No. of Recommendations: 3
Is that the goal of the war? To degrade Iranian power projection in the region?
Sure.
The Administration most frequently talks about the need to keep Iran from getting a nuclear weapon - not generally degrading Iran's power projection.
The nuclear weapons are merely a part of it. Iran projects power by
-Its ballistic missile threats
-Its drones
-Its terror proxies
-Its threat to close off the strait of Hormuz
...etc. This is about taking care of all of that. Iran desires a nuclear weapon they can load onto a ballistic missile and end the Israelis once and for all.
Because, of course, that kind of conventional regional military power is probably not something that would really warrant a pre-emptive war against Iran. I don't think that anyone was arguing that U.S. interests were especially threatened by the fact that Iran had a navy, or had an air force. So while destroying those things certainly weakens their conventional military power, the improvement to our security interests from removing that aspect of their power isn't all that high. Particularly given the significant costs of waging this kind of war.
That's your view. The administration sees Iran as a multidimensional threat that they're now doing something about.
Is that worth tens of billions of dollars and precipitating a global energy crisis? Doesn't seem like a particularly "working" strategy to me. We're notching the goals that aren't especially valuable (neutralizing the Iranian naval threat), while not achieving the goals that were arguably more important (neutralizing the Iranian nuclear threat)...and all at great cost.
You keep stating this. That's fine. I get it. You're just off base.
The other thing looming here is China. As I've mentioned on this board 1000 times, everything we're doing is aimed at getting us ready for 2028/2029 and The Main Event, which we'd rather not have to show up for.
Iran is a bad actor. Has been since 1979. It's also a lynchpin of China's middle east strategy and we're currently degrading that part of it to a large extent.
Ideally, we weaken the regime enough such that the Iranian people have room to rise up and knock of the mullahcracy.
