I thought this was a very insightful analysis from Robert A. Pape, a political scientist at UChicago. TLDR:
1. The IRGC is “horizontally escalating” – they can’t escalate directly with the US/Israel alliance but they can expand the scope of the conflict to boardrooms, parliamentary chambers, and public debate to undermine the US/Israeli war effort in other ways. This “multiplication of exposure” means that other actors, not just Iran, will be applying pressure on the US to end the war. Economic cost of the Hormuz closure and the domestic political cost of being bombed by the IRGC and being increasingly associated with Israel will weigh on the Persian Gulf states’ willingness to support the US/Israeli war effort. European and Asian allies are also under strain economically. Time is on the IRGC’s side.
2. The US/NATO initially believed that airpower alone would suffice in Vietnam/Kosovo. The former venture was unsuccessful not due to military failure but due to the high domestic political cost imposed on America. The latter worked out after two and a half months and the assembly of a ground force of 40k NATO troops threatening an imminent invasion.
3. Trump is on the horns of a dilemma. He can cut his losses now and look weak, or escalate for a chance of strategic victory while increasing the political and economic cost of the conflict for the US. “The decisive phase of this war began not with the first strike but with the regional crisis that followed—air defenses activated across multiple capitals, airports suspended, markets jolted, and alliance politics strained.”
!ping military&foreign-policy&middle-east
OrbitalAlpaca on
Trump can TACO today and call it quits but you can’t put the toothpaste back in the tube. The straits will remain closed for a while because the new Iranian leadership still does not fully control the IRGC, and Israel will still continue to bomb Iran despite the US leaving.
This has created an environment where the Trump administration almost HAS to see it through on favorable terms whatever those are.
2 Comments
I thought this was a very insightful analysis from Robert A. Pape, a political scientist at UChicago. TLDR:
1. The IRGC is “horizontally escalating” – they can’t escalate directly with the US/Israel alliance but they can expand the scope of the conflict to boardrooms, parliamentary chambers, and public debate to undermine the US/Israeli war effort in other ways. This “multiplication of exposure” means that other actors, not just Iran, will be applying pressure on the US to end the war. Economic cost of the Hormuz closure and the domestic political cost of being bombed by the IRGC and being increasingly associated with Israel will weigh on the Persian Gulf states’ willingness to support the US/Israeli war effort. European and Asian allies are also under strain economically. Time is on the IRGC’s side.
2. The US/NATO initially believed that airpower alone would suffice in Vietnam/Kosovo. The former venture was unsuccessful not due to military failure but due to the high domestic political cost imposed on America. The latter worked out after two and a half months and the assembly of a ground force of 40k NATO troops threatening an imminent invasion.
3. Trump is on the horns of a dilemma. He can cut his losses now and look weak, or escalate for a chance of strategic victory while increasing the political and economic cost of the conflict for the US. “The decisive phase of this war began not with the first strike but with the regional crisis that followed—air defenses activated across multiple capitals, airports suspended, markets jolted, and alliance politics strained.”
!ping military&foreign-policy&middle-east
Trump can TACO today and call it quits but you can’t put the toothpaste back in the tube. The straits will remain closed for a while because the new Iranian leadership still does not fully control the IRGC, and Israel will still continue to bomb Iran despite the US leaving.
This has created an environment where the Trump administration almost HAS to see it through on favorable terms whatever those are.