Last Ride of the Neoconservatives?

Bomb, Bomb, Bomb, Bomb, Bomb Iran

Well, we’re at war in the Middle East again.

Not that it ever really stopped. One of my favorite statistics during the main period of the war on terror was the fact that America had bombed Iraq every year for at least 30 years. This single datapoint really captured the mission creep, shifting rationales, and overextension of our military commitments to the region.

But with changing US foreign policy discussions and the rise of China, we were supposed to have put all this behind us. Like most millennials and younger voters, I was pretty happy to have been offered “no more Forever Wars” by our politicians. Unfortunately, they never seem quite able to keep that promise. And while it’s bad enough when they break their word with pretty justifications and strategic rationales for intervention, it turns out it’s even worse when it’s a half-baked attempt to turn air superiority into rainbows and kittens.¹

To say I am not a happy camper would be an understatement.

But as we move into day 4 of this war, and it appears increasingly likely that we’re here for the long haul, I thought it might be useful to share a few broad takeaways — how I’m thinking about this “combat operation” as it develops.²

1. The rationale for the war remains unclear, with different reasons coming from the president, the Secretary of Defense, and from those around the administration like Lindsey Graham. White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt tweeted out a laundry list of rationales so long that one cannot fit it on a single page; a New York Times tick tock of decision-making makes it sound like a clear case of alliance entrapment by Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu. Secretary of State Marco Rubio likewise tried to throw Israel under the bus. Trump even cited the 1979 hostage crisis as a casus belli. But the bottom line is that it’s honestly not worth debating what the rationale for the conflict is (or was). Rather, it is more useful to note that the different parties involved in the decision-making process within the administration – and notably, within the Israeli government – clearly had very different ideas of what this intervention is intended to achieve. Now the die is cast, they’re in conflict.

2. Indeed, as soon as it became apparent that the goal of the operation was not clear in advance, the most important question became this: what rationale will the administration settle on? And how expansive an end-state are they are seeking? The emergence of the “degrade Iran’s missile infrastructure” goal in the last few days would be one way to set an end point while still pretending it’s an achievable goal. How capacious American goals in the campaign are is in turn likely to depend on the extent to which the White House feels that they need to end this quickly, or whether they have several weeks of leeway. Again, we have seen mixed signals on this: the president himself has commented on the possibility of a four-week war, but a variety of leaks and publicly available information suggests that the administration may start to feel pressure to end things far sooner than that.

3. American public opinion is of middling concern for the administration. A few polls have now been fielded since the start of the operation and suggest that between 25-40% of the US public support the war; a clear majority of Americans tell pollsters that the Trump administration is using military force excessively, and didn’t try hard enough with diplomacy. These numbers are unlikely to improve, though it remains likely that partisan division will drive some “rally around the flag effect” within the Republican Party.

   

4. Many of President Trump’s normal media supporters are relatively unhappy or even openly critical of the conflict, leaving him primarily with the old-fashioned Fox News Republican messaging channels on his side. He’s also getting some covering fire from other mainstream news networks, including MS Now, CNN, CBS, and others, which continue to parade a host of hawkish commentators on the war from both left and right.³ Tucker Carlson, Megan Kelly, and other podcasters will continue to hammer away at the MAGA base. But popular pressure is likely not the most important factor here for one simple reason: it takes time to translate into political consequences.

5. Timing remains the central question. Some limited time pressure comes from the House and Senate, which are both expected to vote this week on war powers resolutions. Though initially unwilling to do so, Democratic Senate leadership has bowed to the demands of their base and will allow the vote to go ahead. Whether or not they pass, the votes themselves will tell us a lot. Will Democrats oppose this war full-throatedly, or continue with a rather vague procedural criticism? Will Republicans hold together, or will some significant faction defect from the president on this issue? In theory, a successful war powers resolution would allow Congress to restrain the president from further use of force in the region. In practice, however, it has never really been tested and is constitutionally questionable. But it would nonetheless be a significant black eye for the administration if they were to lose one or both votes.

6. More significant time pressure arises from the impact of the war on global markets. Thus far, the impact to oil prices has been relatively muted. Oil has risen about 15% since the conflict started – over 30% if one backtracks to the start of the military buildup earlier in the year. This sounds extreme but still doesn’t rank among significant historical oil price shocks. Traders appear to be adopting a wait-and-see attitude to the conflict, comforted by ample seaborne inventories and the prospect of a short war. Iran has declared the Strait of Hormuz closed; in practice, this has not yet been tested, as most tankers are waiting to see if the conflict will blow over rather than braving the waterway.

   

   Disruptions are already more acute for Liquified Natural Gas, where Qatari gas production has halted. Price increases will be felt globally, but especially in Europe, where the gas market is still relatively vulnerable to shocks since the war in Ukraine. A prolonged shortfall in gas inventories globally could create significant economic disruption or even demand destruction (i.e., loss of industrial capacity) of the type seen after the Russian invasion in 2022.

