The Lonely Road to America’s Riskiest War

Mere days into America’s most dangerous military engagement in decades, it is increasingly clear that the United States may have hugely miscalculated in abandoning the seemingly constructive Omani mediated nuclear negotiations, and unilaterally dashing into Tel Aviv’s familiar hawkish embrace. 

A stark reality is dramatically unfolding, enriched by Iran’s broad retaliatory regional barrage, and irradiated by a stubborn 47 year old regime that has reliably challenged and outlasted every American president since Carter.

Taken together, the possibility of a visible and rather rapid American capitulation is neither theoretical nor theological. But the implications of this conflict extend far beyond Iran, the United States, or even the outcome.

The damage from such a unilateral failure, unfolding in today’s real time media age, feels more consequential than Iraq or Afghanistan, with echoes of Vietnam. America’s already diminished credibility has been further damaged by the sheer risk and isolation on the hasty path to intervention.

Preemptive Strike Three

Many of America’s greatest challenges in the conflict lie far beyond the buzz of the regime’s Shahed drone army and Iran’s remarkably imposing terrain, but at home and then of course across nearly every other country in the world. What may be the most unilateral war in American history (bilateral if you count Israel separately) is also one of the most unpopular domestically, with only a thin apple pie slice of support, 27% in a Friday Reuters poll.

Across the diplomatic world, it is frankly difficult to find a more dismal comparison historically, even with W’s Iraq disaster — both in terms of coalescing a coalition or even attempting to form one, much less presenting a legal framework to justify intervention.

The morning after the strikes began, President Macron lamented that neither France nor its allies were notified in advance. For many of America’s old friends, the damage has already been done.

In conversations with a wide range of government officials and diplomats, both in the region and in Europe, including at the European Parliament and the Commission, it is hard to imagine a more negative and combative tone.

One European official bluntly summed it up, “It is like a bitter divorce. There is complete distrust of the Americans. Greenland, and now this. In the past, there was trust and a perception of strength, now possibly both have faded.” Outside of Europe, some U.S. partners in the Gulf were also not notified, with the move described as “unprecedented, disrespectful and dangerous.”

For context, the 2003 Iraq invasion, which included troops from many countries, was widely considered a go it alone effort, with UN Secretary General Kofi Annan calling it “illegal” and President Chirac soberly noting that “No one can act alone in everyone’s name.”

Compared with Iraq, this dangerous duet with Israel is unusually unilateral. No legal justification of substance was ever offered. And the path to war was not just a lonely but a hypersonic one as well, compressed into days and weeks rather than the more than six month run up to Iraq.

The fiscal toll is equally grim. Last week, the CSIS, a widely respected Washington think tank, estimated the first 100 hours of Operation Epic Fury cost almost $4 billion. This $900 million a day run rate was driven not just by offensive Tomahawks, but by defensive Patriot interceptor missiles as well, at roughly $4 million a pop.

While ballistic missile attacks from Iran have sharply decreased from the conflict’s earliest days, drone activity has remained heavy, even expanded geographically. How full are those underground missile cities in the Zagros Mountains, and what have China and Russia supplied in the past?

But those questions and costs are solely confined to the air and naval efforts. American boots on the ground would be an even riskier endeavour. Geographically, Iran’s inner core sits atop a high plateau ridged by mountain ranges and expansive deserts. It is worth remembering that Iran endured eight years of a brutal war with Iraq in the 1980s which killed more than half a million, including sustained missile and air attacks on its cities.

The Administration’s casual suggestion that Kurdish militia from Iraq and Iran’s mountainous northwest could be armed seemed desperate and unserious. Tactically and politically, it would be difficult with all the complications of Kurdish separatism and regional spillover. 

Of course, there is the oil and gas of it as well. Supply drama on two fronts has driven oil prices up to $120 a barrel, pandemic era highs. Meanwhile, Qatar’s energy minister ominously warned that a few more weeks of war could push prices to $150 a barrel and “bring down the economies of the world.”

Military strikes on facilities, along with Iran’s closure of the 30 km wide Strait of Hormuz, the sole sea passage from the Persian Gulf for 20% of the world’s oil, have fueled this volatility. Following hits last week, QatarEnergy and Saudi Aramco halted operations, highlighting how particularly susceptible these softer non-military sites are to attacks.

The broader, unintended economic consequences are not great either. For Iran’s friends in Moscow, the conflict is perhaps Trump’s greatest gift to the Kremlin, with a twofer of desperately needed higher oil revenues fused with deeper leverage over Tehran through arms and intelligence. 

On top of that, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Kuwait, which together hold $2 trillion in U.S. assets, were reported over the weekend to be reviewing exposure to the United States. 

No matter how you split the atom or the apple pie, theocrats, neocons and nuclear physicists would acknowledge this intervention objectively carried a peculiar and extraordinary risk profile. Why now? What was the real motive? Was there any real threat? Regardless, the fallout from the conflict will be far reaching. 

The Fallout

For the United States, whatever the final outcome, the fallout is already taking shape in the form of another deeply unpopular, risky and expensive war with murky objectives.

On the positive side, perhaps, with little real domestic political capital behind it, so many uncertainties, and an administration that has taken sharply conflicting positions on Iran, the ability to sustain an extended conflict seems improbable.

But how did we get here? It is a direct betrayal of the anti war mandate on which Trump campaigned and won.

As underscored by Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s disclosure Monday, Israel repeatedly and brazenly attempted to strongarm Obama toward a preemptive strike on Iran. This war was driven by Israel and was not in America’s or the world’s interest. 

And the greatest impact of this provocation could be America’s capacity to reassert control over Middle East policy away from Israel. As evidenced by recent voting in New York and Texas, lockstep alignment with Israel is becoming a real electoral liability. In some races, AIPAC donations have become kryptonite for candidates.

Iran could become the breaking point in America’s special relationship with Israel. Voters already exhausted by Gaza and the serial unilateralism and preemption could very well force the biggest reset to American foreign policy in decades.

For war torn Iran, the fallout is far harsher, measured in blood and rubble.

The humanitarian reality for a population caught between foreign firepower and domestic oppression is a harrowing one. In speaking to Iranian friends and contacts on the ground who oppose the Islamic regime, since the bombings began it seems there has been some rallying around the flag. Even if you hate your leader, you don’t want your homeland bombed to the ground.

Despite all the attacks, with Mojtaba Khamenei now installed as the new Supreme Leader and power kept in the family, it is pretty evident the regime has no intention of going quietly.

Regardless of the eventual outcome of this brutal conflict, Iran will remain one of the world’s most consequential civilizations, with a rich cultural legacy and historical reach that extend thousands of years, well beyond the Islamic Republic, beyond Israel, and beyond the United States.

In Rumi’s 13th century work “A Great Wagon,” the Persian master takes us on a journey to a mystical, utopian-like place. In this reality, he removes all the things that divide us: categories, ideology, even language. In a peaceful meadow, he paints the picture of such a place, where the soul lies down in the grass and all the boundaries that control ordinary life fade away.

“Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I’ll meet you there.”