The Australian Broadcast Corporation interviews Richard Pape, professor of political science at the University of Chicago and director of the Chicago Project on Security and Threats. Prof. Pape’s discussion illuminates the two—and only two—alternatives for the Iran War.
Prof. Pape is a very smart man, and he knows ten times as much as I know about international security. I believe he’s right about the two, and only two, alternatives: (1) acquiescence in Iran’s regional hegemony, control of the Strait of Hormuz, and continued nuclear program or (2) a much wider war, including a ground invasion.
However, despite his impressive credentials and wisdom, I think Pape is wrong to predict that Trump will pick Door Number 2, a massive land war. I think Trump will pick Door Number 1, acquiescence in defeat, which he will try, clumsily and unpersuasively, to disguise with his usual hallucinatory bullshit. That’s mainly because, (a) he knows his base will desert him if there is another land war in the Middle East and (b) he has a childlike faith in his ability to con the rubes.
The part that isn’t bullshit is the claim that the Iranians are trying to assassinate Trump.
If you have been planning your financial affairs on the assumption that the war with the Islamic Republic of Japan will soon be over, then you are a gullible fool, and you deserve what you are going to get.
I wrote this post in order to reproduce an op-ed from the Wall Street Journal that argues—based, apparently, on European sources—that Putin may attack on of his Eastern European neighbors as a way to undermine NATO.
I think it’s an interesting question. I go further. There is, in my view, abundant evidence that Trump is a Putin tool. Consider, among many other things, the stories that the idiotic acting Director of National Intelligence is busy gutting the intelligence community.
Be all that as it may, Mr. Baker of the WSJ, writes,
Putin May See an Opportunity to Destroy NATO: Even a small incursion could doom the alliance if it lacks the political will to respond with force.
He is mired in a struggle against a country with a population and a military a fractionthe size of his own. Since the decision to launch that war has worked out so well, are we seriously being asked to believe that he would attack an alliance with an economy and military many times the size of his own?
A month ago I would have scoffed at the idea. But conversations with multiple senior European political, military and intelligence figures in the past few weeks suggest to me the possibility is real and rising.
For some Americans, including perhaps the president, the idea that Russia may take a shot at some feckless Europeans who have been notably unhelpful with America’s military preoccupations in recent months might induce a yawn of indifference or even a smirk of schadenfreude. But the risks of any Russian provocation in Europe for America’s global security are profound. Ukraine, a non-NATO member, is one thing. If we failed to respond to Russian aggression against a member of the alliance, NATO would become a dead letter.
Which is why Mr. Putin might attack. As one intelligence analyst put it to me last week: His inspiration may be Marshal Ferdinand Foch, the general who commanded French forces at the Battle of the Marne in 1914. He famously reported: “My center is yielding. My right is retreating. Situation excellent. I am attacking.”
A sudden show of unexpected force just as he appears to be reeling from his ill-advised Ukraine war could be to Mr. Putin’s advantage. Although Mr. Trump’s verbal shock treatment has jolted European NATO members into finally doing more in their own defense, they are still nowhere near ready for a defensive war. Government officials say it will be at least five years before their militaries are close to being capable of replacing U.S. capabilities in Europe.
Mr. Trump has 2½ years left in office. There is no guarantee his successor will have as skeptical an approach to NATO. If Mr. Putin chose the right targets, European leaders suspect Mr. Trump’s administration wouldn’t come to a NATO country’s aid, fatally undermining the credibility of the alliance’s collective-defense commitment—and with it, NATO’s existence—a dream outcome for Mr. Putin.
His political needs might also be suited by an attack on NATO. A former British defense official said to me last week, “After four years of failure and rising popular discontent at home, he desperately needs a military victory.” What better way to lift morale than to plant the Russian flag in some NATO field?
All this suggests we are now in a narrow window of opportunity for Russia to make a move. If Mr. Trump goes ahead with plans to cut European deployments, that window gets wider.
Sure enough, intelligence reports point to rising risks of Russian action. Last week a Polish news report said U.S. officials had warned Warsaw that Russia may attack the country. In an interview last month, a senior military figure from a NATO nation identified multiple risks, including a Russian seizure of islands in the Baltic and an incursion to “assist” the Russian minority in Estonia. None of these would amount to a full-scale invasion, but each would be enough of a provocation that if NATO failed to respond, its credibility would be in tatters.
Is Europe really worth defending with U.S. blood and treasure? Is NATO still an essential strategic interest? I’ve long sympathized with the argument that a large U.S. commitment to the European theater is an anachronism in our security posture, a throwback to 20th-century geopolitics. China is obviously the biggest threat to U.S. security and leadership; managing that relationship requires a shift of strategic resources and attention toward the Pacific. The Europeans can and should take care of their own freedom and security.
