Who’s actually winning the wars in the Middle East? |
If you read the New York Times or watch the foreign policy establishment’s “best and brightest,” you will be told, with imperious certainty, that America is losing the war in Iran and was stupid to begin it. The conspiratorial wing on both the right and left add that it is all the Jews’ fault, although they usually remember to mutter they mean “Israel” instead of all Jews, a gossamer cloak over what they really mean.
If, on the other hand, you watch Fox News or read blogs by conservatives or military analysts, you will be told with equal certainty that America and its ally, Israel, are actually winning – and winning decisively.
The answer, of course, is Carl von Clausewitz. What that old Prussian says goes to the heart of the issue.
Writing two centuries ago, in the bitter aftermath of the Napoleonic wars, Clausewitz made the essential point that “war is the continuation of politics by other means.”
What does that aphorism mean for today’s Middle Eastern wars, fought with technology and spycraft beyond Clausewitz’s wildest imagining? It means we have to look beyond all the modern tools – the planes, drones, precision bombs, satellites, and AI technology – to assess the war-fighting in terms of the combatants’ political goals. What do they want? What does “victory” mean for each of them? Are they achieving those goals or failing? The answers depend, obviously, on the battlefield assessment – but they go well beyond it.
The easiest goals to specify are those of Iran. Saying “Iran” is actually a misnomer since the goals are not those of the nation, but those of its ruling regime, a toxic mix of Islamist clerics and Revolutionary Guard members. Their irreducible goal, like that of all regimes, is to sustain itself in power. That’s getting harder for them these days.
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For the Islamic Republic of Iran, self preservation means overcoming formidable challenges at home and abroad. They must preserve the regime’s leadership structure, under continuous lethal attack,, and keep paying the essential instruments of repression, the Revolutionary Guard and Basij militia who have been killing off........