Washington, D.C.: Iran is at a tipping point (once again). And so is President Trump’s foreign policy.
Iranians have gone into the streets in the last few weeks to bring down the repressive Islamic regime. But they face an intact, ruthless security service—and some thousands of protesters have been gunned down. Thousands more have been arrested.
Sanctions probably won’t be enough.
The protesters are “the boots on the ground” but without direct American support in the form of airstrikes against Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and other security force targets to weaken the regime’s “coercive infrastructure” the protest movement may soon lose momentum—and fail once again.
It is unclear what President Trump will decide.
But he has encouraged Iranians to “…keep protesting and take over your institutions if you can.” And he also warned the Mullahs that the US is “locked and loaded.”
One hopes he doesn’t leave the freedom seeking Iranians hanging.
If Trump does, he will add to the long list of American missteps in the Middle East over the last 47 years. All of them were avoidable, and people were sounding the alarm, and ignored.
Reviewing the history makes for grim reading—especially when one considers the costs.
GULF WAR
* President George H.W. Bush not keeping the Gulf War going another 72 hours and sending Saddam Hussein packing in 1991. Saddam was preparing to flee. We would not have needed the 2003 invasion of Iraq with everything that came of that.
AFGHANISTAN
* Heading for the exits as soon as Soviet-installed leader, Najibullah was pushed out of power in 1992. This created a vacuum that led to the chaos that inspired Pakistan’s ISI to create the Taliban—and give Osama bin Laden a platform—with everything that followed, including 9/11.With some attention and at most $100 million a year, Afghanistan could have been stabilized.One informed person told me I was wrong: “$40 million would have been enough.”
And then, after the 9/11 attacks in 2001 and the subsequent US attack on Afghanistan the missteps continued:
* Not taking the shot at Taliban spiritual leader Mullah Omar on day-one of the war—and demonstrating that, no, he did not have special divine protection.
* Letting Osama bin Laden escape from Tora Bora, believing that using local Afghans to collar him was a clever way to do things. It took ten years to catch up with him.
* Thinking the Pakistanis were our friends.
* Trying to turn Afghanistan into Bermuda (and blowing a couple trillion $US in the process, not to mention the thousands of US casualties). Better to have aimed for the Afghanistan of 1973 when this writer’s hippie brother went through the place.
* And building an Afghan military like ours? Who thought that one up? “Government in a box”? Remember that? More genius on display.
* Deciding that withdrawing everyone in 2021—and not even keeping 2,500 troops and some contractors—was the thing to do. Afghan allies and the Taliban could see we were running away.And the Taliban took the country within a couple months.
* The final boneheaded move: Deciding a rushed departure from Kabul airport under the guns of the Taliban was a smart idea. It was, if global humiliation was the objective.
IRAQ
* Disbanding the Iraqi Army and dissolving the Iraqi Baath Party and banning party members from public service, and eliminating their livelihoods in the process, after taking Baghdad and deposing Saddam. Thus creating a raging insurgency. CIA officer Sam Faddis’ book The CIA War in Kurdistan describes this fiasco in detail.
* Withdrawing US forces from Iraq too soon, in 2011, after fumbling the Status of Forces (SOFA) negotiations. This set in motion the chain of events that ultimately allowed ISIS to brew up in 2014—with all the problems and misery that caused. ISIS is still around.
IRAN
* Iran policy has been a misstep since the very beginning. Successive US administrations have been looking for that “moderate” Iranian—remember the Reagan administration giving Ayatollah Khomeini a key shaped cake, a Bible, and 2000 TOW missiles—in exchange for hostages, that they never got?
And the list goes on:
* Not speaking up even during 2009 Green Revolution when the regime was teetering. The good guys just needed some encouragement. They got none.
* Obama’s people repeatedly extending the hand of friendship—and getting the back of the hand in return.
* Biden’s people doing the same, and allowing an Iranian espionage and influence operation to be run inside the administration via Secretary of State Tony Blinken’s friend.
* Accepting almost any Iranian outrage without serious response since 1979. The Beirut bombing, for example, that killed 241 Marines, sailors, and soldiers and sailors in 1983.Kidnapping and torturing to death in 1985 CIA Beirut station chief, Bill Buckley (and sending videos of it to Langley), and doing the same to U.S. Marine LtCol Rich Higgins—kidnapped in Lebanon in 1988 while on peacekeeping duty.
* And the Explosively Formed Penetrators (EFP’s) and other direct support for Iraqi insurgents, killing and maiming hundreds of US troops during the Iraq War.
TRUMP’S CHOICE
Attacking Iran is not risk free, of course. Nothing is.
But allow the regime to catch its breath and once again beat the opposition into submission, and it will delight Beijing, Moscow, Caracas, and Havana. They will reckon that the Americans just don’t have the killer instinct to see things through to the finish.
And America’s friends will as well.
So it’s a simple question for President Trump: Do you want to add your name to the above list?
If so, it will go right alongside the first Bush Administration’s encouraging the Iraqi Marsh Arabs and Kurds to revolt against Saddam Hussein at the end of the Gulf War. US support was implied.
None was forthcoming, however, and Saddam collected himself and slaughtered the Marsh Arabs and Kurds by the thousands.
Your choice, Mr Trump.
