What the Iran War Push Refuses to Consider
The rush to take the nation to war with Iran is obscuring many important considerations that would come to light in any rational debate. This is likely by design. Interrogating the assumptions undergirding the march to war leaves the Trump administration with a paper-thin case.
1) Many Iranians, including protesters, do not want war.
Just because Iranians protested their government does not mean they want to be bombed. Popular anger at the Iranian government is palpable and widespread, yet those who have taken to the streets in recent years to protest corruption, repression, and economic mismanagement often do so for domestic reasons disconnected from U.S. policy and its military posture. Some of those who bravely challenged the Iranian government, including in the January protests, do not want to see war.
Opposition to more war and American intervention is still widespread, and includes both opponents and supporters of the Islamic Republic. While there is a faction of Iranians who support military intervention, it is far from clear that they are a majority or that their support would be sustained once bombs start falling. A U.S. strike risks strengthening Iranian hardliners, marginalizing civil society and creating conditions of prolonged conflict that serve neither American interests nor prospects for organic, positive change within Iran.
2) Trump isn’t planning a humanitarian intervention, nor would one be feasible.
While President Trump actively fanned the flames of the protest movement and irresponsibly suggested that “help is on the way,” the Trump administration has effectively stopped framing the prospective war as a humanitarian intervention. Trump even suggested that war would mean “a very bad day” for Iran and, “very sadly, its people.” Instead, if a war breaks out it will be undertaken to pummel an adversary at a moment of its perceived weakness, irrespective of the well-being and desires of the people of Iran.
Even if a humanitarian intervention were being planned, there is little to suggest such an undertaking would be feasible. The “Responsibility to Protect” framework necessitates an important calculation as to whether intervention has a reasonable chance of preventing atrocities without making the situation worse. Very little suggests this could be accomplished in Iran’s case. Iran’s repressive security apparatus is deeply embedded throughout society, including in major population centers like Tehran - one of the world’s largest cities with a population of 9 million in the city and 17 million in the metropolitan area. Targeting many Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and basij positions would invariably mean killing countless innocent bystanders. Moreover, even if successful, collapsing the Iranian state would not mean a seamless transition to democracy. The IRGC remains the most powerful actor within Iran, and either it or a splinter of it would be in the best position to seize power if the Supreme Leader and his fellow theocrats are killed in strikes.
War, civil war, state fragmentation and state collapse entail mass human rights violations as we have seen in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Syria. This is why these outcomes are feared by many, if not most, Iranian civilians.
3) U.S. servicemembers would face immediate and serious risk
Iran possesses a significant arsenal of ballistic missiles, drones, and proxy capabilities that can threaten U.S. forces and regional partners across the region in any outbreak of war. Unlike in June, they would target these capabilities at U.S. forces in any future war, with proxies signaling their intent to expand and complicate the battlefield. Some of these capabilities were outlined in The Wall Street Journal, which detailed how F-16 pilots were nearly shot down by surprisingly-capable Houthi missile defense systems during the American intervention in Yemen last year. Likewise, Iran proved increasingly capable of striking through the layered missile defense shield around Israel during the June war, dealing significant damage to Israeli population centers.
U.S. bases in Iraq and the broader Middle East would likely face sustained retaliation, and commercial shipping in critical waterways such as the Strait of Hormuz could be targeted, threatening oil markets and the prices of goods in the United States. Any decision to strike must consider the likelihood of American casualties, the expenditure of missile defense systems to mitigate military and civilian casualties and regional ripple effects.
4) Escalation would likely be difficult to control
Tehran has calculated that it has erred by failing to inflict costs on the United States in recent military engagements, thus inviting future escalation. With its back against the wall in light of explicit U.S. threats and the major military build-up, Iranian decisionmakers will likely gamble that inflicting casualties on the United States offers them the best opportunity to de-escalate and survive the coming conflict. This would be a tremendous gamble, and may actually reinforce and intensify American determination in a prospective war. Yet it speaks to the fact that expected American military superiority does not guarantee strategic control once conflict is initiated. Any plan based on a quick, limited exchange risks miscalculation and a cycle of action and retaliation. The other side gets a big vote on when war ends.
5) There is no threat requiring imminent action
Absent clear and compelling evidence of an imminent threat, there is no strategic imperative that demands immediate military escalation. Iran’s nuclear program may not have been “obliterated,” but it was significantly set back and Secretary of State Marco Rubio has affirmed that Iran is not presently enriching uranium. Suggestions that Iran has “restarted” some nuclear activities do not appear substantiated with facts. Likewise, suggestions that Iran is working on intercontinental ballistic missiles are not supported by intelligence. Iran remains about a decade or more from any decision to pursue that technology, and it is unlikely to pursue it when it is staring down an immediate military threat from forces within the range of its present systems. Likewise, while the Iranian state remains repressive, it is not actively engaged in crackdowns on street demonstrations.
There may be political reasons why President Trump wants to avoid making his case for war with Iran to the public and to Congress, but there is no imminent strategic need for war. Congress retains its Constitutional role in authorizing war and must work to assert that authority via the war powers votes next week.
6) The shadow of the Iraq war
Vice President JD Vance largely dismissed the parallel between the Trump administration’s Iran war build-up and the George W. Bush’s disastrous regime change war in Iraq, stating “we have to avoid overlearning the lessons of the past. Just because one president screwed up a military conflict doesn’t mean we can never engage in military conflict again.”
Yet, the parallels to the Iraq war are all too similar. The Trump administration has hyped a WMD program that appears dormant, issuing disarmament demands under the threat of imminent military force. The President and his advisers have appeared overconfident, suggesting they can control escalation via limited strikes and that war could be over in a matter of weeks.
There are, however, some glaring differences to the war in Iraq: George W. Bush and his administration - although liars who cooked the intelligence for war - actually made the case to the American public and international community, seeking both buy-in and explicit legal authorization. For the U.S., they got it, with a majority of the public supporting the war at the time of the invasion and an explicit authorization for force from Congress. The Trump administration has none of these things: 70% of the public opposes war and neither Congress nor the United Nations have granted authorization for war. Entering war without buy-in and with nebulous aims is a recipe for disaster.
There is still time to learn the right lessons from the run-up to the 2003 Iraq war. That starts with Congress passing the Massie-Khanna (H.Con.Res. 38) and Kaine-Paul (S.J.Res. 104) war powers resolutions next week.
You can take action today by contacting your lawmakers and encouraging them to support these vital resolutions to block war.