Did the U.S. Actually Win the Iran War?
Assessing some counterintuitive takes on Operation Epic Fury.
The hard-working staff here at Drezner’s World has made little secret of its judgment that, from a strategic perspective, the United States lost the war in Iran.
Still, such perceptions are not frozen in amber. There was a moment when I could see a strategy that might have worked against Iran if it was not being executed by an administration of immature incompetents.
Still, when it comes to geopolitics it is worth questioning assumptions on a periodic basis. This is certainly true with respect to the Iran war. And over the past week or so a few contrarians have attempted to argue that despite outward appearances, the United States did better and Iran did worse than is commonly understood. It is worth reviewing these arguments to see if, five years from now, revisionist historians will find themselves reassessing the outcome of Operation Epic Fury.
Let’s start with Matthew Kroenig’s Foreign Policy essay, “The U.S. Won the War With Iran.” Quite the provocative title! His thesis is equally provocative:
To be sure, the United States did not register a knockout punch against the Islamic Republic, but to continue the boxing metaphor, it did win on points.
For several weeks, beginning on Feb. 28, the United States landed blow after heavy blow against its opponent. Operation Epic Fury achieved most of U.S. President Donald Trump’s stated goals by seriously degrading Iran’s nuclear program, conventional military, defense industrial base, and leadership.
This argument would be more persuasive if two things were true: first, that those were in fact Trump’s stated goals, and second, that they were actually accomplished with Operation Epic Fury. Trump’s stated goals included regime change (which did not happen),1 destroying Iran’s missile industrial complex (which did not happen) and disconnecting Iran from its proxy forces in the region (which, to be fair, partially happened). As for the goals listed by Kroenig, not a single action in Operation Epic Fury degraded Iran’s nuclear program.
Unfortunately, the rest of the essay ain’t any better. Kroenig does not really offer a serious argument so much as throw conceptual spaghetti at the wall to see if anything sticks. Here’s a list of ancillary upsides that he lists, followed by my thoughts:
“Trump also followed through on his promise to the Iranian people that ‘help is on the way.’” Bombing a country and then abandoning it to an even harder-line regime does not meet the “promises kept” category. Indeed, if anything, Trump’s reversal of course on regime change guarantees that ordinary Iranians will view Trump as an enabler of the regime rather than its destroyer.
“The war showed that the United States is still willing and able to engage in large-scale military action.” This is a laughable claim, and the tell is that Kroenig literally contradicts himself on this point later in the essay, acknowledging that Trump does not like sustained uses of military fore and that, “he is uncomfortable with long, drawn-out military campaigns with no clear end in sight.” Pick a lane.
“The war also gave the U.S. military the opportunity to practice.” This may well be the dumbest argument ever articulated in the pages of Foreign Policy. Practice?! We’re gonna talk about practice?! For real?! That is a horrible reason to go to war! Furthermore, the U.S. military doesn’t need the practice. In this century, the U.S. military has fought two large-scale wars and numerous shorter skirmishes. In the past year alone Trump has used force against seven different countries. I’m not sure what additional practice was needed, except maybe for how to cover up just how badly the Iranians damaged a U.S. naval base.
“Washington does not actually need a nuclear deal. Iran’s nuclear program has been devastated, and if it is rebuilt, the Pentagon can simply destroy it again.” This is the regional version of Israel’s “mowing the grass” strategy, which locks successive U.S. administrations into taking periodic unpopular actions that will incur regional blowback. Not exactly a great strategic outcome. Note also that this point implicit acknowledges that the stated nuclear deal sucks eggs.2
Let’s move on.
In Foreign Affairs, James A. Jeffrey provides a somewhat stronger counterintuitive argument by framing Operation Epic Fury into the larger Middle East context:
