We bombed Iran. Now what?
What's the strategic objective here?
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ALEX’S WEEKLY RANT!
I’ve gotten a lot of questions this week about the US bombing Iran, mostly: What do you think? Well, I think a lot of things, depending on the more specific questions. So let’s dig in, starting with the most basic question:
Was the Iranian nuclear program an imminent threat to the United States?
Probably not. Although Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu has claimed for years that Iran could produce a nuclear weapon and delivery system imminently (in days or maybe weeks), the US intelligence community has for years consistently said something along the lines of: yes, Iran likely has the knowledge to do this, but it still lacks some capabilities and, furthermore, the political decision to move ahead and actually make nuclear warheads and put them on delivery systems has not been taken. That’s been a controversial assessment, but a consistent one.
That’s not to say Iran isn’t up to no good. According to a May report from the International Atomic Energy Agency, Iran had amassed enough uranium enriched up to 60% purity—a short, technical step away from weapons grade, or 90%—to potentially make nine nuclear bombs.
If the threat had been imminent, would we only do one bombing raid and then declare victory? It seems like an imminent threat would be met with a decisive and sustained campaign that left no doubt about whether the objective had been achieved.
Did we wipe out Iran’s nuclear program?
It doesn’t seem so. I won’t go into all the different reports and speculation because so much of it is political, but again, it seems unlikely one bombing raid would do the trick of completely wiping out the entire program.
Our spies probably have a good idea about how successful or not the mission was. And the likelihood is that we didn’t completely obliterate the program, as Trump has claimed, but we probably did do a fair amount of damage, even if Iran was able to move some equipment and uranium.
The public play to control the narrative, however, is doing enormous damage at home. While Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard told Congress in March the intelligence community assessed that, while Iran possesses a lot of enriched uranium, the intelligence community “continues to assess that Iran is not building a nuclear weapon and Supreme Leader [Ayatollah Ali] Khamenei has not authorized the nuclear weapons program that he suspended in 2003,” Trump said he didn’t believe her (meaning he didn’t believe the assessment from his own intelligence community). Now, in the wake of the bombings, initial intelligence leaks suggested the program was not, as Trump insisted, obliterated. But in a White House where loyalty is all that matters, Trump’s minions got on board the ass-kissing train and did the media rounds to insist this was nothing but a full and total success.
Indeed, the White House is making sure only true Trump cheerleaders brief Congress on the aftermath of the bombing and are limiting what intelligence they share with Congress. This is dangerous. Trump and his minions lie. We know this. Without the actual intelligence being shared with Congress, Trump’s narrative will win out, no matter what the truth is.
In fact, we are at the point that, even if the intelligence community did declassify a report saying the program was obliterated, most of us would not believe it, thinking that Gabbard or CIA Director Ratcliffe was making the analysts write that in order to please Dear Leader. It was only a few weeks ago that intelligence analysts were fired for writing an assessment that went against Trump’s public statements.
Iran knows what the actual damage is.
While the US public and pundits and Congress will be duking it out in the media to claim how successful or not the mission was, Iran actually knows. Iran knows if our bomb—designed for this specific purpose of bombing a bunker—worked. Iran also knows how much of its program was destroyed, what materials and equipment it has left, and how long it will take to rebuild. Without good intelligence sharing among those who matter on our side (policymakers, Congress, the military, allies), Iran will have a leg up on us. If we just used a bomb that we’ve been lording over Iran in negotiations to keep them from moving ahead with their nuclear program and that bomb didn’t actually work, what leverage do we now have in negotiations? Furthermore, the Washington narrative game will provide Iran plenty of insights into the power dynamics in DC.
The Hezbollah factor.
Once upon a time, my biggest fear about a strike like this would have been retaliation by Hezbollah. I certainly believed after the assassination of Qasem Soleimani, head of the Iranian Republican Guards Corps Quds Force, in Trump’s first term that Hezbollah sleeper cells would be activated. While there were strikes on US bases in the Middle East and some members of Trump’s administration (Mike Pompeo and John Bolton) faced death threats (Trump recently revoked their secret service details), we didn’t see movie theaters blowing up in cities across the US or Americans kidnapped abroad, as I had feared. That’s not to downplay the retaliation that did happen, but it was not as widespread as I think many of us feared.
