Watch Out!

Israel is good at winning battles, but not at winning wars

Success is intoxicating. Empowering. Liberating. Sometimes blinding. Rarely permanent.

Israel is basking in the glow of what it considers military successes: killing the military leadership of Hamas, Hezbollah, and now Iran; destroying the bulk of military capacity of Hamas, Hezbollah, and – almost – Iran.

There’s a warning from history that shouldn’t be ignored: don’t let hubris overwhelm careful judgment.

I see that historian Sir Alistair Horne even has a book with that title and that message. I’ve ordered it from my local library, but I already know many examples.

- Hitler thought his earlier victories would be repeated at Stalingrad.

- The Japanese thought the surprise victory at Pearl Harbor would keep America out of the Pacific War.

- Truman and MacArthur, bolstered by the Inchon landing, decided to unify Korea and expected no Chinese intervention.

- Donald Rumsfeld thought the quick fall of Baghdad would allow U.S. troop withdrawals without a lengthy occupation.

Time and again military planners relied on too much hope in their strategies or used success to blind them to the risks of more expansive goals.

Many analysts now see mission creep by Israel. David Ignatius warns:

Israel’s wars have a history of mission creep. And in that tradition of relentless escalation, the Israeli campaign that began early Friday against Iran’s nuclear program is now moving inexorably toward regime change.

Watching the television images from Tehran, you see that Israel is widening its lens. On Sunday, it was the billowing flames surrounding the Greater Tehran Police Command, loathed by many as a center of repression. On Monday it was an attack on the headquarters of Iranian state television, dispenser of state propaganda — driving the stolid anchorwoman in a dark hijab and chador from her chair in the middle of a broadcast.

The clearest sign that Israel is going for the heart of the regime came in a comment Monday from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Asked by ABC News whether Israel plans to target supreme leader Ali Khamenei, Netanyahu answered: “We are doing what we need to do.”

Assassination isn’t the path to a strong country. But we’re clearly in new territory, described by the best Iran-watchers I know. “The Islamic Republic has spent decades seeking to eradicate Israel. Now, Israel seems to be pursuing the end of the Islamic Republic,” said Karim Sadjadpour of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace during an interview Monday. Behnam Ben Taleblu, the Iran director of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, agreed: “Israel has operating freedom over Iran’s skies. Now it can drive a counter-regime campaign.”

Lauren Rozen reports similar views:

Former Central Command commander Frank McKenzie saw mission creep emerging in Israel’s war aims in Iran, as a result of the “astonishing” early success of its military operation.

“I do believe that regime change is on the table in Tel Aviv, and I think that represents a thing that we should be very familiar with in the United States: mission creep,” McKenzie, a retired Marine Corps general, said on a zoom panel hosted by the Middle East Institute today (June 16). “Where you have astonishing initial success, so your goals tend to expand.”

“So I think perhaps that when they (the Israelis) went into this, they were looking at a more narrowly targeted campaign,” he said. “But the [Iranian] inability to defend themselves, and the success the Israelis have had, opens new vistas…So there’s a tremendous amount of energy behind commanders to push forward.”

“So I think the broadest possible thing that could be said is regime change is on the table, either as a forcing mechanism to bring the Iranians to negotiate, or as end in itself,” he said.

Regime change in Iran is not an “explicit” military goal of the Israeli campaign, but is something that Israel implicitly would like to see happen, former Israeli general Giora Eiland said today.

Implicit or explicit, regime change is on the table, making the Israeli-Iranian conflict far more dangerous. Maybe the Israelis have been blinded by their obvious successes. The Stuxnet virus set back Iran’s nuclear program for several years. The electronic pager explosions decimated Hezbollah, as did later Israeli military operations in Lebanon. But Hezbollah is in remission rather than eliminated. And Israeli attacks and denial of humanitarian aid in Gaza are building a future generation fueled by hatred and revenge. There is no final victory in those conflicts, so why is Israel expecting one in Iran?

