Operation epic folly
There are many ways to describe the illegal war now jointly being waged by the United States and Israel against Iran. Its U.S official name, Operation Epic Fury, is the most ill-suited, however. Except for those drenched to the neck by the propaganda streaming out from mainstream Western media, the war has been more of […]
There are many ways to describe the illegal war now jointly being waged by the United States and Israel against Iran. Its U.S official name, Operation Epic Fury, is the most ill-suited, however. Except for those drenched to the neck by the propaganda streaming out from mainstream Western media, the war has been more of an epic folly by all the major participants.
First, there is the Trumpian folly and capitulation. The President of the United States, Donald J. Trump, campaigned in both 2016 and 2024 on a platform that was decidedly against foreign wars. And despite his warmongering rhetoric and attacks against seven countries since last year, Trump still appears to me as someone whose true instincts are anti-war.
Unfortunately, Trump is also exceedingly vainglorious and bombastic, personal afflictions that others may have exploited to the tilt to promote and frame this war to him. Trump believes, or was made to believe, that he could achieve a quick victory in the form of ‘regime change’ or ‘unconditional surrender’ in Iran, and have something to brag about at home. He thought he could get this ‘victory’ in Iran as easily as he has had in Venezuela or Syria where he installed a former leader of an ISIS affiliate as new head of state.
This is the first folly because Iran is neither Syria nor Venezuela. It is certainly not Iraq or Libya, where reckless American foreign policy had succeeded to turn these countries into failed states. But Iran is not a fragile or a failing state, but a country that has withstood decades of Western sanctions and political blackmail. A military operation for ‘regime change’ in Iran cannot look the same as it did in those other countries.
More importantly, Iranians see themselves very differently. Western media and institutions generally present Iran as a ‘Shiite Muslim state’ run by crazy mullahs out to destroy the world. Iranians regard such presentation as pointless western propaganda. Iranians are Muslim and predominantly Shiite, yes, but to them, those are not even their principal identity. Unlike most present Arab and other Muslim countries that are mainly European colonial creations, Iranians think of Iran more as a ‘civilization’ than as a country. They see themselves as heirs to the ancient Persian civilization that existed long before Islam or Christianity, and their reading of their own identity hearkens back to that past. To Iranians, they are a continuous millennia-old civilization, like China or the West as a whole with its roots in the Greco-Roman civilization.
Iranians also frequently boast that Iran’s borders have not changed in three thousand years, which is not necessarily true, but which they mean that every generation of Iranians is a guardian of that long heritage. Even as recently as last Friday, Iranian leaders, joined with millions of their people, openly and defiantly chanted much the same things, that they will fight to the last person to preserve their country and civilization. Even with the most powerful military in the world, the U.S cannot achieve regime change in a country like that without steep political and economic costs that the U.S and its Gulf allies would find too high to bear, which again makes the war an epic folly. After all, military might has its limitations too.
In other words, for how long will the United States keep up with fighting wars that are not exactly in its interests in any significant sense? Other than the Strait of Hormuz and the question of general regional stability in the Middle East as a major supplier of global oil, Iran is no more than a footnote in long-term American strategic interests, as many people have already said. Iran is no match to the U.S economically, diplomatically, and militarily. It therefore cannot strategically be America’s rival, adversary or enemy in any important way. Iran is not also ideologically opposed to the U.S as such, after all, it has shown a willingness to negotiate with the Americans in every way possible, as both recent and long history shows.
What makes Iran loom so large in U.S foreign policy is Israel, and its current expansionist and zero-sum view of the world. Israel’s body language over the past 30 years suggests two core ambitions that underlie almost all its behaviours in the region. First, rather than find creative ways of solving its Palestine problem, Israel prefers to erase or delete it altogether. Palestine? Not a problem. Can we not just talk about the West Bank or Gaza at all? This is Israel’s true instincts over a people whose lands it has occupied for 80 years.
Second, and as a consequence of the first, Israel wants to be the sole and unchallenged hegemon in the Middle East. But to achieve that requires two things: first, the diplomatic and military might of the United States, and then to take out all other middle powers in the region one after the other, and render them all dysfunctional and impotent. The second objective, in Israeli terms, guarantees the first, and both counts pitch it directly against not just Iran but also other middle powers in the region, now or in the near future. In fact, as recently as a few weeks ago, a former Israeli Prime Minister, Naftali Bennett, said publicly that after Iran, Türkiye is next.
Iran has a population of nearly 100 million people and a strong local industrial capacity, not to mention a 600, 000-strong military. Iran also has an abiding support for the Palestinian resistance against Israeli occupation, including militarily. For Israel, therefore, the best Iran is one that looks like Iraq, Syria, Libya, and Sudan; that is, a failed state. Israel has the most powerful military in the Middle East, to achieve a failed Iran still requires the power of the United States, and hence America’s direct involvement in this war.
Even then, to destroy Iran will put the Gulf countries, allies of the U.S, at great risk. Of course, Iran’s attack on its Muslim neighbours is also folly of great proportions. But the broader question is what are the consequences of this war for the United States? One consequence may well be weakened U.S hegemony in the Gulf countries who have staked their entire security to their partnership with the U.S, but who have now seen that for America, it is simply Israel first and last. These countries might already be reviewing their current strategy of staking their security entirely in one American basket. And that thought alone weakens America.
It is all of these problems that President Obama’s Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPA) sought to resolve diplomatically in 2016. The Iran Nuclear Deal, as it was often called, sought to bring Israel, Iran and Saudi Arabia to the same American table, the same American political and diplomatic umbrella. Specifically, the JCPA aimed to achieve two main things: prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons and prevent a war between Israel and Iran, by giving Iran a seat at the American table.
Obama’s strategic thinking was that if Iran were brought back to the global community through sanctions relief, with an effective and constantly monitored guarantee of not pursuing nuclear ambitions, then chances are that over time, Iran will realise that its longer-term interests lie in avoiding armed conflict with its neighbours. Simply put, the deal was based on the sensible principle that you are more likely able to influence positive behaviours in a friend than in an adversary. Iran agreed. Israel did not. And here they are all again.
No one knows how or when this war will end. But so long as the United States and Israel are unable to destroy Iran completely, and they cannot do that without risking Iran destroying its neighbours, this war is still going to end at a roundtable. Whatever agreement comes out of that table will still look very much like the Obama JCPA agreement. In short, this war could end up achieving only what diplomacy did 10 years ago. War, indeed, is the mother of all follies.