I have no war experience. The closest I have to military experience, according to a long stashed away certificate, is as adjunct faculty, from the Navy Graduate School, working with South Dakota’s National Guard. In short, I really don’t know what I’m talking about. Like most folks who are absolutely ignorant about a topic, I am certain that I have figured out the answer.
I have heard Montgomery’s dictum – “Never fight a land war in Asia.” In my undergrad days I saw that Lyndon Johnson didn’t pay attention to Monty – and the results were largely as Monty would have predicted. And Iran is in Asia. The second truth is that air power, by itself, can’t change the regime. So, based on my absolute ignorance, I am sure I have figured out the strategy in the Iran war.
One part is how do you wage an economic war on a major oil producing nation? Turns out you don’t need to – today, a Rial is equal to 0.00002381 Dollar. I think that means 2000 Rials wouldn’t quite make a nickel. The currency is, for all intents and purposes, useless in commerce. In 1979, the exchange rate was 70 Rials to the dollar. I’m not sure I can calculate how much damage the leaders of the Islamic Republic did to their currency – but it seems safe to say that they could make the average American congresscritter look like a currency genius. Which is confirmed by the fact that in the past couple of days, Iran made George Armstrong Custer look like a military genius. Anyway, step one is to make sure that the currency is ruined – and that was self-inflicted.
Step two is breaking enough things that Iran won’t be able to build more missiles and drones. Given enough bombs and long enough time to drop them all, that is something that can be done by airpower. Without missiles and drones, an Islamic Republic isn’t much threat.
The third step is to blow away Iran’s leaders until you get a Supreme Leader whose competence is at the Joe Biden or Jimmy Carter level. Once Mohammed Biden is selected as Supreme Leader, problems with Iran will end. And it’s only fair – the Ayatollahs only looked good because our leaders were so bad. Today, we’re looking at Khamenei Junior as the Supreme Leader. No change. I would not like to be underwriting his life insurance – there is something to be said for a Supreme Leader whose only hope of survival is to dig a hole and pull it in after him. So he will be taken out in the search for Mohammed Biden as a successor. The goal is a weird sort of regime change – destroy the factories that make the tools of war, leave the economy in such poor shape that there is no surplus to spend on guns, just the need to feed and house 90 million people, under a leader who internalizes the message that he runs the place only as long as he does what Trump wants him to do. It’s carrying Sherman’s March Through Georgia to its logical conclusion when you don’t put boots on an unfriendly ground.
But remember – I don’t know what I’m talking about. I’m just trying to make sense of the situation.
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