Since then, Hezbollah has been weakened considerably. Israel’s pager operation last year, which took out a lot of Hezbollah fighters and officials, along with other Israeli actions has put Hezbollah on its back foot. That’s not to say they aren’t still dangerous. They are. And while I currently assess we won’t see Hezbollah of the 1980s rearing its head, there remains a good chance of some asymmetric retaliation.
The ayatollahs are still there.
I find it hard to believe Israel’s only objective was to wipe out Iran’s nuclear program. They wanted regime change. They sought Trump’s help, using the nuclear program as the lure. But now Trump has insisted on a ceasefire, before Israel can change the regime. So, the Iranian regime remains in place. And they must be pretty pissed off. And they might still have some nuclear capabilities. That seems…bad.
Furthermore, many Iranians may hate their own regime, but there is one thing they hate more: outside influence. We may have just provided them reason to rally around the flag.
This seems like a good time to re-post this essay, “Iran: They think we’re great!” which includes this very helpful explainer:
About that foreign influence…
Media reports say Trump thought Israel’s strikes on Iran made for good TV and he didn’t want to miss out on being part of the show. It is also likely (in my mind, it is certain) that Israel and Saudi Arabia ran operations to influence Trump’s decision and get him to participate in the bombing. While I am a firm believer that Iran should not have a nuclear program, I don’t feel great about bombing a country because its enemies goaded us into it (not to mention the illegality of it, the lack of strategic objective, and that diplomacy had previously made great strides in the right direction). I have written extensively about how I hate Russian influence in the United States. I’m not a fan of Israeli or Saudi influence either.
Nuclear bombs for everyone!
The most likely outcome of all this is that Iran will aim to build a bomb faster and more clandestinely.
Furthermore, as the geopolitical board shifts, the lesson seems to be: having nuclear weapons prevents you from being attacked, but if you have nuclear weapons, you can attack others. Russia has nuclear weapons and it is because of this that so many policymakers fear escalation in trying to hold Russia accountable for its actions in Ukraine, even when it brought soldiers from North Korea (also a nuclear power) into the fight. Ukraine willingly gave up its nuclear program after the Cold War and, welp, look how that’s worked out.
Both the US and Israel are nuclear powers, and they just bombed Iran, which technically was not yet one.
The result might be wider nuclear proliferation, which is dangerous for everybody.
All this to say: I’m not a fan of Iran’s nuclear program, but nor am I a fan of Trump’s actions. We had plenty of other options. But we are where we are now, with a rapidly shifting geopolitical picture and untrustworthy and moronic leaders in charge. Happy Friday!
THE WEEK’S LINKS
A roundup of things you should be reading
INTELLIGENCE COMMUNITY AND LOYALTY
Tulsi Gabba Chooses Loyalty to Trump (The Atlantic)
RUSSIA USING MIGRATION AS A TOOL OF DESTABILIZATION
Britain’s migrant crisis is being fueled by Putin’s Russia (The Sun)
EXCELLENT RESOURCES!
Just Security has launched WHAT JUST HAPPENED? as well as a litigation tracker to help readers keep up with the chaos
Alex Finley is a former officer of the CIA’s Directorate of Operations, where she served in West Africa and Europe. She writes and teaches about terrorism, disinformation / covert influence, and oligarch yachts. Her writing has appeared in Slate, Reductress, Funny or Die, POLITICO, The Center for Public Integrity, and other publications. She has spoken to the BBC, MSNBC, CNN, C-SPAN’s Washington Journal, France24, and numerous other media outlets. She was also invited once to speak at Harvard, which she now tells everyone within the first ten seconds of meeting them. She is the author of the Victor Caro series, satirical novels about the CIA. Before joining the CIA, Alex was a journalist, covering Capitol Hill, the Pentagon, and the Department of Energy. She reported on issues related to national security, intelligence, and homeland security. Did she mention she was invited to speak at Harvard?
Thought provoking article. While Americans are projecting an evil well armed and prepared adversary, my study of Iranian politics and government agencies reveals a rather roughshod collection of grifters, con men and criminals. Sound familiar?