regime-change has already occurred, is entrenching Iran’s rulers and ensuring the regime’s survival. As John adds:
From their perspective, they don’t have to win, they just need to survive.
Which, for an optimist or semi-optimist, sounds awfully like a niche Canadian on the fifth day of the war:
In order to win, all the Islamic Republic has to do is survive.
But they have more than survived. As Lindsey Graham promised on the first day:
The biggest change in the Middle East in a thousand years is upon us.
Which is true if you mean they now control twenty per cent of the world’s energy.
I fervently hope that the optimists on Iran will prove to be right. I think we are already approaching the point where the narrative that Iran is a failure is taking hold, and no matter what happens from now on, that impression may be impossible to erase. This despite the fact that the administration’s stated objective–the destruction of Iran’s military power–has plainly been achieved.
