War With Iran
Yesterday, the US and Israel launched a joint attack on Iran, killing Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamanei. This has been reported by both Israeli and Iranian news sources, so it's probably accurate as it's unlikely that both of them would be lying.
The Iranian regime has brutally oppressed its own people and has supported terrorist groups around the globe. That doesn't justify this attack although strategically the regime is the weakest it's been since 1979 and If there was going to be an attack, now was the time to do it.
The reasons given for the attack have been, to put it mildly, incoherent. In Israel's case, the reasons are clearer as Iran and Israel have essentially been engaged in a low-level war for decades, so this is just an escalation. On the US side, Trump missed a golden opportunity at his State of the Union speech last week to present the administration's case, yet he barely mentioned Iran even though plans for the war must have been well underway by then, and with the movement of battle groups toward Iran, the US' intentions were already obvious.
So we're left with vague pronouncements, which include neutralizing Iran's nuclear capabilities (didn't we do that last year?), stopping a major sponsor of terrorism (but why now and not any time since 1979?), and regime change to help the Iranian people after as many as 50,000 of them were slaughtered last month by their own government ("help is on the way"). The US doesn't have a great history of success with this latter goal. In Iran itself, the CIA overthrew the Mosaddegh government in 1953 and replaced it with the Shah, who was himself overthrown 25 years later and replaced with the current government. Getting rid of Saddam Hussein gave us ISIS, and getting rid of the Taliban gave us...the Taliban. There's no indication that there has been any preparation for who will run Iran if the mullahs are removed.
That in itself isn't a given. There is no "vice-Ayatollah" or anyone specifically designated to take over after Khamanei's death. The next Supreme Leader is chosen by the Assembly of Experts. Think of this as the board of directors of a company choosing the next CEO. The day-to-day government operations are overseen by the (nominally) popularly-elected President, currently Masoud Pezeshkian. If anything happens to Pezeshkian, his vice-president, Mohammed Reza Aref would take over. Similar to what happened in Venezuela when Maduro was removed (or kidnapped, depending on your opinion), government operations would continue with little change.
While it's not clear who will replace Khamanei, reportedly he was preparing one of his allies, Ali Larijani, to take over. Other possible replacements include Mohammed Mohammadi Golpayegani, head of the Supreme Leader's office; Mojtaba Khamanei, Ali Khamanei's son; and several others like Vahid Haghanian and Asghar Hejazi who hold leadership and policy positions. If the entire higher leadership is taken out or neutralized, the likeliest outcome is that the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) would take over in what would amount to rule by military junta.
The IRGC was established as a counterweight to the Iranian military, an ultra-nationalist organization intended to prevent a coup by military leaders. While the IRGC has been heavily involved in overseas operations, its main purpose is to protect the regime from its own military, and as we've seen over the past few months, it also suppresses any domestic opposition. You can think of the IRGC as a combination of the NSA, the CIA, and the Secret Service on steroids.
Reza Pahlavi, the son of the former Shah, is popular in the Iranian diaspora community, but has little meaningful support in Iran itself (protesters chanting "Javid Shah" (long live the Shah) don't count as "meaningful"). The regime has been very effective in crushing any popular opposition to it, to the point where there are no domestic leaders with the organization and resources to fill the gap if the government is removed. If the plan is to bring Mr. Pahlavi in with the expectation that he will be able to take over, this is unrealistic and doomed to failure.
The war is also extremely unpopular on both the left and the right in the US; its sole supporters appear to be the MAGA faithful who will support Trump no matter what he does, Iranian expats, and some Israel supporters. The opposition appears to be limited to complaining online, however. I'm old enough to have participated in the demonstrations prior to the outbreak of George W. Bush's Iraq War, the largest anti-war protests in US history that took place before a war started. So far, I haven't seen any protests at all against the current war. Part of this may be the speed at which everything has happened, as the lead-up to the Iraq War took well over a year. People might also be exhausted as there's only so much protesting they can do, what with No Kings, Israel/Gaza, and ICE. This is just the latest in a long line of outrages by the current administration. I haven't seen any protests over the Epstein Files either, and more people are probably more upset about those as pedophilia may be the one thing everyone agrees is bad.
Based on the war's unpopularity and the complete lack of even short-term planning, I'm predicting that, like the Venezuela action (and the 12-Day War in Iran last year), the current action will not continue for much longer, and regardless of the outcome, the administration will simply declare victory as they did in the previous actions, and go home. Trump has been described as an incurious man who is incapable of learning from his mistakes, but he has apparently learned from the failures of US military adventures since World War Two that prolonged wars are generally unsuccessful while short strikes at least avoid getting stuck in a quagmire and are quickly forgotten. Whether the current war is "successful" or not will, like everything else, depend on your opinion.
