As the war between Israel and Iran escalates, Israel is increasing its calls on the United States to become involved in the conflict.
Former Israeli officials are appearing on US news outlets, exhorting the American public to support Israel’s actions.
President Donald Trump has signaled a willingness for the US to become involved in the conflict. He’s gone so far, in fact, to suggest in social media posts that he could kill Iran’s supreme leader if he wanted to.
The American military could certainly make an impact in any air campaign against Iran. The problem from a military standpoint, however, is that the US, based on its forces’ deployment, will almost certainly seek to keep its involvement limited to its air force to avoid another Iraq-like quagmire.
While doing so could almost certainly disrupt Iran’s nuclear program, it will likely fall short of Israel’s goal of regime change.
In fact, it could reinforce the Iranian government and draw the U.S. into a costly ground war.
Israel’s need for American support
The initial stated reason for Israel’s bombing campaign — Iran’s nuclear capabilities — appears specious at best.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has argued several times in the past, without evidence, that Iran is close to achieving a nuclear weapon. US intelligence, however, has assessed that Iran is three years away from deploying a nuclear weapon.
Regardless of the veracity of the claims, Israel initiated the offensive and now requires American support.
Israel’s need for US assistance rests on two circumstances:
- While Israel succeeded in eliminating key figures from the Iranian military in its initial strikes, Iran’s response appears to have exceeded Israel’s expectations with their Arrow missile interceptors nearing depletion.
- Israel’s air strikes can only achieve so much in disrupting Iran’s nuclear ambitions. Most analysts note that Israel’s bombings are only likely to delay the Iranian nuclear program by a few months. This is due to the fact that Israeli missiles are incapable of penetrating the Fordow Fuel Enrichment Plant, which estimates place close to 300 feet underground.
The United States, however, possesses munitions that could damage, or even destroy, the Fordow facility. Most notably, the GBU-57A/B Massive Ordnance Penetrator (more commonly known as a bunker buster) has a penetration capability of 200 feet.
Multiple strikes by said munition would render Fordow inoperable, if not outright destroyed.
Romanticizing air power
The efficacy of air power has been vastly overrated by the popular media and various air forces of the world. Air power is great at disrupting an opponent, but has significant limitations in influencing the outcome of a war.
Specifically, air power is likely to prove an inadequate tool for one of the supposed Israeli and American objectives in the war: regime change. For air power to be effective at bringing about regime change, it needs to demoralize the Iranian people to the point that they’re willing to oppose their own government.
Early air enthusiasts believed that a population’s demoralization would be an inevitable consequence of aerial bombardment. Italian general Giulio Douhet, a prominent air power theorist, argued that air power was so mighty that it could destroy cities and demoralize an opponent into surrendering.
Douhet was correct on the first point. He was wrong on the second.
Recent history provides evidence. While considerable ink has been spilled to demonstrate the efficacy of air power during the Second World War, close examination of the facts demonstrates that it had a minimal impact. In fact, Allied bombing of German cities in several instances created the opposite effect.
More recent bombing campaigns replicated this failure. The US bombing of North Vietnam during the Vietnam War did not significantly damage North Vietnamese morale or war effort. NATO’s bombing of Serbia in 1999, likewise, rallied support for the unpopular Slobodan Milosevic due to its perceived injustice — and continues to evoke strong emotions to this day.
Iran’s political regime may be unpopular with many Iranians, but Israeli and potentially American bombing may shore up support for the Iranian government.
Nationalism is a potent force, particularly when people are under attack. Israel’s bombing of Iran will rally segments of the population to the government that would otherwise oppose it.
Few positive options
The limitations of air power to fuel significant political change in Iran should give Trump pause about intervening in the conflict.
Some American support, such as providing weapons, is a given due to the close relationship between the US and Israel. But any realization of American and Israeli aspirations of a non-nuclear Iran and a new government will likely require ground forces.
Recent American experiences in Afghanistan and Iraq show such a ground forces operation won’t lead to the swift victory that Trump desires, but could potentially stretch on for decades.
James Horncastle is an assistant professor and the Edward and Emily McWhinney professor in international relations at Simon Fraser University.
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
They should ponder the long-term consequences with Iran, the entire Middle East, and the world.
China should ponder the immediate consequences of attempting to attack independent Taiwan.
The simplest and most effective solution to the conflict between Israel and Iran is to dismantle both Israeli and Iranian nuclear weapons capabilities. And I think the rest of the world will agree with me 😉
The West overly relies on air power. Its why Western intelligence agencies love their salafist foot soldiers. Note Israel needs Syria, Lebanon, Yemen, Iraq, Libya and Afghanistan destroyed and left with no air power or AA defense by their American sidekicks. They prefer victims unable to fight back. Its what bullies do. Iran is not like the others.
Seems like they have done it. No planes took off from Leb, Syria, Iraq etc to intercept the Israeli air force.
Anyway why rely on planes when their peter file prophet had a winged steed called Burak.
Hitler made the mistake of thinking bombing would break the morale of the British people, so he redirected the Luftwaffe’s campaign away from RAF aerodromes to the cities. It didn’t work. It will be the same in Iran. Opposition parties opposed to the clerics have said in the past that if Iran is attacked they will side with the government. And the likelihood of President Trump doing an Iraq type invasion is nil, so the world will have to put up with the political status quo in Iran for the foreseeable future. The nuclear issue a separate matter.
Agreed.
Its a big beautiful bom. but like much of US kit, or US manufactured goods such as cars, it doesn’t work as well as intended or has reliability issues. Been used against taliban hundreds of times. Still lost the war. Sure, its made with Prideful US labour, but its not their fault. Its the designers and the marketing Dept.
The Yanks pacified Afghan, but then left the job to the locals. In the last 2yrs of US occupation, no Americans died.
Let’s see how these squint cars play out. China has been polluted to create them, and the world benefits from their subsidies. But like the Japanese found out, capitalism and innovation win in the end.