The Liberty Hawk

The Iranian Situation Teaches Painful Lessons 

Before I get to (what I hope) is my final analysis of the Iran situation, I wanted to mention two very specific things that have been demonstrated in this last week. 

Firstly, America’s state of dysfunction cannot be overstated. The combined cacophony of hot takes and narrative parroting made it almost impossible to deal with the situation in a calm, sober, and deliberate manner.  

If I brought up facts that supported Trump’s actions, I would get assailed by the screeching resistance. If I brought up facts that created doubt in Trump’s decisions, I would similarly come under assault by the howling deplorables. This absurdly personal foaming-at-the-mouth duel between the cults of personality and anti-personality cared nothing for facts and were entirely divorced from reality. 

Worse, the media response was only a marginally muted echo of the biting and gnashing. The Left didn’t shy away from what amounted to domestic syndication of Iranian propaganda, alluding to Soleimani as a martyr and his death as an assassination. While the Right seemed to pretend it had never supported restraining the President’s war power, let alone decried Obama’s constitutionally problematic bombing campaign of Libya, and had apparently moved on from the whole “end endless wars” thing (something particularly grating to me, as those who justified abandoning the best anti-terrorist fighters in the world suddenly started acting like they were the big war-on-terror champions). 

Secondly, it’s situations such as this last week that demonstrate the error of choosing nominees and electing presidents solely based on partisan wish-lists. The conservative movement’s slouch into Trumpism has been a layer after layer justification of support for Trump based on a very specific checklist of mostly perceived, and some real, accomplishments, until character, morality, and abiding principle are not only ignored but mocked considerations.  

But there come certain times of crisis, such as an attack on an embassy, where the American people need to feel they can trust their president. They need to have a sense that, regardless of partisan and ideological differences, they can know with reasonable surety that their president is acting in good faith and with the best interests of the nation in mind. (A test, by the way, that Obama also failed) 

Much of the story of this Iranian situation is the story of Trump’s inability to gain the trust of the American people in the years preceding it. Much of the people’s response to his actions result from the belief that he doesn’t know what he’s doing and that, regardless, he won’t be honest with the American people even if he did.  

This isn’t something any amount of promises, partisan checklists, or breathless enumeration of declared achievements can fix. Character is destiny, and Trump’s character has been made manifestly clear again and again.  

As the Fog Lifts 

As for a final analysis, it’s a decidedly mixed bag but ultimately seems to have concluded in Trump’s favor. As I mentioned in my last Liberty Letter, I appreciated a firm response to an attack on an American embassy. While there were bumps along the way, and we still probably don’t know the full consequences of some of the more foolish mistakes, I can confidently say that American interests are far more secure today due to Trump’s response than they were in the wake of the Benghazi Embassy attack during the Obama administration. 

So, let’s start from the beginning. While our hostilities with Iran extend back decades, this specific escalation of hostilities was chiefly propelled by the actions of Iranian-backed militia in Iraq, including the killing of an American contractor and an assault on the US Embassy in Baghdad. The American military response to both of these attacks involved targeted airstrikes, the final one being the killing of General Qasem Soleimani at Baghdad International Airport. 

As I’ve mentioned before, I am a proponent of deterrence and an opponent to appeasement. When a regional belligerent begins escalating conflict, the response must be immediate and decisive. However, it must also be measured. Strikes against the militia responsible for attacks on American personnel and territory should be clearly considered appropriate and measured. The question of prudence falls specifically to the strike that killed Soleimani. A full strategic consideration involves who, when, where, and why. 

Who – Was General Soleimani a legitimate target? He very clearly was.  

As commander of the Quds Force, Soleimani was the key Iranian leader responsible for nefarious actions across the Middle East, guilty of both terrorism and active military engagement with American forces. Thousands of American lives were likely lost directly due to the actions of Soleimani. He is also guilty of considerable crimes against the Iranian people as he assisted the Mullahs in putting down popular uprisings.  

As the key leader of Iranian proxy forces, including the militia that attacked the American embassy, Soleimani was a legitimate combatant and a legitimate target. Americans and American interests, indeed the entire Middle East region and the world at large, are safer with Soleimani in the ground. 

