Trump’s Strategic Blunder in Iran May Cost the World Dearly

We all know by now that Trump is not a serious or deep international strategist, and will not listen to the advice of real experts. He has a rather childish and naive view of global politics and armed conflict, and has been proven time and again to lack strategic insight, lumbered as he is by a inaccurate and even absurd view of global economic and strategic matters. Because of these intellectual and temperamental deficits, his foreign policy has always been a complete shit show, destabilizing our alliances and our strategic position in world affairs. But nothing he has done thus far has as much potential to spin out of control and have catastrophic results as does his war of choice against Iran.

I am myself far from a true expert on global power and politics, though I do at least have formal education in global history, politics, and law, and an avid interest in military and strategic global affairs. But one person who certainly qualifies in that regard is John Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago. Mearsheimer is best known for developing the neorealist (or structural realist) theory of offensive realism, which describes the interaction between great powers as being primarily driven by the rational desire to achieve regional hegemony in an anarchic international system. I don’t always agree with Mearsheimer’s conclusions, and have some foundational problems with his concept of offensive realism, but such are beyond the scope of this quick essay. Mearscheimer can generally be relied upon to have an accurate and realistic grasp of the capacities and incentives of states in the international system and global power politics. Mearsheimer expressed his concerns in this recent conversation with Chris Hedges (about 1 hour long, but well worth a watch – just ignore the click-baity title, which does not reflect Mearsheimer’s actual concerns):

I, too, have concerns that Trump and his military and diplomatic teams have been quite reckless in regards to Iran’s strategic abilities when they struck Iran’s nuclear program last year, but those concerns have become much more acute regarding the current war – mainly because the purpose of this war has been wildly unclear and unrealistic. I don’t think that the limited strikes of last year actually achieved much toward the stated aim of eliminating Iran’s capacity to develop a nuclear weapon (despite Trump’s silly and boastful claims), but I am becoming acutely concerned that this recent attack seems to lack ANY strategic focus or purpose –beyond realizing Bibi’s decades-long dream of goading America into an open-ended war with Iran as a strategic junior partner to Israel.

Specifically, I am concerned that Iran may at this point become MUCH more aggressive in the region long-term, beleiving they have little left to lose, and much to gain, in a protracted conflict, of which they direct the tempo and control any potential cessation. The result of such a sustained escalation by Iran has the potential to devastate and destabilize the regional and global economy in unpredictable ways. Allow me a quick list of potential outcomes:

1: Bringing to power a much-less-moderate faction of the revolutionary regime than that represented by the now-dead Ayatolla Ali Khamenei, which will choose to accept the risks of an open and protracted military confrontation with the West and our allies in the region.

2: Under more radical leadership, Iran chooses to make sustained attacks on the economic infrastructure and strategic assets of America and our Gulf allies, making power projection in the region more difficult and costly in the long-term for us, and severely destabilizing the region’s economic contributions to the world economy – especially as regards fossil fuels (crude oil and liquified natural gas) and seondary outputs, such as fertilizer.

3: Iran takes the easiest and quickest path to obtaining a radiological weapon (a so-called “dirty bomb” or radiological dispersal device) by simply utilizing black market or indogenous sources of radio-isotopes or plutonium, rather than the much more technically difficult and multi-use path of uranium purification leading to a fission weapon. Iran could then deploy such a weapon in an unconventional manner to cause long-term harms to an enemy, such as detonating said devices in S.A. or Israel… or even in America. Another obvious asymmetric warfare technique would, of course, be any number of ways to cause a mass-casualty event or events, i.e. terrorism, anywhere in the world.

The result of this sequence could be to radicalize Iranian leadership, leading to a protracted war in the region, as Iran no longer has incentives to keep the conflict with the other regional powers low-key, and committing Iran to the fastest possible path to a credible strategic deterent, or to demonstrate a devastating weapon of terror. The result of this sequence could have major global impacts that American power has few tools to contain or avoid the worst of, including a sustained regional conflict we cannot control nor easily end, applying a major brake on the global economy in the form of a global recession, or even depression, and a major distraction from the military-strategic confrontation between the United States and our allies with China and Russia. If fact, there are already good reasons to believe that China and Russia are currently exploiting this opportunity to tie-down American naval and air forces with a sustained war with Iran by providing Iran with intelligence, advanced weapons components and systems, and economic support.

In summary, Trump, in his hubris and desperation to distract from his domestic woes, may have opened a Pandora’s box of global impacts that he is ill-equiped to contain and constrain, which could diminish and dilute American power and create headwinds for the global economy that could affect everyone for many years to come. A lot will depend on the Iranian regime’s willingness to absorb the enormous damage that America and Israel can inflict on Iran. I fear the regime may decide that between the international sanctions regime, the degredation of its proxies, and the stated aim of Trump and Bibi to destroy the regime itself, Iran will decide that a restrained approach to conflict is no longer tenable. We could see a dangerously unconstrained, radicalized, and openly beligerent Iran bent on causing as much harm to the region and the global system as possible – and they have a significant asymetric capacities to make all of us pay for Trump’s stupid blunders. I do not think that Iran’s Islamacist regime will collapse as a result of Trump’s folly. In fact, I fear that the regime could be significantly empowered by the emnity of the Iranian populace against external foes earned by Trump’s attacks and the inevitable civilian casualities those have already entailed.

Let’s pray that I – and more importantly, Professor Mearsheimer – are totally wrong!