7. Thus far, the impact on markets has been relatively muted. Yet the longer that things go on, the more the impacts will become apparent. If the war continues past a week or so, markets may begin to panic, consumers and businesses will begin to notice price spikes, and the White House will come under significant pressure. Likewise, any escalation in the conflict to direct attacks on oil production infrastructure in Saudi Arabia or elsewhere would add to market turmoil. Mitigation strategies are being discussed -- ranging from US convoy protection for tankers to domestic SPR releases and providing insurance backstops to transit companies – but these are costly or require significant military commitment.

8. There’s a huge amount of dubiety about the depth of US armament stocks, particularly air defense/interceptors. Indeed, there have been leaks have been debates for the last year or more about declining US stockpiles, in light of how many weapons have been sent to Ukraine and Israel. Reporting before the conflict suggested the Pentagon was concerned that any Middle East action might deplete its stocks. Despite speculation, however, we simply do not know the extent to which stocks might shape the time for which the Pentagon feels it can conduct this campaign. One thing is certain, however: as my colleague Kelly Grieco has pointed out, the cost asymmetry of intercepting cheap drones with exceedingly expensive interceptors does not favor the United States or its allies.⁴

9. The Gulf states are in a perilous position; they are simply not used to being targets as part of a US-Iran tit-for-tat. Iranian missiles, though, have been used against infrastructure and US-related targets in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates. The choice of Qatar to take gas production offline is likely as much about pressuring the US to consider the impacts of its war, as it is a practical need to do so. For the Gulf States, the notion that their futuristic financial cities and air hubs are in fact not safe for expatriates will be damaging to their future economic prospects. This will not necessarily cause them to side with Iran – all have clearly chosen a side at this point – but it will make their support of US action far more costly than they have faced before.

   

10. It seems very much as if the president has bitten off more than he can chew with this attack on Iran. Buoyed by a sense of invulnerability after his successes in Venezuela and elsewhere, the Trump administration may have intended to be a quick leadership decapitation strike. Or perhaps the president genuinely believed arguments that the Iranian people would pour out into the streets and take their country back. Now that he is on this roller coaster, however, it may be far more difficult to get off than previously assumed. In June of last year, when the White House chose to join Israel’s 12-day war, Iran responded with largely face-saving barrages of missiles against targets in the Gulf. But after twice being bombed while at the negotiating table with the Trump administration – and after seeing their own leadership killed – the regime is likely now to see this as a war for survival. Anything short of resistance on the part of Tehran would signal weakness and encourage future aggression. Reports that the Trump administration have offered to return to negotiations may or may not be true, but it seems very clear that the Iranians cannot accept any offramp in the near-term.

11. There’s been a lot of comparisons to US campaigns in Iraq, Afghanistan, or Libya, with a focus on whether this is “regime change” or not. But over the last few days, I’ve been thinking much more about the 1980s and 90s, particularly the Gulf War, Iran-Iraq War, and the associated “Tanker War,” all of which featured broader regional conflict, impacts to oil supply routes, and destruction of civilian targets in the region. The tanker war in particular was perceived as successful for the United States, at least until it resulted in the downing of a civilian airliner, Iran Air 655, prompting policy changes. Losses have begun to accumulate in this version of the tanker war: six service members have been killed in action, with multiple more injuries, and potentially hundreds of civilian casualties in Iran.

12. Let me make one final point. The war against Iran is both a sharp break from recent US foreign policy, and in clear continuity with the larger sweep of history. Though the US has been going through a period of foreign policy recalibration, in part driven by the failures of regime change wars in the Middle East, Iran has long been the white whale of American liberal primacy. Both Democrats and Republicans have sustained a long-running animus towards the Islamic Republic since 1979, even when — as Dalia Dassa Kaye’s recent book pointed out — options to improve the relationship have arisen. Trump, who has shown restraint on some other issues, has always been an Iran hawk, and the cadre of Fox News watching Baby Boomers from whom he draws support are similarly bellicose.

    

    Yet in starting this conflict, Trump has lashed both Marco Rubio and JD Vance to the mast in his pursuit of the whale. Until this point, there had been a general consensus that the primary – or at least future contestation within the party – would be driven by a Rubio vs. Vance dynamic on foreign policy, an attempt to appeal to younger, America First voters. This war makes that less likely; both are equally implicated by this move and will bear whatever electoral consequences it brings. It’s even possible that a challenger to succeed Trump as leader of the party may emerge from the antiwar MAGA faction to challenge both. Trump’s obsession with being the president who finally solves America’s problem with Iran may ultimately push the Republican base further towards their traditional hostility to overseas entanglements.

1. Shoutout to the Twitter idiot who accused Prof. Bob Pape of masquerading as an airpower expert. It’s always a good time to reread Bombing to Win.

2. The White House has noted that this is not a war, merely a “combat operation,” language so similar to the Putinesque phrase “Special Military Operation” that I fear I might be losing my mind.

3. Stephen Colbert interviewed Brett McGurk, for example.

4. And if you’re not following Kelly’s work for takes on airpower and its limitations, really, what are you doing?