As the US builds up military assets around Iran, the world asks will a bombing attack unfold, how soon and if so to what end. The answer to the first is likely yes. And likely after India’s Prime Minister Modi has concluded his visit to Israel in a few days. So expect the assaults to begin a week or so after. And expect them to last a good deal longer than last time. Why does the evidence indicate we are not witnessing a drill? Chiefly the amount of hardware and certain types that conclusively indicate concrete plans such as the E3 Sentries for battlefield co-ordination.
The main question is why and why now? As widespread commentary has argued, we were told that Iran’s relevant assets were neutralized in the previous round of bombings. Some have claimed that the new campaign will target chemical and biological weapons that need disposing – but objections arise to that theory. The risk to surrounding populations, for one thing. For another, you’d think such threats, if significant, were targeted the first time around. So the question remains as to why. There are several scenarios.
The reader should know I have covered the region upwards of three decades for top US news media. This column uniquely among commentators predicted, repeatedly, that during the Trump administration Russia would get to keep Ukraine while Israel would be allowed to bomb Iran. This column has a solid history of getting things right. Now let us look at the scenarios. Why would the US attack Iran at this juncture?
To liberate the populace from slaughter and repression i.e. regime change? Unlikely, since Washington tends, these days, not to be sentimental in this way, not least because any such a scenario requires boots on the ground to drive the regime out. So the argument goes. It’s a false argument but the US might believe it. False, because we see that Türkiye has displaced Assad without using Turkish troops but by using its own proxies. The US could do the same, with sufficient planning, by installing Reza Pahlavi. He has the popular support in country. Some argue that Iran is a tougher nut than Syria because the Mullah regime is more entrenched and has greater foreign support.
Syria certainly had Russian support aplenty but Syria was not as strategically important. Neither Moscow or Beijing will allow regime change for critical strategic reasons. For Russia, Iran functions as a strategic gateway to the Caucasus and Central Asia. A pro-Western Iran would potentially liberate the Russian stranglehold on Chechnya, Georgia, South Ossetia, all the way to Turkmenistan and beyond. Plus, the Tehran regime functions as a military ally to Moscow in providing crucial Shaheds and the like. Also, China is fully invested in upholding the Mullahs as a vital oil source. So, all in all, regime change is not the current end goal of the US.
The Tehran regime has rebuilt its nuclear and other assets or they were not sufficiently depleted the first time around? This one is more plausible if not fully conclusive. The truth is, the build-up this time around looks a lot more comprehensive than before. Therefore, the US plans a far more widespread campaign of destruction. In other words, the plan involves a total depletion of regime resources rather than mere targeted attacks on WMD sites be they nuclear, chemical or biological.
The regime is clearly not offering the necessary amount of concessions and did not get the first-time message of full-scale co-operation. What would greater co-operation look like? Stopping nuclear and WMD research altogether in a fully verifiable way. Collaborating with the US in the oil sector, perhaps bringing in US companies. Ceasing the threat to Israel or US mideast assets entirely which means disarming or mothballing missile and Shahed production and the like. Iran would essentially have to step down altogether from its role of regional power. The very fact that it can still threaten the US with significant reprisals shows it has not disarmed fully.
The dismembering of Iran into constituent ethnic parts while leaving a much diminished area to the regime’s control? As this column has mentioned before, Iran is geographically constituted of over 40% ethnic zones including Azeris and Kurds. Some version of what happened to Iraq could be the intended scenario. A more federated arrangement with greater autonomy for the Kurds and Azeris. Total independence for those zones isn’t about to happen – already there are reports of Turkish mobile units massing on the Kurdish Iranian border. Which means no Kurdish independent zone.
The Turks prevented the Iraqi version of a Kurdish independent entity from forming in 2003 by denying permission to US troops from any invasion via Turkey into northern Iraq. Erdogan stopped it that time by quietly gathering the necessary votes in parliament to say no to US demands Ankara believed that American occupation of the Kurdish area would inhibit Turkish influence on shaping the zone’s future. He distrusted US plans and believed it would lead to an independent Iraqi Kurdish entity that would then incentivize Turkey’s Kurds to secede and try to join the Iraqi entity. Erdogan is acting similarly now over Iran by planning, with Turkish troops, to stifle secession by Iran’s Kurds.
As for the Azeris, they could, in theory, have outside support to secede into unity with the country of Azerbaijan since both Israel and Türkiye are fully aligned with Baku. But this scenario is too is not happening because, these days, Israel and Turkey don’t agree on anything. But, yes, some version of the Iraqi scenario applied to Iran seems on the cards. That is likely the goal of the new US campaign against Iran. A much looser federated country with much less power in the center and a far diminished strategic regional footprint.
How would that actually come about? It would be a process, one that would take some time. And would require a fully complaisant leader in Iran. Which means that Larijani, the current interlocutor in Tehran must go. He clearly didn’t deliver on US demands. But that’s just the beginning. Whoever is pressuring Larijani to resist US demands, namely other top leaders in the IRGC and Mullahcracy, will find themselves collectively and personally targeted in the coming attacks. They, in turn, may feel that, with outside help, they could anticipate and hide from the threat. But considering the amount of deployed US power, this campaign resembles not the last attack but the sustained campaign against Saddam.
The people at the top in Iran are unlikely to survive nor will the power structure protecting them from the populace – who will be getting details of their hideouts. Whoever does survive is likely to understand that their survival was no accident and act accordingly this time around. That, at least, is the likely plan.
Only two conditions will stop that scenario. 1) Iran’s leaders take the threat seriously and take a radical step toward greater concessions. 2)They give the US such a bloody nose in the hostilities that Americans will pressure Washington to climb down. Already a top Pentagon general (Dan Caine) has made noises that success in the offensive campaign will prove very costly. The US could declare a victory and go home at a certain point in the hostilities before triggering major Iranian retaliation. But that would only lead to a replay down the line.
As U.S. assets gather for an attack against Iran, a longer campaign against Khamenei et al looks imminent (Photo by Scott Nelson/Getty Images)
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