What to do about Iran
Nine rules for the use of American violence
So we’re all waiting for this big retaliation against Iran, right? The most telegraphed strikes in history? I keep checking the news, but the tease is endless. We’re going to hit Iran so hard they’ll never do it again, apparently, but not so hard that it really upsets them. It’s going to be an ultra-precision, super-calibrated strike. The Pentagon has been studying it for days. And telling us about it for days. And telling us when it will happen and where it will happen and under what atmospheric conditions. Everyone in our government is leaking to every journalist he can collar to put out the word that we really don’t want another war in the Middle East, so Iran shouldn’t be upset when we do it. Which will be soon! Just you wait! And besides, we’d like to make a deal with Iran—wouldn’t they like that?—so really, Iranians, don’t get mad. We’re only doing it because we’d really like you to stop killing us. You can tell we’re sincere about not wanting to hurt you because we’re not actually going to hurt you, we’re just going to hit a bunch of your proxies’ ammo dumps—and neither of us care if a few of your proxies die, right? So truly, don’t take it personally: You’ve got to understand, it’s an election year and we’ll all look like a bunch of wussies if we don’t do anything. So seriously, we’re going to hit you so hard. At a time and place of our choosing! Any minute now! Maybe even today! Are you ready? Here we go! We’re gonna hit you!
Is there anyone on the planet whose eyes aren’t rolling as they watch this? (I’ll be plum embarrassed if I hit “send” on this newsletter then check the news only to see that Tehran has been vaporized, but I’ll take that risk.)
American strategists have been making the same mistakes since Vietnam, no matter who’s in power. They all do the same thing. It never occurs to them to wonder how it could be that we have the strongest economy and the most powerful military the world yet our strategic position keeps getting more and more parlous.
The Iran problem is really hard. I don’t discount that. I certainly don’t know how to solve it. But I can confidently say what won’t work.
I challenge you to name a single time when a postwar American president has successfully deployed American force while violating the following rules:
Rule 1: Make a damned decision
When the US uses force in hesitant dribbles—announced with words like “proportionate,” “precision,” “targeted,” or “calibrated”—it only excites our enemies and encourages them to try harder. We publish reams of theoretical work about “escalation dominance,” but we act as if we’ve never heard of it.
It’s always the same cycle. It begins when our enemy does a bad thing. Shocked, we go away to study the problem. We emerge from our lucubrations to say we’ll respond at a time and place of our choosing. Then we hit a camel in the ass with a very expensive bomb.
Ten minutes later, they do it again.
We return to our lair to study the problem again. We emerge gravely. “This time,” says a jumbo-sized Pentagon official, “We’ll be whacking two camels at the time and place of our choosing.” He clears his throat. “This means we’re going to whack those camels at 07:20 on Tuesday morning at the crossroads just south of Abdul’s gas station at Khirbat Ra’s al Wa’r. So long as the weather’s clear.”
“Sir! Could you repeat that, Sir?”
“You bet, Bret. That’s Kilo-Hotel-India-Romeo-Bravo-Alfa-Tango—got it? 33.88056° north, 39.51889° east.”
“Sir! Is hitting two camels escalatory?”
“Only for the camels, Bret. Those camels should not be sleeping well tonight.”
Two days later, bang! We hit two camels. We issue another a stern warning.
Twenty minutes later, they do it again.
We’re baffled. What’s with them? Don’t they realize we’re the United States of America and we’ve got the most powerful military the human race has ever beheld? That we can keep doing this until every last camel’s ass in the Middle East is fried to a crisp and branded “Don’t mess with Texas?”
Bang! Two camels and a goat. That’ll learn ‘em!
The cycle continues until—wham!—something bad happens. Maybe by accident. Hard to know whether someone really meant to hurt you when they lobbed 200 drones and missiles at you. Maybe they were just bored. But now someone’s dead, and the public realizes: We’re at war out there!
Domestic outrage erupts, stoked by our completely irresponsible politicians. (Doesn’t matter which party. They’re all irresponsible.) They flap toward the camera like moths to the light, flying right into each other in their eagerness to issue the first peroration about the President’s perfidy, treason, and incompetence. Ted Cruz emerges from the Senate sauna in a towel: “I’ll be the one to say it, Bret: The President’s a pussy. A Papa-Uniform-Papa-Papa-Yankee—”
“He’s … beg pardon?”
“Whatever. Journalists like you who hate America are the problem.”
The Senators grill the Joint Chiefs. Testy! The journalists publish chin-strokers about the way our adversary plays chess, not tiddlywinks. Meanwhile, we’ve skedaddled: We don’t actually want to fight someone who might be serious about fighting back—for God’s sake, man, you could get hurt that way!—but we remain blithely confident that because we have an incredibly powerful military and massive oceans between us and our adversaries, no one would ever dare cross us—because crossing the mighty United States of America would be nuts. Witness our policy in Ukraine: “Let’s try sending a few rifles. What, that wasn’t enough? Let’s form a Pentagon Study Group to think deeply about whether we should send a tank.”
Why doesn’t this ever work? Hell, I don’t know. I don’t have a theory here. It should work, I agree. After all, if the US military hit my camel’s ass with a smart bomb, I’d stop screwing around with the US military. Frankly, all you’d have to do is say, “Knock it off or the USS Eisenhower fries your camel’s ass to crisp” and I’d stop it immediately. What kind of fool would tangle with the USS Eisenhower?
But thinking this way is what’s known in the trade as “mirror imaging.” The assumption that an adversary thinks the way you do is a classic mistake. We’ve repeatedly tested the theory that American enemies, like middle-aged American women, are readily deterred by a minor display of American military force. We have found it wanting.
So here’s Rule Number One for the use of coercive violence: Engage with overwhelming force, fast and hard, or just get the hell out of there before you get our troops killed and yet again teach our adversaries that you can get rid of Americans by patiently harassing them.
If you can think of a single counterexample to this rule in the whole of history of American military engagement, tell me, because I can’t.
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