Chronicle of an Entrapment Foretold

By Manolis Skoulikas

Netanyahu does not intend to stop the war until he exterminates the Iranian regime of the mullahs, the greatest irreconcilable enemy of Israel in the region. Nor will he do so before being granted amnesty for the impending convictions looming against him as soon as hostilities cease. That is why he ensures that there are active fronts in Gaza and Lebanon. Even if these fronts close, the Shiite militias of Iraq, the veiled Syrian jihadists, and a sabre-rattling Turkey, present ample potential for escalation. Israel is cursed with a myriad of opponents at its borders, while Netanyahu is, for the same reason, blessed with excuses to continue the war until, finally, amnesty is granted. However, the stubborn obsession of the Jewish people with righteousness, may exhaust all these limits before granting him the much-desired “grace.”

His government includes extreme warmongers who only guarantee their ongoing support -an alternative to which is the fall of the current government and his indictment- on the condition of continuing hostilities with an apocalyptic perspective.

It is within this framework that the American-Israeli lobby influenced Trump to “support” the Israeli operation against Iran. The blatant submissiveness of the American president to Israeli pressures, despite the heavy political and national cost, raises justified suspicions about his involvement in the Epstein files or some other toxic scandal, which makes his refusal “politically” impossible. However, the involuntary nature of American involvement is also evident from the initial statements regarding the purposes of American participation and the ongoing negotiation efforts, as well as from the procrastination in completing the final phases of the operation: the seizure of strategic islands in the Persian Gulf, the neutralization or removal of radioactive material, and the commencement of regime change on the ground. Of course, all three of these goals are quite precarious as, correspondingly, American troops on these islands will be vulnerable to strikes from the mainland, the operation for the radioactive material is quite risky, and Iranian citizens—minorities and others—have not yet made their presence felt.

Moreover, any of these three endeavors carries an increased prospect of deeper U.S. involvement with boots on the ground assault in the long-term, aiming for regime change. Casualties during the seizure of strategic islands and ongoing strikes on occupying forces will provoke the American public to avenge their dead and implement more effective measures that resonate with the American psyche. A botched attempt to remove the radioactive material will necessitate a ground invasion to restore the wounded prestige of the U.S. Meanwhile, a bloody uprising would drag the U.S. into a ground invasion to prevent another massacre, which this time would be blamed on those who encouraged the protesters to rise again.

On the other hand, success in any of these operations would give Trump the justification he needs to withdraw “gracefully” without irreparably damaging his prestige. In the case of the seizure of one or more islands, negotiations could prove successful but at a heavy cost for the U.S. and an even heavier for Israel. The spectacular televised presentation of yet another “mission impossible”, following Venezuela, would provide a PR crescendo, much needed for the “successful” withdrawal of the U.S.   Control over areas where radioactive material is stored and nearby airports by the 82nd Airborne Division until Delta Force can seize the impregnable facilities and transport the dangerous radioactive material to giant transport planes making a spectacular escape from Iranian air defenses, constitutes a feat worthy of media acclaim. A successful regime overthrow with protesters given cover by special forces who would neutralize any fanatical paramilitary criminals deployed by the regime in the streets of Tehran, would catapult the U.S. and particularly Trump to the pinnacle of international prestige.

It seems that the U.S. has much to lose or gain in this operation. However, a more thorough analysis would reveal that the odds of the former are clearly greater than the latter. Trump is thus futilely trying to extricate himself from this precarious situation into which he has been drawn by Israel. However, beyond Israel, which trembles at the prospect of U.S. withdrawal from the region, Iran does not seem willing to accommodate Trump for at least three reasons.

Initially, China, although affected by the energy shortage, has much more to gain from a permanent turmoil in the region, which would provoke a prolonged ground involvement of the U.S., as this would mean the de facto cancellation of the IMEC trade route and even short-term incapacity for U.S. intervention in the critical Pacific front, as the nightmarish scenario of two open fronts could not, in any case, allow for the opening of a third. Thus, it has every reason to influence and support Iran toward escalation.

Furthermore, the fundamentalist mentality of the mullahs demands “divine justice” against their infidel enemies, no matter the sacrifices required. Iran has endured U.S. subversion and Israeli expansionism for decades, and it is not yet ready to forgive, much less forget.

Finally, any agreement with the U.S. that is not a humiliating defeat for the American-Israeli side could easily be interpreted as a clear sign of weakness and would likely signify the end of the mullahs’ regime.

Beyond Iran, China, Russia, and Israel, other local actors have recently emerged that demand U.S. ground involvement aimed at the overthrow of Iranian fundamentalism. Despite recent security alliances between Saudi Arabia and Iran and Pakistan, as well as the neutral stances of the smaller petro-monarchies, Iran’s retaliatory mania has struck them where they are most vulnerable—at their infrastructure for the extraction, processing, and storage of hydrocarbons. The precarious position of the secular petro-monarchies of the Gulf, makes the prospect of U.S. withdrawal from the region unthinkable, without the prior overthrow of the Iranian fundamentalist regime. Because in this case, a continued bombardment of their oil facilities by Iran could easily provoke the downfall of these regimes, the radical restructuring of the artificial borders of the region, and the potential replacement of these secular monarchies with much more radicalized theocratic regimes, which would resonate more with both their indigenous and foreign populations.

When Clausewitz proposed war as a continuation of politics by other means, he assumed the adaptation of these means to achieve the political objective. However, in this case, the means being used are neither suitable nor, at least for now, sufficient to achieve the political goal, which is, in any case, for both the U.S. and Israel, the definitive closure of the Iranian front and that of the broader Middle East. The U.S., like Israel, seems to have used only what they had available to them, and not what was needed. They might have even achieved their goal with what they had, without a ground attack, but they seem to have acted in a fragmented, hasty, and untimely manner. A more thorough analysis of their strategy could, always with the benefit of hindsight, reveal these strategic mistakes, even though some of them are evidently apparent at first glance.

In any case, a broad U.S. ground involvement in the region would signify, on the one hand, its death knell in the race for artificial intelligence—with the imminent takeover of Taiwan by China—and, on the other hand, the immediate involvement—initially—of Iraq, Lebanon, and Syria, while, in a second phase, the petro-monarchies, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Turkey may also get swept along. The broader danger zone includes Egypt, Somalia, Yemen, India, Greece, and Cyprus. Likely, the projected date of 2030 as a deadline for our military preparation may be overly lenient as a prediction, and we may find ourselves confronted with events of major historical proportions much sooner.