Wrapped in the Flag
If you glance through Facebook, you see it. There are memes and statements, demanding absolute loyalty to America’s new policy in the Middle East. “This is war, you must stand by the flag,” and “protect our soldiers in the line of fire,” appear in one form or another, over and over again.
The assassination of Iranian General Soleimani by US drones is an American political sledgehammer. Question the action, and you must be “soft” at best, or a traitor at worst. Stand with the President or stand against your country.
Of course all of that isn’t true. It’s perfectly OK to question President Trump’s actions in the Middle East. We don’t know his “plan” other than the threats and bluster we read on Twitter. His wild threats, and Mike Pompeo’s pompous assertions demanding trust in their unknowable plan, do nothing to relieve national skepticism. Leaders lead through confidence, education, and reason. The Trump Administration has revealed none of those traits.
So the question we have to ask: is this a Trump strategy for the Middle East, or is this a Trump strategy for 2020. Or, perhaps even scarier, is this a random act decided between the fourteenth tee and green at Mara Lago with no strategy involved at all.
Middle East Strategy
If it’s a Middle East strategy, it’s a risky one. At the best, the United States has determined that it’s all or nothing with Iran. In the past decades, the primary goal was to make sure that Iran couldn’t become a nuclear power, able to use the ultimate weapon to pursue their acknowledged goal of Middle East domination.
That was the tradeoff the Obama Administration made. They would accept the “asymmetric warfare” Iran waged, led by General Soleimani, as long as Iran abandoned the strategic objective of getting a “bomb”. Previous Presidents, Obama, Bush and Clinton; were well aware of Soleimani’s role in encouraging the terrorists militias in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Yemen and Palestine. They also were aware that until we invaded Iraq in 2002, Iran served as the counter-balance to Iraq’s military aggression led by Saddam Hussein. We changed that dynamic, taking the “cork out of the bottle” in Iraq and leaving a huge vacuum in leadership. Iran wanted to fill that vacuum.
Iranian Power
It’s so much more than just “power” though. Iran is the center of Shia Islam, and sees with some justification, the repression of Shias throughout the rest of the Sunni Islamic Middle East. Iran also has a different ethnic group, Persian, rather than the majority Arab of the rest of the Middle East. So Iran’s not just using their influence to gain power for themselves, but also for minority groups throughout the region.
So Clinton, Bush and Obama accepted that Iran would support groups that the US often opposed. And, sometimes, the US and Iran would find mutual enemies and work together. The most recent battles against ISIS, a Sunni extremist cult, found Iranian supported militias and US forces working shoulder to shoulder.
But in the Trump Administration all relationships are transactional: support today if it benefits us, enemy tomorrow if there’s profit in that. Ask the Kurds, or our NATO allies.
Protests in Iran
It’s odd that this attack occurred right now. The Iranian government was rocked by protests in their own country; marches and demands by young Iranians to change policy. The US economic sanctions were working; many Iranians wanted change. The Iranian people have never been a “monolithic” Shia block. They are a modern people, highly educated, and want better conditions, and more say in their government.
But there are no protests against that government today. The Facebook campaign in the United States may or may not be working, but in Iran, the actual remains of General Soleimani have served as a unifying force. It may be just what the Iranian theocracy needed: now it’s all “death to Americans”. Their nation is focused, and ready to sacrifice.
New Middle East Strategy
Secretary of State Pompeo states we have a “vast alliance” to stand against the aggressor Iran. Let’s hope that’s true. We know that the traditional Iranian enemy, Sunni Saudi Arabia will be happy with the new US stance. Saudi is in a “proxy war” with Iran in Yemen, and the Iranians were escalating beyond “proxies” with attacks on Saudi oil producing facilities. Now the US has stepped into the breach to force Iranian attention in our direction. The MBS-Kushner axis may be at work (MBS – Muhammad bin Salman, the Crown Prince and leader of Saudi Arabia and Kushner, Mr. Trump’s son-in-law).
Iraq is faced with a no-win situation. The Iraqi government exists because of US support. Should the US withdraw, Iraq will become an Iranian vassal state. In the end, Sunnis have controlled Iraq, but the nation is two-thirds Shia. The pressure of Iran is intense. It’s why Iran and Iraq fought an eight-year war in the 1980’s.
Unless the US is willing to become fully involved in war with Iran, it’s hard to see a “reasonable” outcome in this situation. Iran isn’t likely to abandon their allies in the Middle East, and if that’s the price the US wants, it will be the US military that will have to extract it.
Ground war in Iran would be ugly, much worse than Iraq or Afghanistan. There are fewer “friendlies” in Iran than there were in Iraq, and the opposition will be better organized and dedicated than Afghanistan. It’s not a matter of who has “the most” power, but whether that power is enough to dominate a stubborn and determined opponent. That hasn’t worked historically: Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq all come to mind.
Wag the Dog
There was a movie released in the 1990’s just before the Bill Clinton scandal was fully revealed. It was about a President who started a war to distract from a sex scandal. Wag the Dog became a watchword of the Clinton impeachment: what would the President do to change the subject from impeachment and Monica?
Is this escalation against Iran a Trump ploy to mobilize his base in the United States, in the face of Senate trial for impeachment, and the drip-drip-drip of negative revelations? You can hear echoes of “campaign” in the President’s tweets: the false equivalence of Baghdad and Benghazi, and the fifty-two targets in Iran for the fifty-two hostages in 1979-80 that a Democrat, Jimmy Carter, couldn’t get out.
Last week, Office of Management and Budget emails were revealed showing the President directly ordered Ukrainian aid to be held. This week the Senate will determine whether witnesses will be heard in the impeachment trial. If the Senate hears Bolton, Mulvaney, Blair and Duffy, it seems clear that their story will further damage the President. If the Senate refuses, then Democrats will run with the “Senate Republican cover-up” story.
This weekend we found out that a sanctioned Russian bank might have backed millions of dollars of Deutsche Bank loans to Donald Trump (Forensic). And the pressure is growing as the US Supreme Court determines whether Mr. Trump’s taxes will be revealed to Congress or the Courts. It might be a good week to change the subject.
No Backing Out
Whatever the reason, the United States has changed the dynamic in the Middle East. We are on an “adventure” in foreign policy, a journey into the unknown. Whether this is a strategy to succeed in the Middle East, or the 2020 election, it’s put Americans and the Middle East at greater risk of violence and war. And there’s no backing out.
