Wars Are For Winning - America's Ignorance Of History, An Unwinnable War, And Ultimate Iranian Victory

The War in Iran should be over by now, but President Trump is still talking about negotiated deals, promises to denuclearize, keep the Strait of Hormuz open for shipping, recognition of Israel, and assurances that support of regional terrorists - Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis, ISIS, and a range of other equally violent Muslim organizations which are committed to an Islamist caliphate - will cease. 

Whistlin' Dixie of course.  The regime of the mullahs has never once in its almost fifty years of theocratic rule backed off from its determination to annihilate the Jews and wipe Israel off the map, extend Islamic hegemony across the region, and continue to threated the United States, 'The Great Satan'.  Why would Trump possibly believe that the Iranians want peace and want to be brought back into the commonwealth of civilized nations?

So, against all historical advice from Machiavelli to Clausewitz to Kissinger, the American President with no clear objective in mind, launched attacks on the Iranian regime. While these attacks were successful - the Ayatollah was eliminated along with his inner circle of advisers - they did nothing to bring the country to heel.  Iran had tens of thousands of missiles and drones deployed throughout the country, hidden in deep underground silos which even with the best Israeli intelligence, escaped destruction. 

More important, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), the real power in the country, is alive and well.  It is the force responsible for the murder of 30,000 peaceful protesters, a paramilitary army not stationed in barracks, encampments, and bases but scattered throughout the country and as effective as the Viet Cong as an enforcing, intimidating power.  The 'regime' may have been toppled but the wrong one. 

The attempts to eliminate the IRGC has been no different than America's attempts to destroy the Viet Cong in the War in Vietnam.  Rolling Thunder, a campaign in which thousands of giant B-52 bombers dumped their payloads on the critical Ho Chi Minh Trail, the main supply route from North to South, but the resilient Viet Cong simply went underground in tunnels and caves, waited until the bombers had passed, emerged, rebuilt the trail, and continued their effective village terror. 

The Iranian regime, however now it is constituted, is not alone in its fight against the United States.  America's arch-adversaries, Russia and China, let alone North Korea, continue to supply the country with thousands of drones and the wherewithal to produce missiles.  Iran is not a third world country without intellectual resources.  It is quite capable of building a nuclear capacity and a strong high-tech military. 

When asked what the purpose of the war is, the Trump Administration searches for answers. It is not regime change, they say, although after the first days of the war, the son of former Shah Reza Pahlavi went on national television to announce that he was ready to return to Iran and to oversee the building of a liberal democracy.  Only ridding the country of a regime responsible for the murder of so many innocent civilians would do. 

When that goal seemed impossible, the Trump Administration said that its purpose was to completely destroy Iran's military capability; but that proved to be just as hopeless.  Despite weeks of strategic bombing, Iranian drones and missiles were striking friends and foes alike. 

Then American attention turned to securing promises from the Iranians to keep the Straits of Hormuz open to shipping - an easy compromise since the Straits had always been open and under Iranian control; but the canny Iranians said that they would guarantee peaceful passage with conditions - unacceptable military and strategic conditions which would allow the regime to restore and rebuild. 

Finally, it has come down to 'a negotiated peace' which amounts to nothing less than a capitulation by the United States which was unable to topple the real regime, to destroy Iran's military capacity, and to extract concessions to cease and desist aggression in the Middle East. 

The media reported that the generals meeting with Trump in the War Room had even broached the nuclear option - do a Curtis Lemay and blow the whole bloody place off the map - but of course the calculus of nuclear warfare has changed since Harry Truman pushed the red button and unleased nuclear holocaust on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.  Wars are no longer for winning if civilian populations must be killed along with military personnel.   Hitler and Hirohito were considered existential enemies to the West and to the very code of freedom it espoused, and any measure to defeat them was acceptable. 

Iran and radical Islam are no less existential threats, but the Iranian population - at least in the eyes of American moral exceptionalists - is not complicit as was shown by the massive street demonstrations before the start of the war.  Blowing Iran off the face of the map would mean annihilating millions of faithful, good, democratic spirited, secular-minded civilians. 

So the war drags on with no end in sight, particularly with no good results for the Unites States.  No matter how the war ends, Iran will be the victor.  It will continue producing and shipping oil, it will slowly but surely rebuild its nuclear capacity, and will continue to support its claims to regional Islamic hegemony. 

'Never begin a war you are not confident of winning', Clausewitz observed. In this view, war is not an independent activity but a means to achieve political objectives. The use of force, coercion, and military action is necessary to compel an opponent to submit to one’s will. Clausewitz emphasized that the value of the political goal determines the sacrifices—military, economic, and human—that should be made to achieve it. If the cost of pursuing a goal exceeds its value, the goal must be abandoned. 

The problem with the war in Iran was that the Trump Administration never was even able to define what 'winning' was.  It is one thing to study the calculus of invasion - the costs of fighting and the value of victory - another thing altogether to struggle to define purpose; and in this indefinability, victory was conceded to the Iranians before the first bomb was dropped. 

The greatest leader in world history, Genghis Khan, knew exactly what he was about when he led tens of thousands of horsemen thundering out of the steppes.  He wanted to conquer the known world, to bring each and every tribe, region, territory and jurisdiction under Mongol-Turk rule.  In the end, his empire was one of history's biggest and most powerful, and he did it only one way - with the brutal force of arms 

Genghis Khan was a charismatic and fearsome figure.  He and his armies were known for their cruelty and barbarity, and the sight of them advancing across the battlefield in a storm of dust, the earth shaking with the thunder of 50,000 hooves, was enough to send enemies into retreat. The thought alone of this terrible, bloodthirsty, and mighty warrior was enough to rout enemy armies. Genghis Khan was a man of absolute will and power, a frightening presence of power and vengeance.  He was a horseman of the Apocalypse. 

 

There have been many successful armies in the world.  Julius Caesar, Scipio Africanus, Pompey the Great, and Marcus Agrippa were as brilliant generals as Genghis Khan, and brought Roman organization, discipline, and management to the battle.  They won because of superior ability, armaments, and military thinking; yet it was Genghis Khan who, with an almost untamed savagery, conquered the world.  At its height the Mongol Empire extended from far eastern China to the Danube, the biggest empire the world has ever seen. 

Genghis Khan was a brilliant strategist, canny politician who through tact, intimidation, and offers of great spoils, enticed the warlike Turkic tribes to join his armies, nearly doubling their strength.  However, it was not only the might of his imposing armies, nor his ability to manage, discipline, and control such a large and diverse military force; nor even his tactical acumen and understanding of calculated risk which assured victory.  It was his indomitable, absolute, unalloyed will. 

Khan had no qualms, moral reservations, or ethical hesitancy.  Wars were for winning, civilians were complicit enemies, and total annihilation of any opposition was his modus belli. Not only would defeated populations be without the wherewithal to mount a resistance or counterattack, they would never dare to incite the bloody, murderous, savage wrath of the conqueror.

We have come a long way from Genghis Khan.  Many say we have progressed and become more considerate, humane, and compassionate.  We should look to an end of war, not ways to improve it.  Many others say that the calculus - human nature - has not changed.  Wars will always be a feature of human society and as such should be fought with only one thing in mind - winning.