As the Iran war drags into its sixth month without a clear pathway to resolution, one could forgive chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Dan “Raizin” Caine for making a clear policy intervention. Yet it is remarkable that military professionals and the general public do not recognize this intervention as such. Equally remarkable is the process of intervention — specifically the lack of countervailing military advice.
Six months without a serious policy choice should indicate to any policymaker or military officer that the American policy system has failed. The question is why. The standard answer, in which there is some truth, is to blame the lack of an interagency process. But the deeper issue during a war is necessarily that of military planning. The legacy of the Goldwater–Nichols Act of 1986 has made it nearly impossible for the president to receive a coherent menu of policy options in a conflict rather than the idealized end of policy advice. The result is an increasingly militarized policy process. This is a problematic but manageable issue against Iran, considering the United States’ relative advantages. Against a first-rate adversary, however, this is a mortal weakness.
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