The latest in U.S.-Iran tensions is that Washington is considering so-called “limited strikes” against Iran initially to show that the United States is serious about waging a bigger war if Tehran does not make concessions on its nuclear program. This is plainly naive and not a good idea.
While not having ground troops will make any America action against Iran different, it is still astonishing that after Afghanistan and Iraq—after two decades of blood, treasure, moral injury and strategic ambiguity—this kind of fantasy still passes for sober thinking inside the American foreign-policy and military establishment. In those conflicts even enormous troop deployments were insufficient.
The appeal is obvious. Washington does not want another Iraq or Afghanistan. It wants something clean, surgical and over before the markets close.
Limited strikes could involve precision strikes on nuclear facilities, Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ bases, missile stockpiles or drone production sites.
Yet this is precisely what Israel did in its 12-day war against Iran last year—a campaign the United States joined toward the end to help strike Iran’s deep underground nuclear sites. Israel took out Iran’s air defenses, hit ballistic-missile stockpiles and manufacturing infrastructure and exposed vulnerabilities deep inside Iran. Israel recorded a stonking victory, reducing Iran’s immediate capabilities considerably.
Yet the mullahs began rebuilding and remain as bellicose as ever.
There is a growing consensus across the political spectrum in Jerusalem that Israel will need to fight Iran again to finish the job, alone if necessary, to destroy Iran’s ballistic-missile capabilities.
Israel is worried that these missiles, which can reach Israel in about 10 minutes, are not part of any Washington-Tehran nuclear-focused talks.
The flaw in the “limited strike” theory is the assumption that Iran would treat such an action as bounded, controlled and rational—and retaliate proportionately or not at all.
No canny bookmaker would give you favorable odds on that outcome.
Tehran has made clear that it will view any attack, however “limited,” as all-out war.
The ruthlessness with which the powers to be have crushed domestic protests over the past few months does not suggest that compromise is high on its “to do” list. Those protests exposed how little legitimacy the regime enjoys at home. Precisely because it is weak domestically, it cannot afford to look weak internationally.
The Islamic Republic is an Islamist regime born in revolution, forged in war and sustained by resistance. Deranged anti-Americanism and anti-Zionism are central pillars of its identity. After four decades of rhetoric about standing up to the “Great Satan,” the regime’s survival depends on defiance.
Western analysts persist in modeling Tehran as a rational cost-benefit calculator. Yet rationality depends on what you value. If regime survival and ideological consistency rank above economic prosperity or civilian welfare, which for the mullahs they clearly do, then escalation can be internally rational even when externally catastrophic.
It is also far from clear how game theorists can factor into their models the allure of the 72 virgins that the mullahs believe suffering a martyr’s death would bring them in the afterlife.
So, the most likely outcome of a “limited strike” is that both sides begin climbing the escalation ladder. It could look something like this:
Washington conducts airstrikes on enrichment facilities. Tehran retaliates with missile attacks on U.S. bases in Iraq or Syria, drone strikes on Gulf energy infrastructure or harassment of naval vessels in the Strait of Hormuz.
Afraid of losing its deterrence credibility, the Trump administration will feel compelled to escalate. Then its planned limited strikes will turn into escalating rolling strikes.
Neither U.S. President Donald Trump nor the mullahs seem inclined to back down. Each side would insist it is responding, not escalating. This reciprocal logic can turn a limited conflict into a constantly expanding war.
Ballistic missiles may be Iran’s headline weapon, certainly from Israel’s perspective, but against the U.S. geography may be its most potent instrument.
About 20% of global oil supplies travel through the Strait of Hormuz. Iran cannot permanently close it, but it could use sea mines, fast attack craft and anti-ship missiles to disrupt trade. Ships would have to take longer, more expensive routes, which would drive up insurance premiums, send oil prices soaring and roil global markets.
Suddenly, the political pressures animating the war would no longer be just about centrifuges, but about inflation in Europe and gas prices in America. Economic pain can alter political resolve.
Trump would need to decide whether to escalate decisively or de-escalate humiliatingly. The latter seems unlikely given his disposition.
For any U.S. strike to be worthwhile, it needs to degrade Iran’s capabilities to a degree that puts them back decades, not just a few years—or topple the regime and gamble that some less deranged government emerges. That is possible, but the Middle East is hardly known for producing Jeffersonian democracies.
Either of these goals would require overwhelming force to have any chance of success.
