By Jonathan S. Tobin
(JNS) — Two weeks after the start of the U.S.-Israeli offensive against Iran, naysayers about the operation remain pervasive and loud. The motivations of many of those denouncing the decisions of President Trump are clearly partisan, ideological and, in the case of a considerable percentage of those on the far right and left, connected to prejudice.
Regardless of the validity of those complaints, there is no avoiding the main question. Is it worth the cost that the administration is expending on a fight with no definite endpoint in sight?
And to that question, there are no easy answers. There is good reason to worry about whether the unintended negative consequences of the war will, in the long run, be viewed as more significant than the issues policymakers are currently obsessing about.
Nevertheless, even the most reasonable skeptics of the effort, are largely failing to address another equally important question. Is the cost of allowing the pre-war status quo to continue higher than those associated with the uncertainties of war?
Iran was steadily rebuilding its nuclear program with an imminent option to race to a bomb, expanding missile production and continuing to orchestrate an “axis of resistance” dedicated to fomenting chaos and war. That’s more than enough to justify the risks of potential disaster that are an inevitable part of all wars.
Like the question about the cost of war, the answer will only be clear after the fact. Yet even now, with the outcome of the campaign still somewhat in doubt, it’s obvious that continuing a policy of kicking the can down the road would have been as colossal a mistake.
The dangers that lie ahead are not limited to the short-term question of whether Washington and Jerusalem will achieve their objectives, which are aligned with each other but not identical.
The first purpose of the campaign is the eradication of Iran’s nuclear and ballistic-missile programs, in addition to its support and active participation in international terrorism. Washington and Jerusalem are committed to those objectives, which they rightly see as not only crucial to their own countries but integral to the security of the West.
Both governments have also stated that they favor regime change in Iran. That’s something Israel believes is absolutely necessary. The Trump administration would like it to happen, but could live without it, as long as the ayatollahs were stripped of their nukes and missiles, and had their terrorist option foreclosed.
It’s far from clear whether the goal of toppling the Islamist government in Tehran can or will be accomplished.
Still, the problems that are being generated by the war don’t only involve Iran retaining nuclear capability or whether the theocrats can cling to power. Just as important is whether the economic consequences of the war or its impact will wind up overshadowing what happens in the Persian Gulf or the Middle East.
A long-term jump in oil prices would harm the global economy, set back Trump’s objectives for American prosperity and impact domestic politics and his party’s chances of retaining control of Congress in the midterm elections.
Added to that is the impact of the conflict on the international stage, where the United States is locked in a geostrategic rivalry/conflict with Iran’s allies: Russia and China. As historian Niall Ferguson, who supports action against Iran, has pointed out, this war must be seen in the context of a second Cold War in which the United States is facing off against what may prove to be a Chinese opponent that’s far more formidable than the Soviet Union was.
But should the United States be embroiled in an unsuccessful war in the Middle East, this would help the Chinese elsewhere. And Russia is benefiting from the way the current war is increasing its oil and gas revenue, and serves as a distraction from its stalemated efforts to wear down Ukraine.
As Ferguson writes this week in The Free Press, blocking the Strait of Hormuz for any appreciable period of time would be a disaster for Washington, as well as something that could set an unfortunate precedent for the ability of China and its allies to do the same thing in other important choke points, such as the Strait of Taiwan. It almost goes without saying that, as the analyst argues, “the longer the war lasts, the greater the domestic pressure on Trump; the heavier the costs for U.S. allies in Asia and Europe; the more money for Russia; and the greater the temptation for China.”
Those risks are real.
While the success of the U.S.-Israeli offensive won’t be able to fully evaluated until after the conflict, it’s clear that both militaries have eliminated Iran’s military capabilities.
The fact that a country as large as Iran is not completely defeated in two weeks is not a reason to believe the war has so far been a failure. If the armed forces of the two allies are allowed to continue their military efforts, the already devastating results for Iran will likely become even more impressive. It could possibly go a long way toward rendering the regime harmless to its neighbors and/or unable to resist the desire of its population for a new government.
The policy of enriching and empowering Tehran that was the consequence of former President Obama’s signature foreign-policy achievement was disastrous for the Middle East and for America. It led to a stronger and more aggressive Islamist regime. It encouraged its adventurism, hegemonic ambitions and willingness to start wars against Israel from Gaza and Lebanon via its terrorist proxies, Hamas and Hezbollah, as well as the way its Houthi allies in Yemen sought to interdict international shipping in the Horn of Africa.
More than that, letting Iran get a nuclear weapon, as Obama’s pact guaranteed, or race to one, as became an increasingly likely scenario in the last year, would have done far more damage to U.S. interests than even a permanent hike in gas prices or an emboldened Beijing.
Economic and strategic thinkers are right to ponder what may follow the current campaign, and whether some or all of the fallout from it will be problematic or wind up working out in ways that we cannot foresee. But letting a tyrannical regime ruled by religious fanatics bent on imposing their version of fanatical Islam on the Middle East and the rest of the world get a nuclear weapon to blackmail and intimidate opponents would be a nightmare.
And that would have been the inevitable result if the United States hadn’t prepared to act at some point in the near future. While Washington could have waited until the threat was so imminent that averting it would have been as catastrophic as waiting for it to happen, Trump wisely decided that forestalling that scenario was worth the risk.
While the calculus involved in determining that acting in 2026 was far less costly and dangerous than waiting until some point in the future, what cannot be debated is that stopping Iran was in almost everyone’s interests. To treat the need to stop the apocalyptic implications of an Iranian bomb as somehow less important than short-term increases in the price of fuel or theoretical advantages that might fall to Beijing is like comparing fatal cancer to a broken limb. The latter is painful and can impair one’s lifestyle. The former is to envision a chronic global catastrophe carried out by theocrats with no compunction about slaughtering innocents.
The failure to acknowledge this basic premise is what makes so much of the criticism of the administration unpersuasive.
And that brings us back to the motivations of the critics. As was apparent from the first days of the war, most of those opposing Trump on Iran are doing so for partisan reasons.
While polls show that a majority of Americans oppose the war, those who drill down into public opinion on the issue also show that far larger majorities agree with Trump on the nature of the threat from Iran and the necessity to deal with it. Democrats are united against the president’s decision to an extent unprecedented in the history of opposition parties at a time of war. Having committed themselves to a view of Trump as a complete villain, few among his foes seem willing to let politics stop at the water’s edge.
Virtually the entire Democratic Party has been opposed to acting, and they’re not doing so because they are worried about oil prices or thinking China might find a way to gain from it. The only reason for their opposition is that Trump is doing it.
The other reason for opposing action against Iran is, if possible, even more contemptible.
For many on the left and on the noisy yet less numerous far right, the reason not to stop the mullahs is that doing so might help Israel in the process.
The fact that since the Iranian Revolution, the Islamic Republic has sought the elimination of the Jewish state was an argument against restraining them for those ideologues on the left and the right who sympathize with that goal.
The antisemitic tropes and conspiracy theories that have been floated in recent months and weeks about Israeli and Jewish influence over American policy weren’t so much based on false conceptions about U.S. interests as it was in hostility to the safety or existence of Jews.