I was a child during the Vietnam War, and it was impossible to miss antiwar protests. I remember a common sentiment best expressed by Senator George McGovern: “I’m tired of old men dreaming up wars for young men to fight.”
And here we go again.
President Trump has reached a fork in his Iran war. One path would be diplomatic, and Trump has tried to reassure financial markets that we’re headed that way. Iran is “‘begging’ us to make a deal,” he claimed.
The problem is that Iran is not in fact begging for a deal. On the contrary, it has found fabulous leverage by closing the Strait of Hormuz to most traffic other than its own. Iranians must be thinking that they largely gave up their nuclear program in the accord with President Barack Obama, and they got a measly $400 million for that (later, there was more). This month, all Iran had to do was block the Strait of Hormuz for a few weeks, and the Trump administration lifted some oil sanctions that could amount to upward of $14 billion. No wonder Iran seems to feel it has the upper hand.
So while Trump may want an offramp, his conundrum is that any deal reached now would be substantially worse than Iran’s reported offer last month (a three-year pause in all uranium enrichment and strict limits thereafter).
I’m in favor of the diplomatic path, but let’s be honest: Any deal would be a pretty bad one and would strengthen a brutal regime that oppresses its people and menaces the region.
Because the diplomatic option is so unappealing, Trump seems poised to seize an even worse one: dispatching ground troops to invade Iran. He is sending thousands of Marines and paratroopers to the region, and The Wall Street Journal reports that the Pentagon is considering whether to send another 10,000 ground troops.
“This is a dangerous point,” Vali Nasr, a veteran Iran watcher at Johns Hopkins University, told me. “Maybe Trump has no choice but to go down this path, because to go to the table right now would really admit defeat. But this is the quandary of his own making.”
The most discussed target for seizure is Kharg Island, Iran’s primary oil export base. Yes, the Marines probably could conquer Kharg, even though the Iranians have reportedly laid traps and improved defenses. As Senator Lindsey Graham, the Trump whisperer, said, “We did Iwo Jima; we can do this.” What Graham didn’t mention was that 26,000 Americans were killed or wounded capturing the Japanese island of Iwo Jima near the end of World War II.
The challenge isn’t just seizing Kharg; the greater nightmare would be protecting troops there, day after day, week after week, from drones and other attacks.
The United States has been unable to fully protect its own hardened military bases in the region at much greater distances from Iran, forcing soldiers to evacuate to hotels. “Many of the 13 military bases in the region used by American troops are all but uninhabitable,” my Times colleagues Helene Cooper and Eric Schmitt reported. So if we can’t protect our bases, how will we protect Marines dropped off on an Iranian island?
Why seize Kharg anyway? The theory advanced by hawks is that without oil revenues Iran would be forced to surrender. “Control that island, let this regime die on a vine,” urged Graham.
Unfortunately, that theory is probably wrong.
“Even if we take Kharg, Iran won’t capitulate,” Dennis Citrinowicz, formerly the top Iran watcher in Israel Defense Intelligence, told me. “And everything’s going to escalate, and the prices of oil and whatever will be dramatically higher.”
If Trump wanted to seize territory, the better choice might be several small islands — Abu Musa and the Tunb islands — that are also claimed by the United Arab Emirates. A joint American and Emirati force could seize them and Emiratis could occupy them.
But even that would be a huge escalation. The truth is that any seizure of Iranian-controlled land would most likely lead Iran to retaliate by attacking energy infrastructure around the region — and, more terrifying, desalination plants that provide the water on which some Gulf cities depend. With refineries out of commission, we could face oil and gas shortages for years to come. The Houthis in Yemen might also join the fray by blocking ship traffic through the Bab al-Mandab Strait, which is the Red Sea choke point equivalent to Hormuz on the Persian Gulf.
“I don’t see this ending very soon,” Nasr warned. “I think the risk of this becoming uglier, with a lot of costs to the United States, is quite high.”
Trump’s aim if he dispatches ground troops is probably “to escalate to de-escalate,” hoping that he can gain leverage over Iran and get a better bargain. That’s possible. But my guess is the opposite: Collapsing financial markets would give Iran even more leverage than it has now.
Iran’s regime may also have more strategic patience than we do. Remember that after Iraq invaded Iran in 1980, Iran recovered its territory by 1982 but was so enraged that it refused a cease-fire and spent another six years fighting in the hope of overthrowing the Iraqi regime. Do we have the same staying power?
For all the uncertainties, one truth I feel deeply from having seen war up close: Old men should not fix their messes by dispatching young people to die in unnecessary wars.
Huge thanks to readers who donated to my holiday impact prize. It took time to tally everything, but we set a record of $50.3 million raised this time, including generous matches from Bloomberg Philanthropies and others. The money goes to the three nonprofits highlighted in my giving guide: Vision to Learn, Mutual Aid Sudan Coalition and Helen Keller Intl. I have the best readers!
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