SerpApi.Org
Nearly five months after launching US-Israeli strikes against Iran, Donald Trump seems to have lost his way. We still don’t know what his original objectives were, nor what they are today. One thing is certain: he is panicked about the midterm elections in November and what American voters will say about the Iran war and his administration generally.
Trump may simply muddle through until the election. Without relitigating how we reached this point, here are some interim practical suggestions to advance US and Western interests and perhaps improve Republican electoral prospects:
First, Trump must be resolute. He sits behind a desk Queen Victoria gave to president Rutherford B Hayes. It is crafted from the timbers of the British Arctic exploration ship HMS Resolute. Trump should act accordingly.
He must hold an economic scimitar to Iran’s throat. Washington should have blockaded Iranian maritime trade on Feb 28, the war’s first day. Trump should never have dropped sanctions on Iran’s oil sales, mistakenly believing that so doing would markedly diminish global petroleum prices.
It was also wrong to end the blockade under the ill-conceived, ill-negotiated Memorandum of Understanding. With both sanctions and the blockade now back on, he should persist until Iran gets a new regime, one that entirely renounces the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
Denying Iran oil revenues will squeeze the Pasdaran, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, making it impossible to pay key components like the Quds Force and the Basij militias, or fund terrorist proxies like Hezbollah, Hamas and Yemen’s Houthis.
The US should continue, through force as necessary, keeping the Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz open to commercial shipping, particularly oil, from the Gulf Arab states. Exports may not rise fully to pre-war levels, but as events proved some weeks back, even approaching pre-war totals calms the markets and lowers gas prices for US consumers.
America’s naval blockade is sufficient to cripple exports of Iranian oil. Trump should understand that destroying Iran’s economic infrastructure is not conducive to an acceptable successor government rebuilding the country’s economy after the present regime dies. There is, therefore, no need to attack Kharg Island, the locus of Iran’s Gulf oil exports, and the huge capital investment it embodies.
America must flatten the Revolutionary Guard along with Iran’s nuclear weapons and terrorism programmes. Tehran has already been shattered by the US-Israeli strikes; it will not knit back together soon. What’s left of civilian leadership clearly does not command the Revolutionary Guard, which retains functional control over Iran’s nuclear weapons, terrorist-support activities and other key military assets.
Even under the pounding Iran is taking, the Pasdaran is still trying to provide advanced weapons and drones to Hezbollah in Lebanon and has ordered Yemen’s Houthis to prepare to close the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, the Red Sea’s southern exit.
Ideally, no Revolutionary Guard building or base will be left with one brick resting atop another and its leaders should be dispatched to the wonders of their heaven. Continued destruction of Iran’s nuclear programme tops the target list.
Press reports have the country’s new nuclear-related activity at Pickaxe Mountain, near Natanz. Moreover, renewed attacks should also target sites previously bombed, where Iran is attempting to recover and rebuild, as well as many smaller nuclear-related sites across the country.
Destroying Iran’s instruments of state power demonstrates that the Pasdaran is failing to safeguard the 1979 Islamic Revolution, its main mission. Spreading that perception of failure across Iran will exacerbate existing conflicts within the regime and with opposition elements nationwide.
Every diminution of Revolutionary Guard strength facilitates keeping the Strait of Hormuz open to Gulf Arab shipping. Likewise, starving Iran’s terrorist surrogates of resources reduces their menace and enables Israel, Lebanon, Syria and others to extinguish their threats entirely.
We must arm Iran’s opposition. Washington and Jerusalem had reportedly planned to provide weapons to Kurds in north-western Iran, both for their own use and to transmit to other opposition groups.
For various reasons, including the vocal opposition of Recep Erdoğan, the Turkish president, the plan was apparently abandoned before it got started. If true, this was a tragic mistake.
Even if the Kurdish effort had proceeded, however, it would probably have been insufficient. Trump should have prepared far more substantially before commencing the strikes, working with the opposition all across the country, providing what they needed: arms, communication capabilities, training, and money.
With the military campaign renewed, this is now the time to do what should have been done before. Once armed, the opposition can begin assisting the US in debilitating Iranian state power. À la Lawrence of Arabia, for example, Balochis in southern Iran could help stop rail and road efforts to evade the naval blockade by transporting oil to Pakistan.
This list is incomplete, but it provides alternatives to more muddling through. And it is very definitely something that Britain’s new government should join.
John Bolton is a former US national security adviser