The Iranian regime has brutally oppressed its own people and has supported terrorist groups around the globe. That doesn't justify this attack although strategically the regime is the weakest it's been since 1979 and If there was going to be an attack, now was the time to do it.
The reasons given for the attack have been, to put it mildly, incoherent. In Israel's case, the reasons are clearer as Iran and Israel have essentially been engaged in a low-level war for decades, so this is just an escalation. On the US side, Trump missed a golden opportunity at his State of the Union speech last week to present the administration's case, yet he barely mentioned Iran even though plans for the war must have been well underway by then, and with the movement of battle groups toward Iran, the US' intentions were already obvious.
So we're left with vague pronouncements, which include neutralizing Iran's nuclear capabilities (didn't we do that last year?), stopping a major sponsor of terrorism (but why now and not any time since 1979?), and regime change to help the Iranian people after as many as 50,000 of them were slaughtered last month by their own government ("help is on the way"). The US doesn't have a great history of success with this latter goal. In Iran itself, the CIA overthrew the Mosaddegh government in 1953 and replaced it with the Shah, who was himself overthrown 25 years later and replaced with the current government. Getting rid of Saddam Hussein gave us ISIS, and getting rid of the Taliban gave us...the Taliban. There's no indication that there has been any preparation for who will run Iran if the mullahs are removed.
That in itself isn't a given. There is no "vice-Ayatollah" or anyone specifically designated to take over after Khamanei's death. The next Supreme Leader is chosen by the Assembly of Experts. Think of this as the board of directors of a company choosing the next CEO. The day-to-day government operations are overseen by the (nominally) popularly-elected President, currently Masoud Pezeshkian. If anything happens to Pezeshkian, his vice-president, Mohammed Reza Aref would take over. Similar to what happened in Venezuela when Maduro was removed (or kidnapped, depending on your opinion), government operations would continue with little change.
While it's not clear who will replace Khamanei, reportedly he was preparing one of his allies, Ali Larijani, to take over. Other possible replacements include Mohammed Mohammadi Golpayegani, head of the Supreme Leader's office; Mojtaba Khamanei, Ali Khamanei's son; and several others like Vahid Haghanian and Asghar Hejazi who hold leadership and policy positions. If the entire higher leadership is taken out or neutralized, the likeliest outcome is that the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) would take over in what would amount to rule by military junta.
The IRGC was established as a counterweight to the Iranian military, an ultra-nationalist organization intended to prevent a coup by military leaders. While the IRGC has been heavily involved in overseas operations, its main purpose is to protect the regime from its own military, and as we've seen over the past few months, it also suppresses any domestic opposition. You can think of the IRGC as a combination of the NSA, the CIA, and the Secret Service on steroids.
Reza Pahlavi, the son of the former Shah, is popular in the Iranian diaspora community, but has little meaningful support in Iran itself (protesters chanting "Javid Shah" (long live the Shah) don't count as "meaningful"). The regime has been very effective in crushing any popular opposition to it, to the point where there are no domestic leaders with the organization and resources to fill the gap if the government is removed. If the plan is to bring Mr. Pahlavi in with the expectation that he will be able to take over, this is unrealistic and doomed to failure.
The war is also extremely unpopular on both the left and the right in the US; its sole supporters appear to be the MAGA faithful who will support Trump no matter what he does, Iranian expats, and some Israel supporters. The opposition appears to be limited to complaining online, however. I'm old enough to have participated in the demonstrations prior to the outbreak of George W. Bush's Iraq War, the largest anti-war protests in US history that took place before a war started. So far, I haven't seen any protests at all against the current war. Part of this may be the speed at which everything has happened, as the lead-up to the Iraq War took well over a year. People might also be exhausted as there's only so much protesting they can do, what with No Kings, Israel/Gaza, and ICE. This is just the latest in a long line of outrages by the current administration. I haven't seen any protests over the Epstein Files either, and more people are probably more upset about those as pedophilia may be the one thing everyone agrees is bad.
Based on the war's unpopularity and the complete lack of even short-term planning, I'm predicting that, like the Venezuela action (and the 12-Day War in Iran last year), the current action will not continue for much longer, and regardless of the outcome, the administration will simply declare victory as they did in the previous actions, and go home. Trump has been described as an incurious man who is incapable of learning from his mistakes, but he has apparently learned from the failures of US military adventures since World War Two that prolonged wars are generally unsuccessful while short strikes at least avoid getting stuck in a quagmire and are quickly forgotten. Whether the current war is "successful" or not will, like everything else, depend on your opinion.