When – The killing of Soleimani was not a random event and was clearly connected to the attack on the American Embassy in Baghdad.  

Nor was Iran without any warning. It was announced in the wake of the embassy attack that the US Military would begin targeting Iranian proxy leadership in Iraq and Syria as a direct response to coming under attack by Iranian-backed militias. 

Where – This one is a bit more complicated.  

In Trump’s favor, Soleimani was killed in the same area of operations where the belligerent militias were active, and in the same city where the US embassy was attacked. We did not violate Iran’s borders or sovereignty in order to kill Soleimani.  

However, we are a guest nation in Iraq and Soleimani was targeted at a domestic location, an international airport. Trump’s decision to act unilaterally, without the support of regional allies or in conjunction with the host nation, may have damaged our relationship with Iraq and the future use of Iraq as an operational staging area.  

Further, our poor relationship with our allies across the world, compounded by leaving them in the dark on the operation, damaged the credibility of our attack in international eyes, lessening the potential of the strike to truly have an effective deterrent effect.  

There may be legitimate operational security concerns behind these decisions, specifically that Iraq’s Prime Minister is likely Pro-Iranian and that Iraqi security forces allegedly failed to resist the militias that attacked the embassy. But the Trump administration has not made much of an effort to clarify operational security concerns. 

Why – The why is the biggest problem for the Trump administration.  

Initially, it seemed the killing of Soleimani only heightened tensions instead of having a deterrent effect. Given the risk of increased hostilities, it fell to the Trump administration to justify an imminent threat stemming from Soleimani’s presence in Iraq.  

The administration has failed to make a believable case to both the American people and to Congress. Even some of Trump’s congressional allies signaled outrage over the briefings given they received on the situation. “Just trust us,” seemed to be the message from the White House, an unacceptable message in a free republic. 

Based on these strategic considerations, I conclude that General Soleimani was a legitimate target but that the location of the strike and the reasoning behind it may be ill-considered at best.  

If a deterrent effect was the sole purpose of the strike, there are numerous other targets that could have provided the deterrence without creating a much more acute risk for heightening tensions. Soleimani could have remained a high-priority target but could have been taken out at another time in circumstances far more conducive to American legitimacy. This conclusion assumes the White House does not have any more forthcoming information on the alleged imminent threat presented by Soleimani. I would be ecstatic if proven wrong. 

Compounding the possibly ill-considered killing of Soleimani were confusing and often contradictory messages coming out of the Pentagon and the White House. Specifically, Donald Trump tweeted he was prepared to strike at multiple Iranian targets in response to any further hostilities, including cultural targets (a war crime). The Pentagon directly contradicted the President and declared it would follow the laws of war.  

There was also an initial impression given that US Armed Forces would withdraw from Iraq in compliance with a nonbinding resolution passed by the Iraqi Parliament, based on a letter sent to the Iraqi Defense Ministry. This letter was later claimed to have been sent in error, and Secretary of Defense Mark Esper said there was no intention to withdraw from Iraq.  

Further compounding the now fractious relationship with the Iraqi government were threats by Donald Trump that he would levy sanctions on our erstwhile ally in response to their non-binding vote requesting American forces to leave the country. 

The result of all of this is that under Trump’s direction we mounted what was likely a legitimate deterrence operation that became shrouded in uncertainty by personal statements from the President himself, a disconnect on messaging between the Pentagon and the White House, and an administration that seems to have no sense of responsibility when it comes to being open and frank with the American people and their representatives in Congress. 

I applaud the president for having far better instincts than Obama did under similar circumstances and appreciate his apparent willingness to listen to military leadership and allow a deterrent operation to go into action. However, he continues to demonstrate a poor understanding of how the American government works, of his responsibility to deal with the American people in an honest and open manner, and of the important moral high ground our US Military maintains over our terrorist foes.  

The Trump administration is serially dysfunctional and largely moves at the whim of the President, who chose a high-stakes path to deterrence that relied far too much on subsequent actions by Iran. Let there be no doubt, this was a game of Russian Roulette and, luckily, Iran blinked. As Trump and his administration continue to be faced with the actions of rogue nations like Iran and North Korea, let’s hope that Trump’s luck doesn’t run out. 

Stay Free My Friends,

-Justin