Home News We Asked a Military Expert to Sketch Out a U.S. Invasion of...

We Asked a Military Expert to Sketch Out a U.S. Invasion of Iran. Yikes.

73

We Asked a Military Expert to Sketch Out a U.S. Invasion of Iran. Yikes.On the upside, even if the campaign failed to dislodge the Tehran government, it could cause significant long-term damage to Iran’s military, economic and scientific infrastructure, setting back Tehran’s military ambitions in the region. This outcome is probably most amenable to US allies in the Middle East, who don’t worry overmuch about the prospect of committing the United States to an open-ended military conflict with Iran.The Trump administration appears ready to decertify Iranian compliance with the the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), despite a lack of evidence of Iranian violations. For critics of the JCPOA, this represents a move in the right direction; the goal of U.S. policy should be the end of the Islamic Republic and the overthrow of the existing regime in Tehran. As long as this regime exists, no matter how constrained it is by bilateral and multilateral agreements, it will seek to undermine the stability of the established order in the Middle East through overt and covert military means. This position is held in the United States by figures such as Mark Dubowitz of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and by policymakers such as Sen. Tom Cotton. The desire for regime change is also shared by some in the Middle East, including significant elements of the Israeli and Saudi national security states.(This first appeared last year.)