Conquering countries don’t have a good record of building successor regimes in recent years. The Soviets failed in Afghanistan, as did the Americans. Iraq remains divided and unstable. The Russians failed to conquer Kyiv and control captured parts of Ukraine by fear. Yemen and Libya weren’t successfully conquered by outsiders and remain divided. Somalia has been a basket case for over 30 years.

Yet the threat of regime change can only drive Iranian leaders to desperate steps.

In The Financial Times Gideon Rachman warns of a primitive nuclear device.

It is most likely, however, that the Israel-Iran war will follow its own distinct path. One scenario that worries western security officials involves a desperate Iranian regime deciding to strike back through unconventional means.

As one senior policymaker puts it: “The reason this has not yet turned into world war three, is that Iran seems to have very limited means to strike back conventionally.” Another senior official says there may also be limitations on the Israeli government’s ability to keep fighting at this intensity because its country has limited “magazine depth” (weapons stockpiles, in non-jargon).

If the Iranian regime believes that, nonetheless, it is going down to a bad defeat in a conventional conflict, it would have a difficult choice. It could meekly accept the situation and try to negotiate its way out of trouble. Or it could escalate by unconventional means. That threshold is more likely to be crossed if the regime believes it is in a battle for survival and needs to demonstrate its strength to the Iranian people and the world. Rage and the desire for vengeance should also not be underestimated.

In Washington and Brussels there are concerns that if the Iranian regime is cornered it might lash out in desperation. In the recent past, the US has accused Iran of having covert biological and chemical weapons programmes. If those fears are correct, Tehran may have the means of striking back at Israeli or American targets in a deadly but deniable fashion.

The International Atomic Energy Agency has also stated that Iran has a considerable stockpile of uranium that is enriched to 60 per cent. It is generally believed that Tehran would need to get to 90 per cent enrichment to make a nuclear weapon. This could be done within days — although weaponisation would take much longer. However, weapons experts point out that it is actually possible to fashion a crude nuclear weapon with uranium enriched to 60 per cent.

David Albright and Sarah Burkhard, of the Institute for Science and International Security think-tank, write that “an enrichment level of 60 per cent suffices to create a relatively compact nuclear explosive; further enrichment to 80 or 90 per cent is not needed”. That kind of weapon would be suitable for “delivery by a crude delivery system such as an aircraft, shipping container, or truck, sufficient to establish Iran as a nuclear power”.

Iran could choose to demonstrate a crude nuclear weapon to try to shock Israel into ending the war. Another possibility is that it could actually set off a “dirty bomb” — which uses conventional explosives to scatter radioactive material. The kind of scenario that experts worry about would be the use of a ship to detonate a device near the Israeli port of Haifa.

Just as Israelis claim that their own nuclear weapons would only be used to prevent the destruction of Israel, Iran could feel compelled to fight regime change with their most powerful weapons.

The situation would be even more dangerous and unpredictable if the United States got directly involved in the fighting, either in response to U.S. casualties in Iranian attacks or to U.S. support for bunker-busting attacks on the Fordow nuclear facility.

As a supporter of the Constitution and its requirement for congressional authorization for major offensive military operations, I hope that Senator Tim Kaine’s resolution requiring a congressional vote prior to attacks on Iran gets favorable consideration. President Trump should not take any such risky action without congressional support.

The potential consequences are too serious for a unilateral decision by the president. We all could be impacted by the outcome of a wider war for regime change in Tehran.

[While I was writing this piece, the New York Times published a major article describing the evolution of Trump’s thinking on Iran to a position much more supportive of Israel. Then Trump himself posted a demand for “UNCONDTIONAL SURRENDER!” and noted that “We now have complete and total control of the skies over Iran,” Trump wrote. The demand signals he favor regime change and the use of the first person plural shows that he’s with Israel on the issue. I think he has FOMO and wants to be able to brag that he ended the Iran nuclear threat. All the more reason for Congress to take a stand promptly. I’d vote against joining the war.]