Iranian officials have recently made comments about their plans to respond in significant ways if President Trump orders a resumption of the war after the US election (he has said publicly that he would not do so before the election). Reports suggest that Tehran has repaired some of the damage to its missile and drone infrastructure and is also laying the groundwork for a wider war, inflicting more damage on countries in the region friendly to the US. There has also been messaging from Tehran that it would expand the theater of operations to Europe, perhaps with missile attacks and/or terrorism.
There are, some reports suggest, elements in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) that have urged that Tehran take the initiative to expand the war prior to an American resumption of hostilities. In parallel, in Washington, there are suggestions that Trump is growing impatient with waiting for the economic strangulation effort to bear fruit by causing Iran to back off its negotiating demands such as control of the Strait of Hormuz. What, then, is the possible end game?
This is hardly the first time US officials have asked the question “how do we stop a war with Iran once we have bombed them?” Recounting the Clinton Administration’s concern about Iranian backed terrorism in the mid-1990s, I wrote in a book in 2008:
“A small group of us in the White House and Pentagon developed plans for a major military strike on Iran if the Tehran government did not heed our warning and stop its terrorist attacks. For those of us contemplating the prospect, the possibility of another war in the Gulf was chilling. It focused our thoughts and filled us with a sense of seriousness and gravity. We could not foresee a way in which there could be a beneficial ‘end game.’ (In 2008 it is again not obvious how we could successfully end hostilities that could begin with a US air strike on Iran’s nuclear infrastructure.)
“In 1996, we thought that if we were to bomb Iran, it would let loose more terrorist attacks against us and our friends in the region. As it did in the Eight Year War with Iraq, Tehran could disrupt the shipment of oil and gas from the Gulf and damage the world economy. We would then be forced into further bombings, but our attacks would only unify Iranians’ support for their government and solidify the nation’s opposition to America.
“We struggled in 1996-97 to find an alternative to bombing Iran. The warnings to Tehran, reinforced by US intelligence activity, may have worked. In any event, the Iranian aggressive actions toward the United States ceased in 1997 and stayed contained until we invaded the countries to the east and west of them in 2001 and 2003.”
The 1996-97 period was one when the Iranian nuclear program was nascent and our chief concern was with their aggressive sponsoring of terrorist groups targeting the US. Even then, facing a militarily weaker Iran than we face today, seasoned career national security officials and military leaders thought an end game would be elusive once bombing started. We recognized the risk to oil and gas shipments and, thus, to the global economy.
The US response in the mid-1990s combined a chilling message to Iran (about the damage to the regime that we could inflict if the terrorism continued) with a covert action operation designed to eviscerate the Iranian Ministry of Intelligence’s operations globally. As a result of that US action, Iran was forced to recall its intelligence officers from around the world to Tehran for the better part of a year. The operation was meant to say that the US administration was serious, knew how to play the game, and was not reluctant to do so. Had the US not invaded Afghanistan and Iraq in quick succession, would the Tehran regime eventually have resumed targeting Americans and US interests in the region anyway? That is unknowable, but what we can say confidently is that for four years we had a more stable relationship.
The situation thirty years later is much different. The IRGC believes, not without some reason, that it has the military upper hand. Yes, the US can bomb Iran more or less at will (for now), but Iran has depleted US arms stockpiles, driven US forces out of bases in the region, destroyed many of those bases, and can saturate US and allied air defenses and inflict very costly damage on oil and gas infrastructure in the Gulf area. It is no clearer now than in the past how further mutual destruction results in war termination. Some situations cannot result in a military victory. The predicament the Trump Administration has created is one of them.
Because the military equation has changed, a negotiated or tacit end game to this war will not be one sided. The Trump Administration, which made an enormous mistake in starting this conflict, will have to settle for less than it wants. The negotiated offer Iran’s President made during the UN General Assembly was certainly less than Trump wants. He quickly dismissed it, but with some modification, it forms the basis for an agreement.
Before bombing again, the Administration needs to compare the likely results of renewed conflict with the alternative of accepting a deal that involves some further humiliation for its gross miscalculations. More bombing is unlikely to change Iran’s policies and waiting for the IRGC to care enough about the country’s economic collapse to capitulate may be like waiting for Godot. Indeed, waiting also risks the possibility that the hardline sentiment in the IRGC for initiating renewed fighting might win out.
So, is there an end game? There could be, but it will involve Trump, after the election, thinking that he has the political freedom of action as a lame duck to cut his losses, eat crow, and move on. For once, Trump’s ability to distort reality for his supporters may be beneficial. As the late Senator George Aiken (R-VT) advised President Lyndon Johnson about Viet Nam sixty years ago this week, declare victory.
Richard A. Clarke was a Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Intelligence (Reagan administration), Special Assistant to the President (Clinton), and National Coordinator for Security and Counter-terrorism (Clinton/Bush). He is the CEO of Good Harbor Security Risk Management. (richardaclarke.net)
