I’m not buying the narrative that a bludgeoning, weeks-long American bombing campaign has done negligible damage to Iran.
In a column earlier today, I said I’d separately address U.S. intelligence leaks to the New York Times, indicating that “Iran has restored operational access to 30 of the 33 missile sites it retains” along the Strait of Hormuz, as well as 70 percent of its mobile missile launchers and pre-war missile stockpile.
As I said in the column, I’m skeptical. I’m willing to assume that the report’s numerical assessments accurately reflect what our spy agencies are telling the Times reporters. What gives me pause, however, is the implication that these ostensibly disturbing numbers translate into Iran’s ready access to a robust, turnkey ballistic missile arsenal.
“Restored operational access” is a strained phrase. It isn’t the same as saying that Iran has restored operation of over 90 percent of its missile sites along the strait. Having access to the sites is not the same as having access to the missiles (much less to fully functioning missiles).
And how could they not have access to the sites?
To recap, not wanting to risk casualties in a war he started on February 28 without seeking public or congressional support (and that has unsurprisingly proven to be deeply unpopular, irrespective of the threat Iran poses), President Trump has authorized aerial strikes but deployed no ground forces. Iran is a huge country, and missile components are relatively small and portable; therefore, without the ability to do on-the-ground damage assessments, it was never going to be possible to know for sure whether various missile manufacturing or storage facilities were completely destroyed, were likely intact but buried under rubble, or were functional and accessible.
Then, in April, despite Iran’s refusal to surrender or negotiate a settlement satisfactory to the U.S., the president declared a “cease-fire.” I won’t rehash why it hasn’t really been a cease-fire (see here and here). It is true for the most part, though, that our forces and allies are not firing on the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and its related forces. That necessarily leaves the IRGC free to conduct operations to regain access to its weapons sites. Still, such access does not mean that the weapons themselves (or what’s left of them) are readily accessible, let alone functional; much less does it mean that missile manufacturing facilities are working or could be restored any time soon.
If our spy agencies know the locations of the facilities and assets about which they are leaking to the press, it follows that our forces (and Israel’s) could easily target those locations in new rounds of drone and missile strikes if the IRGC — whose air defenses are scant — undertook what would likely be arduous efforts to get them up and running again.
Let us not forget the history here.
American intelligence agencies have long been naysayers about military action against Iran. I am not contending that they don’t have their reasons: As ten weeks of the ongoing conflict have shown, the Iranian regime was always going to be a difficult enemy to defeat. It is an apocalyptic Islamic force whose interest in its own survival was always apt to be greater than any American administration’s interest in making the profound effort needed to destroy it (as opposed to just reducing its capacity to project power). The intelligence agencies have always known what Trump appears to have doubted: The regime would fight ferociously and had cards it would be willing to play: mass-murdering Iranian dissenters, bombing America’s Sunni Arab allies, and closing the strait.
Moreover, U.S. spy services have willfully thrown cold water on the conceit that Iran was zealously pursuing nuclear weapons capabilities, despite overwhelming evidence that this was the case. The CIA’s disingenuous 2007 National Intelligence Estimate (“We judge with high confidence that in fall 2003, Tehran halted its nuclear weapons program”) was spun as it was, and issued when it was, because of apprehension that President George W. Bush was inclined to take military action against Iran (at a time when the war in Iraq had turned badly). And it worked: no military action was taken against Iran even though it was actively fueling the anti-American insurgency in Iraq, continuing to support jihadist proxies elsewhere, and plotting mayhem in our own homeland.
Institutionally, the 18-agency intelligence community, or at least swaths of it, had been dedicated to the propositions that the best way forward with Iran would be diplomacy and that Iran’s regime was rife with moderates who, despite the hard-liners’ virulently anti-American rhetoric and terrorist support, would eventually take control, cut a deal, and arrive at a tolerable modus vivendi with the United States. I have never believed that was realistic, but there is no doubt that the intelligence community became more enamored of this view in the dozen years that it was controlled and staffed by the Obama and Biden administrations.
How surprised should we be if operatives of those agencies are leaking to the New York Times a carefully crafted massage of damage assessments, suitable for a narrative that Iran’s regime is too resilient and that it’s time for Trump to cut his losses? Pay no heed to the pounding the Islamic regime has taken, its dire economic condition, and the contempt in which it is held by tens of millions of Iranians.
I’m the first to admit that Trump’s lack of a strategic framework, as well as his inconstancy and impulsiveness, have undermined both the successes so far and the prospect for ultimate success in the war. If we end up with Iran in de facto control of the strait, it will be fair to argue that Trump should never have started something he’d be unwilling, once the going got tough, to finish. Nevertheless, the suggestion that our forces’ bombing campaign has been substantially ineffective is, to my mind, far-fetched.
Iran hasn’t been defeated, but it has been badly battered.