Decapitation
One strategy in modern nuclear war-making theory is to “decapitate” the enemy. It’s simple: kill all the leaders. Without leadership, the “enemy” is unable to effectively respond to ongoing attacks, or other future military actions. It’s a “binary” approach to warfare: we attack, they die: so we win.
The problem in nuclear warfare is that the major powers also operated on a “fail-safe” system. Once an attack begins, the “default” is to continue responding. Even if all of the leadership is killed, and there is no one giving orders on the secure communication channels, the “fail-safe” order is to launch: every missile, every bomber, every submarine.
If you kill off the leaders, there’s no one to talk to; no way to “negotiate” an end. It just the “fail-safe” systems, continuing the war until exhausted. (There’s a great old black and white movie called “Fail Safe”, about an accidental US attack on the Soviet Union. It stars Henry Fonda, Larry Hagman, Walter Matthau and even has a place for Dom DeLuise. The dark message of Fail Safe automation is clear. It’s something to think about in the coming AI age).
Mixed Results
But in non-nuclear warfare, the United States has engaged in “decapitation” efforts with mixed results. We toppled, found, and executed Iraq’s Saddam Hussein, hoping to end his constant irritation in the Middle East. But with Hussein’s iron rule gone, the diverse religious, regional and ethnic groups in Iraq all struggled for power. No one group could take charge, even after democratic elections. The end result was the birth of the extreme Islamic group ISIS, which raged through Iraq and other countries, killing thousands and threatening Middle East stability.
The United States, hoped for an exit strategy from Iraq, but was required to surge ground troops back into the region. Some of the ugliest fighting of the Iraq war was against ISIS, a group that was a direct result of American action in taking down the Hussein regime. And the loss of a strong Iraq, meant that Iran was able to become the major revolutionary influence in the Middle East. Hussein balanced out the Ayatollahs; but with him gone, there was no one to prevent Iran’s growing power.
The US also did the same thing in Afghanistan. We decapitated the Taliban regime in 2002, and tried to hold democratic elections in the region. Americans were proud of the “purple thumbs” of Afghans demonstrating their votes. But ultimately, the elected leaders were unable to consolidate the governance of the country, and the Taliban emerged again as the one cohesive force. The only way to prevent their takeover was to keep thousands of US troops in country. We stayed for twenty years. When we left, it took almost no time at all for the Taliban to “come back”.
Decapitation Lite
The Trump Administration tried a slightly different tactic in Venezuela. Instead of a “full” decapitation of the government, taking down the kleptocratic regime in whole, the US just kidnapped the President and his wife. We left the government intact, with the existing Vice President moving into the leading role. There were alternative choices: multiple Venezuelan leaders who were in favor of a real democracy, some in jail, some in the United States. María Corina Machado was an obvious choice. She just won the Nobel Peace Prize.
But Trump didn’t want a democracy, with all of the “dangers” that were faced in Iraq and Afghanistan. So he left the “foxes in charge of the chicken coop”, the kleptocrats still in power. He just threatened them with more “kidnappings”, unless they did what he wanted. If it sounds like some kind of criminal enterprise, a bigger “gang” moving in on a smaller one; it is.
Bomb Iran
So the United States waged war on Iran this weekend. We managed to “decapitate” the leadership, killing the religious leader and Head of State, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and much of his governing group. Why did we do this? First, it’s clear that there was no “proximate cause”, no immediate threat from Iran that needed to be nullified. Khamenei did not have a nuclear bomb ready to go, nor did he even seem to be trying to rebuild from earlier attacks this year.
Here’s what we know today, three days after this Iran War was launched by US forces. The prime reason to attack was that we found out that the majority of the leadership of Iran was meeting in one place, vulnerable to the kind of massive assaults the US and Israel could launch. And, for that particular goal, decapitation, it worked, perhaps beyond even what the military planners could hope.
Happy Talk
There’s “happy talk” about the Iranian people rising up, to take over their theocratic government and develop a more reasonable democracy. But the United States has made it clear: the US might destroy the leadership, but we are NOT putting “boots on the ground”. As Trump said to the Iranian people: “…the rest will be up to you”.
So now we wait to see, what’s the “Fail Safe” of the Iranian government? Will the people really rise up, or will the remaining powers, particularly the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) continue the brutal repression of dissent we’ve seen over the past few months? There’s already a committee chosen to pick the next Ayatollah, now with the added “power” of his predecessor, martyred by the “Great Satan”.
This is not Venezuela. And it probably isn’t Iraq either. We’ve bombed Iran, something almost every President since Jimmy Carter have “lusted in their heart” to do. But we’ve also unleashed the Fail Safe response; missiles are falling on Israel and Dubai, and Saudi Arabia. The United States internal security forces are on full alert for some kind of terrorist attack. That might already have occurred in Texas. And we have not toppled the theocracy, in the way we toppled Hussein and his statue in Baghdad.
It’s not that simple in Iran in 2026. Really, it wasn’t that simple in Iraq back in 2003 either.