But whether we want it or not, we are in a cold-to-simmering war with an axis of resistance that runs from Beijing through Tehran to Moscow. The U.S. is still dealing with the fallout of an inconclusive war with Iran that has left us militarily depleted. As we scramble to manage potential opportunistic moves by China’s Xi Jinping in the Asia-Pacific, Mr. Putin could deal a timely and fatal blow to an already weakened trans-Atlantic alliance. That would be another hammer to the head of Western security and hegemony, and a dramatic enhancement of the power of Russia’s alliance with China and our other adversaries.
Perhaps all the talk of an imminent Russian attack is merely disinformation from European officials, trying to keep President Trump from further weakening NATO. But if you were the American president, would you want to take that risk?
Butt lick: a powerful visual metaphor which may also be a reference to Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, also known as Secretary Buttlick
Skanky: a slang adjective meaning extremely unpleasant, repulsive, or low in quality, usually due to being filthy, unkempt, or sleazy; can also mean morally depraved, especially with respect to sexual behavior
Throw a wobbly: British and Australian slang meaning to suddenly become extremely angry or upset, often by throwing a childish temper tantrum over something minor.
Manky: British slang for something unpleasantly dirty, grubby, or disgusting
Scorbutic: pertaining to scurvy; scorbutic conditions typically include fatigue, easy bruising, joint pain, and bleeding gums
Earworm: a piece of music that continuously plays on a loop in your mind; stuck song syndrome
Let me begin by apologizing to those who could not view the preceding post because they are not premium members of The Bulwark. I am almost 80, and this was my first mistake. At least I didn’t start a stupid, unwinnable war.
And BTW, you might want to consider paying some bucks to support The Bulwark. I find it to be money well spent.
Meanwhile, the Wall Street Journal Editorial Board continues to tell it like it is:
Iran Is Winning the Battle of Hormuz: Tehran is using force to gain control over traffic through the Strait
Iran then hit a tanker carrying Qatari crude. The U.S. retaliated again against Iranian military sites and has escorted oil tankers with heavy air cover. Iran then fired drones and missiles at civilian targets and U.S. bases in Bahrain and Kuwait.
“It is very possible that they will never learn,” Mr. Trump wrote of Iran’s regime on Saturday night. Or is it U.S. decision makers who never learn? Vice President JD Vance has been touting Iran’s “transformed” Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps leaders ready to “turn over a new leaf” with the U.S. He even reached “gentlemen’s agreements” with them outside the memorandum, Mr. Vance assured critics.
Well, these are no gentlemen. It’s the same terrorist regime, and this is the Battle of Hormuz that Mr. Trump thought he had ducked. In case there was any doubt, foreign minister Abbas Araghchi said Sunday that Iran is solely responsible for managing the Strait under the memorandum. He said “no other country has any responsibility in that regard.” Mr. Araghchi is Iran’s chief negotiator with Mr. Vance.
It wasn’t enough that Mr. Trump gave Iran an oil sanctions waiver without safeguards, promised billions of dollars in frozen assets and stopped sanctions enforcement. The regime wants to conquer the Strait and turn it into a toll booth, with transit by permission only. On a ship-by-ship basis, Iranian foreign policy would determine who crosses. This is the opposite of free navigation and provides no security for energy flows.
Force is the regime’s means to make the world bend. Without it, shippers refused to heed Iran’s dictates for Hormuz during the deal’s early days. Vessels sailed out via the Strait’s southern, Omani lane. Tehran’s demands that ships transit only through the Iranian lane, request access two days in advance, and sign up for special Iranian “insurance” were ignored. Oil prices fell far faster than most experts expected.
In short, the Strait wasn’t going Iran’s way. It was becoming free again—hence the regime’s resort to force. Iran is intimidating Oman and other Gulf states. It may also offer them a cut of the spoils from a tolled Strait, but that hardly sweetens the foul deal for the rest of the world.
The question is why Iran still gets the cash, selling its oil free of sanctions and repatriating the revenue to fund its Revolutionary Guard. If Mr. Trump isn’t ready to resume the U.S. blockade, he can amend Treasury’s sanctions-relief license to require that all proceeds from Iranian oil sales be placed in escrow.
The U.S. needs the leverage for nuclear negotiations, and it was never wise to give Iran a blank check. All the more so now that the regime isn’t respecting the deal, which mandates a cease-fire as well as Iran’s “best efforts for the safe passage of commercial vessels.” That means don’t shoot at them, for starters.
More U.S. “love taps” against Iranian targets won’t impress the hard men in Tehran. They behave as if they have escalation dominance because they think Mr. Trump won’t return to war before the midterm elections. They don’t believe Mr. Trump’s social-media bluster because they see his reluctance to enforce the cease-fire terms.
In the bigger strategic picture, the regime is leaving the President a choice: surrender Hormuz to Iranian terror or fight for it, like he always should have once he started the war, and reopen the Strait by force.
Facing MAGA 