War! Again. 

For the third time in my life, the US is going to war under what appear to be false pretenses.  In 1964, there was an incident in the Gulf of Tonkin near Viet Nam which was presented as an attack on US navy ships.  It was later determined to be faulty intelligence that went uncorrected.  Forty-seven thousand Americans were killed as a result of hostile action.  Why?  We wanted to overthrow a communist government.  We failed. 

In 2003, the US government went to great lengths to sell the country on the idea that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction.   We attacked Iraq to destroy their nuclear, chemical, and biological warfare capabilities.  There was evidence before the war that the chemical and biological weapons had been destroyed to avoid sanctions.  There was no solid evidence of a nuclear program.  We used the existence of metal tubes as proof of gas centrifuge construction for enriching uranium.  Four thousand Americans killed and thirty-two thousand wounded.  Why?  We wanted to overthrow a regime we didn’t like.  The situation in Iraq is still unstable more than 20 years later. 

Now, we claim that Iran can produce nuclear bombs and deliver them to the US on missiles.  Eight months ago we claimed to have “obliterated” their nuclear development capacity. Maybe their missile production capability is vastly superior to analytical estimates but there is no support for that argument.  Maybe we want regime change to save the population that we encouraged to rise up against the tyrannical government. That was before we abandoned them as tens of thousands were murdered by the regime.   There has been no serious effort to prepare the nation for this war nor to explain why it is necessary.  So why this time?

Tim Snyder in the Substack “Thinking About” suggests that there may be two other motives.  One is to enhance Trump’s personal fortune by helping to eliminate Iran as a gulf region power.  That enables countries that have been exceedingly generous to him – gifts of 747s, lucrative financial deals for his family, sale of AI chips to rich Emirati Sheiks – to influence him to use American military strength to eliminate their rival.  This is a personal corruption motive. 

It is also possible that the goal of a foreign war is to create instability, division and fear at home and to use that fear to either cancel or constrain upcoming elections.  That might be helpful to Trump as well as to Netanyahu in Israel.  If peace and tranquility return to Israel, Netanyahu will face trial.  Trump may be concerned at the same thing as he has said numerous times that he will be impeached, again, if the Republicans lose the House of Representatives in November.  If a war is in progress, the president may argue that elections must wait and will certainly press the “rally ‘round the flag” message as Netanyahu does. 

In “Lucid” on SubStack, February 28, Vali Nasr, professor and middle east expert, is quoted by Ruth Ben-Ghiat saying, “this war, which Prime Minister Netanyahu lobbied for, is part of a dream to expand Israeli power in the region. In support of this imperialist aim, messianic Orthodox and secular nationalist Israeli ideologies come together with Christian nationalist views”. These views coincide with much of the Trump administration as well, including Hegseth, Rubio and Ambassador Huckabee. 

Another possible motive is regime change.   There is skepticism about regime change because we encouraged Iranians to fight the regime.  Then after the Iranian military and police killed tens of thousands doing that, we did nothing.  A bigger problem is same one we encountered in Iraq and Afghanistan.  It is easy enough to overthrow a regime but without preparation for what comes next, the war will fail.  After we overthrew the Taliban and left Afghanistan, the Taliban returned.  They were the only well-organized group in the country that had the history, breadth, and power to do so.  Same after first gulf war.  Hussein stayed in power.  As explained in Why Nations Fail, by Acemoglu and Robinson, there must be existing institutions and institutional memory to recover. Absent that, there is no pattern for the new leaders to follow to a new society.  Iranians alive today lived all or most of their lives under the Shahs or the Ayatollahs so we would expect little in the way of better institutional models. 

When a regime is overthrown and the over-thrower does not stay to set up shop, the groups most likely to take power are the ones with guns, organization, and expertise in infrastructure management.  In Iran, that is the IRGC and their thuggish state police the Basij.  It is possible that a technocratic organization of state bureaucrats and technicians could come to power but there is no sign of a leader.  The son of the late Shah has the name but no guns, nor organization and the last Shah was chased out of the country.

Preparation for this follow up is key.  How will we find the nuclear and missile sites and ensure they are destroyed this time?  That needs someone’s boots on the ground! How will we communicate with the rebels if they do rise up?  How will they communicate? Our international communications organizations have been gutted as have our support organizations.  Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and their Radio Farda used to be the open airwave to Iranians.  When the attack began, Radio Farda had been severely limited by Trump and Kari Lake cuts.  It is still operating but at a deficit.  USAID which used to deliver aid of all types is absorbed somewhere in the State Department and not able to operate independently. 

We are attacking a country that represses its citizens brutally, interferes with nearby governments through their proxy fighters, and has at least a civilian nuclear and maybe a missile building program that could bear fruit in ten years.  There is another country that has already invaded a sovereign country, demands its territory, restrictions on what international organizations it can join, and the removal of its elected president.  The justification for the attack is that the invader wants the territory, is afraid the victim might join its enemies, and is a threat. They have been at war continuously for four years with over a million casualties.  Why isn’t that a higher priority for us than Iran?

This essay will also be published on SubStack. And take a look at Tim Snyder’s “Thinking About …” and Ruth Ben-Ghiat’s Lucid SubStacks.