If Iran Wants to Rule Rubble, Should we Let Them?

accepting the acceptable is an option

I wanted to start this week out with a hearty Bravo Zulu to the Ford Carrier Strike Group, but we started yesterday’s Midrats Podcast with that, and did a good job with it. So, if you’d like, give the episode a listen when you get a chance, but today I want to instead review the military balance sheet on our operations against Iran over the last few months.

In the Ford Strike Group’s Presidential Unit Citation, some stats were put on the table:

• 125 Iranian warships destroyed

• 207 TLAM launched from 9 surface platforms

• 1,700 sorties hitting 700 targets

We’re still conducting a blockade. Still trying to negotiate with a dead-ender government. The question is, what have we achieved with the expenditure of time, money and lives?

I am using the written testimony to Congress of Admiral Cooper, USN—Commander, U.S. Central Command—for the below. He has the best information, so it is a solid place to base the discussion.

In less than 40 days of major combat operations, USCENTCOM forces systematically dismantled what Iran spent four decades and tens of billions of dollars building. The capabilities on which the regime relied to threaten our forces, coerce our partners, and project power across the region have been substantially degraded.

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Iran can no longer reliably arm or resupply Lebanese Hezbollah, the Houthis, Hamas, or militia groups in Iraq with advanced weapons.

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We damaged or destroyed over 85 percent of Iran’s ballistic missile, drone, and naval defense industrial base. More than 1,450 strikes on weapons manufacturing facilities set the regime’s ability to build and stockpile ballistic missiles and long-range drones back by years. The factories and technical workforce that produced Iran’s ballistic missiles, long-range attack drones, and naval platforms have been degraded to the point that Iran cannot replace its lost capabilities in the near term.

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In the air domain, Iran’s air and air defense forces are functionally and operationally irrelevant. Before OEF, the Iranian Air Force flew between 30 and 100 sorties each day. Today that number is zero. We destroyed or rendered non-mission-capable Iran’s fixed-wing airfields, hangars, fuel storage, and munitions stockpiles, and we knocked out 82 percent of its air defense missile systems along with the radar and command architecture that tied them together. At sea, we destroyed 161 vessels in total across 16 classes of warships, effectively crippling the regime’s ability to operate. We eliminated more than 90 percent of Iran’s once-massive inventory of over 8,000 naval mines, with more than 700 airstrikes on Iranian naval mine targets. In sum, Iran’s navy can no longer claim to be a maritime power, and it cannot project into the Gulf of Oman or the Indian Ocean. Iran retains nuisance capability – harassment, low-end drone and rocket attacks, and residual proxy support – but it no longer possesses the means to threaten major regional operations or to deter U.S. freedom of action in the air or maritime domains.

As I have stated from the beginning: I support a punitive expedition and can live with the goals outlined by the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff early on. In my preferred COA, we would have already decoupled…but facts on the ground change.

I’ll repeat again what I have said often when we step into conflicts: war is a dark room. Once you step into it, you really don’t know what is waiting for you.

We’re in it now, and at this stage—having taken away the Islamic Republic’s conventional heft and ability to maintain her proxies—we have to deal with the secondary effects—getting the free flow of goods at market prices out of the Strait of Hormuz choke point…while keeping pressure on the Islamic Republic.

We are trying to find some agreement with the forces ruling the Islamic Republic that seem content to destroy Iran as long as they rule over the rubble, and impoverish everyone else as long as it helps support goal #1.

They are more than happy to do that, just like they were happy threatening anyone with a nuclear weapon once they got it. This is a theocratic government hoping to bring about the end of the world. They are not rational actors in a conventional sense.

Where we are now is something beyond a punitive expedition. Something that is starting to show characteristics somewhere between Western intervention in the Balkans in the 1990s and Libya in the 2010s. Not sure how to describe it.

We can always step back a bit to the fundamentals of a punitive expedition if we cannot make better progress in our talks.

From a military point of view, a core aspect of punitive expedition is that you leave the door open for additional attack should bad behavior continue. We have bad behavior continuing, so we have yet to declare victory and go home. That is a choice, and even if we declare victory and go home now, we will probably have to return later as long as the same cadre runs the Islamic Republic.

In Cooper’s statement, he gives hints that he sees the same thing.

…Iran cannot replace its lost capabilities in the near term.

Iran retains nuisance capability …

So, should the Islamic Republic retain its characteristics, expect that it will rebuild its ability to threaten its neighbors, as it always has. Not in the near term. We mowed the grass very short, but in the medium and long term, expect it to grow back. While it grows back, it will still show up to make trouble.

Policy makers need to accept that unless they decide they are willing to make a long operation out of this. Not something I would recommend.

The Islamic Republic is in a more weakened position than it has ever been due to the efforts of the U.S. and Israel. Its neighbors are now comfortable confronting them on their own if needed, and have grown closer to both the U.S. and Israel in the process. That is good.

Iran and its proxies are even more isolated and weaker than they were before, but there will need to be “return visits” to keep them that way. The bombings will continue until behavior improves, so to speak.

We should be OK with that. I am.

We just don’t need to re-create another Operation Southern Watch. Some of the Smartest People in the Room™ will try to steer us in that direction. They should be ignored.

Iran right now is not focused on supporting war via proxies across the globe. They are focused on the survival of the Islamic Republic. That in itself is progress.