What If

“WHAT IF?” As IR graduate, about overwhelming situation in the Middle East. Between the inconclusive round of talks in Geneva on Friday, and this, I can see Trump laying the groundwork to say "we tried (again)" before opening some form of US offensive military hostilities, in two days, two weeks, or two months. The U.S. could be laying a basis to say attempts at negotiations failed, and use it as grounds for an attack {?}

Trump's decision to bomb Iran had little to do with intelligence. For years, including when he was last in office, the public U.S. intel assessment has been the same: Iran was not trying to build a nuclear weapon. In recent days he has dismissed those conclusions, and his own DNI's public statements affirming them. Whatever Trump has seen that persuaded him years worth of U.S. intelligence analysis was wrong, he hasn't said. A decision to use military force is always the president's alone. This was a policy judgment, and it's his to own.

Trump team gave advance notice of bombings of nuclear sites and insisted they're intended as "one-off". Signs of Trump seeking repeat of Jan 3rd, 2020 (Soleimani killing=>symbolic Iranian retaliation).

But how far retaliation?

Major hostilities will likely continue for at least a week. Because [its] nuclear, you can’t verify damage to Iran’s nuclear infrastructure without boots on the ground. The program is too deep & dispersed for a military “solution” short of an Iraq-level occupation. Diplomacy was the only viable path — and that may now be off the table. Disastrous “strategy”.

Iran will feel compelled to respond to President Trump, and Israel will want to complete its operational cycle and mostly exhaust its target banks. An off-ramp to major hostilities may soon emerge. Either retaliate and the war will take a new course, or practice restrain and there also be another course too. At least, acclaimed Netanyahu [not IRGC], as of Friday [60 hours ago] Iran is still have 28,000 hypersonic ballistic missiles. Iron Dome must work overpaid.

This off-ramp will depend on a few factors. Will President Trump be satisfied to declare "mission accomplished" and go home, with no deal required? Will Iran's response to the US be sufficiently disciplined to not elicit retaliation (and an escalatory cycle)? If Fordow still spins tomorrow, Washington just pulled off the most expensive influence op in bunker-busting history, only to watch Tehran climb the escalation ladder unscathed.

Will Israel be content to end major hostilities at the end of its operational cycle, and permit Iran to have the "last word", at least publicly, and for now? If not, will President Trump ask Israel to "stand down", and "take the win" as [strategic enough] consolation prize?

Biden and then Trump’s orientation toward Israeli war machine and the ongoing Gaza genocide; and the Dem’s catastrophic failure to make their anti-fascist politics anti-war. It will be interesting to see if Trump unceremoniously dumps India and delivers a fleet of F-35s to Pakistan because the latter nominated President Bread and Circus for the Nobel Peace Prize. Entirely plausible scenario.

The Iranian leadership, and any successor if this one is deposed, will also come under tremendous elite and popular domestic pressure to cross the nuclear threshold and break Israel’s regional monopoly on the possession of a nuclear arsenal. The likely outcome of the the US strikes on Iran will be Iran’s exit from the NPT. The days of the IAEA having any visibility on the Iranian nuclear program are over. Iran claims that it has moved all of its HEU and dispersed it across the country. Only time will tell if that’s true. Iran fielding a nuclear weapon has become a nonsensical proxy for those opposed or supporting US air strikes on the Fordow and Natanz nuclear sites. However, the Iranians now have the HEU for 10 nukes. In 90 days to a year they WILL be a nuclear state.

If Tehran reaches the conclusion that the only alternative to a Middle Eastern North Korea is a second Iraq, and succeeds, the US-Israeli war will have had the unintended consequence of transforming Iran’s nuclear enrichment program from negotiating leverage into an atomic bomb.

If Israel uses nuclear weapons against Iran, as is currently being discussed, will it still be considered position that Israel has not acknowledged possessing such weapons and it therefore remains a matter of conjecture? Iran still retains heart of its nuclear capabilities, namely the brain trust and uranium. Both sides looking for political off-ramp but Iran will need to first respond to save face.

For those who have only a vague recollection of the 1990s and the more immediate run-up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq, or were too young/not yet born during that period, take an hour or two to do some online research. You will quickly find that the loudest voices currently calling for war against Iran, and insisting this war will essentially be cost free with massive benefits, are exactly the same charlatans who promoted the invasion of Iraq, in precisely the same terms. They were never held accountable, and never paid a price, and therefore remain amongst us agitating for yet more bloodshed and destruction.