,
17 tweets,
3 min read
Read on Twitter
The Last Thing America Needs Is Another Open-Ended War Abroad thefederalist.com/2019/06/20/las…
What is the purpose of another intervention in the Middle East, when all the focus should be on China? American intelligence reports suggest Iranian aggression is a typical lashing out in what might be perceived as a siege mentality.
While engaged in a desperate proxy war with Saudi Arabia over influence in the Middle East, Iran poses no direct strategic threat to the United States. So far they have not touched any American strategic assets, and the official American red-line for action is American lives lost
Never Trumper Bret Stephens, for example, cavalierly states that he doesn’t “want a war” but also that the United States should just sink Iranian ships. How does he think wars start?
While Iran is a minnow compared to the United States, it is fully capable of making life miserable for U.S. interests in the region, including troops.
The fallacy of an analysis that doesn’t consider the opponent’s action is the exact reason we have been in so many never-ending and costly globalist policing missions in the last 20 years.
Consider the reality. Saudi Arabia and Iran are involved in a proxy war across the Middle East. But it is not a Western fight, and there is no Western interest other than selling weapons, preferably to both.
American oil dependency is at an all-time low, and major oil importers are other great powers with large navies like India and China, powers whose navies are completely capable of securing supply lines,
Regardless of how rogue an actor Iran is, does anyone think it is even logical that Iran would mine the entire Strait of Hormuz to cut off its own crude oil supply, the majority of which goes to China and India, which are essentially the lifeline of Iranian survival?
It defies history, and nation-state behavior. Autocratic and revolutionary states, unlike liberal-democratic states, care about their system’s survival far more, and try and minimize risks of getting into a war with major powers unless pushed to the wall.
A statement from Defense Priorities categorically states the same: “The failure of maximum pressure should not be used to justify an unauthorized, preventive war. There is no ‘limited strike’ option for Iran, and another prolonged Middle East war would further harm U.S. security
In short, whatever Stephens or David Brooks gins up in feverish fantasies, any strike against Iran wouldn’t just stay quiet with “sinking of the Iranian Navy,” whatever in God’s name that means.
At a time the military priority should be China, nation building and human rights promotions in the Gulf are a luxury only newspaper pundits sitting in cushy DC offices care about.
Trump understands that China is the biggest threat, and that promoting human rights in feudal lands with U.S. lives and dollars don’t serve U.S. interests in any discernible way, and that the United States doesn’t need Arab and Persian energy resources.
Trump seems to be a personal check on some of his administration’s hawkish proponents. After all, he won an election protesting against stupid Middle Eastern wars. The last thing he needs is another one.
That’s a change from the last two decades, and for the good. Trump needs a team more aligned with his Nixonian instincts. This is the time for conservative foreign policy realists to flock in, get out of the Middle East, and put the gun-sight firmly on China.
@threadreaderapp unroll
