“There is nothing stronger than those two: patience and time.” So observed the gray General Kutuzov in Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace. Napoleon’s force, with its many advantages, could not defy logistical realities forever. And now we’re seeing much the same with Iran.
In April, I penned a column titled “Why So Grim About Iran?” responding to the emerging consensus among the American press that we had, after killing Iranian leadership and sending their armies diving underground, lost the war. I was reliably informed by these voices that it was incumbent upon any decent American to rend his garments and cover his head with ashes — Midianite levels of self-sabotage.
I concluded with:
Breathe . . . let the U.S. military do its thing. We’re still fresh into this conflict. Round One just concluded. We’d have taken this result if given the option before the bout began. Our fears are hypothetical, while our successes are stone cold.
Six months later, the snake remains beheaded, while its thrashing has subsided.
Our Noah Rothman reports:
Iran is in a terrible position. Its currency is valueless. Its trade relationships are being severed. Its citizens and political officials cannot fly in or out of the country. Its political class is in a state of semi-permanent revolt against the informal leadership of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Protests are once again breaking out in Iran’s universities, despite the explicit threat represented by the hated Basij. And there are now credible reports of insurrectionary activity in outlying provinces such as Baluchistan, where at least one IRGC commander was killed in the fighting.
It’s probably worth mentioning that the locus of hysteria of a few short weeks ago, the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN-72), is returning home to San Diego notably absent either dietary catastrophe or drownings, and the USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN-71) steams west to take the watch from USS George Washington (CVN-73).
The military is doing its thing, despite the combined froth of information warfare, ignorance, and admirable-but-unhelpful anxiety from the American public for its sailors.
Noah continues:
Since mid-August, the Trump administration has maintained that the blockade, and its efforts to protect shipping through the strait’s southern Omani channel, is bearing fruit. At the time, the claim met with some understandable skepticism. But, as I wrote then, it made sense that the inventories that Trump officials had described were invisible to trackers. They wouldn’t become visible until they’d successfully evaded Iran’s dragnet. Now, six weeks later, “It’s clear that Washington’s figures were substantially correct,” former Bush administration official Michael Allen observed. “As many as 22 million barrels may have passed through the strait in 48 hours over the weekend, compared with about 20 million a day before the war.”
Let’s add to this the recent episodes in the U.K. and in the skies over Saudi Arabia, which suggest that the regime’s surviving elements are activating what assets they have left. It reeks of desperation.
As ever, a blockade is a test of will. We can still surrender our advantage . . . all it takes is a set of orders. But given that, after seven months, we continue to float acres of non-skid and haze gray in Iran’s backyard swimming pool, and I’m feeling pretty good about the White House’s resolve on this matter.
Last thing: For those who watched and commented on war like it was a $10 six-leg parlay, consider your paroxysmal histories when America next rouses itself to dissolve a hostile regime. Those hysterics weren’t just embarrassing; they were succor to those who would see us dead.