Bully Boys in the Pentagon

Hubris

“Pride go’eth before the fall”.  That’s the phrase that’s come to mind as I listen to Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth (oh wait, he’s a comic book hero, the Secretary of WAR).  Hegseth is bragging about the US attack of Iran, about the bombs, the decimated and destroyed Iranian missiles, weapons, and Naval vessels all obliterated (like the nuclear program?) by the “vast resources” of the United States of America.  “Iran tried to assassinate President Trump, and he got the last laugh”.  Hegseth’s a “tough guy”, a “military bro” leading the greatest military force of all time.

He reminds me a lot of Herman Goering, the Nazi commander of the Luftwaffe, who claimed he would “Bomb England to its knees”.  That was a lesson learned in World War II, that strategic bombing, while devastating, cannot alone destroy a Nation.  Goering learned that in the Battle of Britain, the Allies learned that in the interminable bombing campaigns against Germany.  But most importantly, the United States learned that lesson once again in Vietnam.  More bombs were dropped on that small country by the US than were dropped by both sides of World War II.  

Bombing Alone

But the Vietnamese survived the bombs, and continued their “asymmetrical” warfare against the US military.  Even with all the munitions, even with the most powerful military the world has ever seen, the Vietnamese hung on, and eventually won.  Americans had to learn that same asymmetric lesson once again in Afghanistan, where we spent twenty years trying to defeat the Taliban.  Our leaders claimed, again and again, that it would be the next strategy or the next surge of troops that would finally turn the battle.  But it never did.  The Taliban were willing to pay a cost so much higher than America was, that their victory was inevitable.  Finally, the US recognized that, and abandoned the scene.

So here we are, bragging about another attack on a smaller nation.  We are paying a price in cash: bombs dropped, missiles fired, ships deployed, world-wide missions launched; rather than in blood.  The six dead Americans, so far  are honored, but they seem incidental.  “We torpedoed an Iranian frigate on the high seas, the first sinking by torpedo since World War II”.  If only Captain America was available for interviews.

Terrorism

But the whole point of asymmetry, is that the Iranians won’t fight back with the same tactics.  Sure, they’re firing off missiles and “suicide drones”. I’m sure they’re using everything they’ve got.  But when those munitions are done, the Iranians will shift into the mode they used for generations, terrorism.  Hamas, Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad, the Houthis, the Iraqi Shia Militias, the KH, the AAH, the HAN, the KSS, the KIA; all have two things in common.  They are terrorist groups, and they are all loyal to Iran.  

It’s not just the Revolutionary Guard Corps of  Iran that engages in terrorist acts. It’s a vast number of “auxiliary” groups, spread throughout the Middle East and the world, ready to die for Iran.  We won’t see them coming.  They are already here, in the United States and Europe and the Middle East.  Once the firestorm stops over the skies of Iran (and it will stop), they’ll appear. 

If there’s two things for sure, the Iranian leaders are patient and loyal (and fanatically devoted to the Ayatollah; if you know, you know).  When one dies, another steps into their place, in a religious hierarchy that gives them the “faith” to move ahead, despite the missiles and launchers and bombs.  They are the “children” of the Persian Empire, thousands of years old.  They will wait, “duck and cover”, then return with vengeance.  While we may not have learned the lessons of Vietnam and Afghanistan; they have.

Patience

What will we do when the bombs no longer have targets?  How will we truly alter the situation?  The United States is clear:  there will be no “boots on the ground”.  So we will blow the entire nation up, but leave the theocratic government intact?  We might ask that the people “rise up” to take control, but bombs are not disarming the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps or the local police, still loyal to the theocracy.  On the ground, the tens of thousands of protestors who have sacrificed so much in the past months, are no stronger than they were before.  And their oppressors, while battered, still out-gun and out-man them. 

We can’t create another Gaza, battered to rubble.  And even there, where the surviving Palestinians are just trying to get by, Israel has created an incubator for the next generation of terrorists.  Iran is too big for that, the size of Alaska, with ninety million people.  So when the bombs stop falling and the missiles stop screaming in, they will continue.  The comic book heroes in the War Department will have spent billions, and puffed up their chests with new medals.  But in the long run, the inheritors of Persia will survive, and have their own form of revenge.  Who will be the targets?  Not the bully boys in the hardened Pentagon.  It will be us.