As I write this, a task force capable of deploying a Marine Expeditionary Unit, a self-contained force of about 2,500 troops complete with its own artillery, air support, airlift, and logistics – in effect, a miniature army – is rushing toward the Persian Gulf aboard the amphibious assault ship USS Tripoli, accompanied, presumably, by escort vessels. Most commentary speculates that the Marines are going into the Gulf to seize Kharg Island, Iran’s crucial oil facility located about 16 miles offshore at the northern end of the Gulf.
This is the place where 90% of Iran’s oil exports get loaded on to supertankers, and its attractions as a target/bargaining chip are obvious. Perhaps a little too obvious, I think.
You can view this operation, supposing the reports are accurate, as the entire war in microcosm.
First, it’s risky: putting the MEU in position to land forces on Kharg will require a transit of the chokepoint Strait of Hormuz, which the Navy refers to as a “kill box”, where the Tripoli and its escorts will present themselves as the juiciest naval targets the Iranians have ever had the chance to destroy. Then there would be the assault on the island itself, going forward even though there’s nothing more dangerous than an attack that everyone knows is coming. Then, having taken the island, the Marines, and presumably their mother ship parked not far away, will have to sit there under what will probably be the most withering drone and missile bombardment yet seen, hanging on for dear life.
Second, it’s not immediately obvious what happens next, or how taking the island moves America any closer to something resembling a victory in this ill-conceived war. Perhaps Donald’s brain trust figures the Iranians won’t want to lay waste to their own facility, and will have to accept the American occupation as a fait accompli, from which assumption flows the perceived opportunity for the Americans to use their possession of Kharg as leverage to get the Iranians to re-open the Strait. Sure, maybe. But what if the Iranians, true to form, don’t knuckle under? What if they decide to sacrifice the facility to the larger goal of defeating the Great Satan, and hit the island with everything they’ve got? What then? So now you’re sitting there in occupation of a bunch of wrecked oil infrastructure which the Iranians have written off as the cost of doing business. So what? When the Strait remains closed, and it’s obvious the gambit has failed, do you hang on to the essentially worthless turf anyway, hunkered down under constant bombardment? Or do you withdraw, and try to scurry back through the Strait, or perhaps put into a friendly port, supposing any of the Gulf Arab states, all of them probably angry at Donald for starting this stupid war in the first place, are willing to host yet another missile magnet?
So it goes with the war as a whole. As we approach the end of three weeks of fighting, Trump still hasn’t articulated what the objectives were in the first place, careening between proposed rationales as if he’s throwing them at the wall to see what will stick. It was regime change – no! – it was destroying the nuclear program! Oh yeah, that was already destroyed, but anyway it’s not about that, it’s about degrading Iran’s military and removing it as a threat forever! And helping the Iranian people throw off the yolk of the ruthless mullahs (sorry not sorry about killing all those schoolgirls, but whattaya gonna do, shit happens, it’s war, suck it up). Anyway, whatever the goals were or weren’t, the war’s already won, though America’s allies should still help win it by sending warships to assist in re-opening the Strait, except they won’t, so screw them, we don’t need anybody’s help anyway, AND WE NEVER DID, besides which help with what? The war’s won already, see? Which is to say, it was never a war, exactly, it was a little excursion, and it’ll soon be over if it isn’t already, Donald will let you know for sure when he feels it in his bones.
So here we are. Over the past 19 days, the Israelis and Americans have, at last count, struck roughly 15,000 targets, and wiped out multiple layers of leadership, and for all their trouble surprisingly little would seem to have been achieved. In response, The Iranians have savaged Gulf oil infrastructure, pounded virtually all regional US military facilities, and closed down the Strait of Hormuz, cutting the world off from 20% of its global oil supply, and putting immense pressure on the economies of America and its increasingly disenchanted allies (among others). The Iranian regime remains in power, the drones and ballistic missiles are still being launched in waves, and the steady application of devastating air power against almost everything of military value within Iran’s boundaries is now reaching the point of making the rubble bounce, and little else. Soon enough, the economic pressure will become unbearable, and Trump will be faced with the choice of declaring victory and skulking away, or doing something drastic and escalatory, with little chance of improving the situation, and perhaps leading to outright geopolitical catastrophe. Moreover, the war doesn’t magically end, and the world doesn’t immediately return to its former equilibrium, just because the Americans withdraw, if that’s Donald’s choice. The Iranians can still decide to keep the Strait closed until they get certain concessions, and the economic strife can continue long after the bombs stop falling and the US fleet has left the theatre. The war won’t be over just because Donald says so. Iran also gets a vote.
Meanwhile, all Iran has to do to win this thing is weather the storm and outlast the aggressors. If, at the end of the day, there’s been no regime change, and Iran, despite all the punishment, remains a threat that can still launch attacks on its foes, while still holding the world oil supply hostage, and perhaps even reconstituting its nuclear program, then America will have suffered an epic defeat that might change irrevocably the global balance of power. There could be all sorts of ugly knock-on effects. The Arab states in the Gulf may decide that they no longer see any benefit in continuing to ally themselves with a reckless rogue state that can’t protect them, and didn’t even consult them before setting the region on fire. They might decide to sidle up to the Chinese instead, and start accepting Chinese yuan as payment for their oil, ending the era of the US “petro-dollar” and undermining the status of the dollar as the world reserve currency. NATO, already on life support, may finally, and perhaps even formally, fall to pieces while Western nations work even harder to make other geopolitical arrangements. Potential enemies all over the globe may be emboldened by the shocking display of American military ineptitude and outright fecklessness. The only nations coming out ahead may be China, sensing new opportunities to step in everywhere that America is no longer welcome, and Russia, already reaping the benefits of the relaxation of oil sanctions as emergency measures are taken to alleviate the oil shock caused by the closure of the Strait. Oh, and Iran, of course, Iran will come out way ahead, victorious over the Great Satan, and arbiter of the oil flow through the world’s most vital maritime choke point.
I’m struggling to see a way out of this mess. I can’t come up with a clear path to a strategic win for America, and I’m betting nobody in the Trump regime can either. I just hope they don’t do anything desperate, even if they are desperate. This situation can still get worse.
Meanwhile, the USS Tripoli and its embarked Marine Expeditionary Unit steams towards the Gulf. Whatever Trump and his brain-stemmed minions have planned for these troops, I hope they call it off. Taking Kharg Island is an iffy proposition, and if the goal is to use the Marines someplace else, well, a couple of thousand boots on the ground won’t be enough to turn the tide, and once you’re in for a penny, the pressure to go in for a pound can become irresistible. The impetus to escalate further is especially acute when the initial escalation doesn’t go as well as planned, an outcome which is, I hope somebody in the American chain of command can impress upon Donald, all too likely. We could wind up with an entire American army mired in the Gulf, God forfend.
I don’t know. Like everybody, I sit here hoping somebody in Trump’s orbit finds a way to cut America’s losses and get out with as much dignity as can still be salvaged, which in this case means barely saving face in what the rest of the world is sure to see as a humiliating defeat, no matter how vigorously Donald claims otherwise. I fear this may go down as the greatest foreign policy blunder in American history, on a par with Putin’s calamitous attempt to conquer Ukraine.
Curious, isn’t it, how much Trump looks like Putin, and how much America has started to act like Russia on the world stage.
the needlefish 