The Consequences of Bombing Iran

The Most Likely Scenario is that Nothing Really Comes of it.

Pretty much everyone in the world has agreed that Iran absolutely should not have a nuclear weapon.¹ Iran has a propensity to be destablizing, willing to covertly exert its influence and power in the Middle East in seriously unstable ways and has a lot of countries it considers enemies that it would love to set back. Primary of those countries are Israel and the United States.

Presidents have been threatening to bomb Iran since 1979. The only one in memory not to do it was Barack Obama, who ended up coming away with a Nuclear deal that greatly hampered Iran’s ability to make a nuclear bomb. That seemed weak to Donald Trump when he came into office (because in his mind, diplomacy is weak) and he scrapped the deal almost immediately, leaving Iran back on the path to making nukes again. Nobody knows how close Iran actually was to making a bomb, because the validation and verification process from the Obama nuclear deal was also scrapped.

Netanhahu has been a hawk about bombing Iran since the 1990s. He’s been using 10/6 as justification to settle old scores against Hezbollah and Hamas far broader and in much greater proportion than that event, and has wanted the U.S. to help in curbing their benefactor in Iran by bombing suspected nuclear facilities. On Saturday, Netanyahu got his wish and Trump targeted three sites with B-2 bombers and bunker busting missiles, along with some Tomahawk missiles to boot.

Typically, these actions by the President are determined by the War Powers Act, and the Constitutional powers of the Presidency as Commander in Chief. The Powers allow the President a little lattitude in pre-emptive strikes like this if it is determined to be defensive and in the best interests of the country. Make no mistake, the bombings are by definition an “act of war,” but there are likely to be little legal consequences about it in the United States. The reasons are apparent:

1. When it comes to the President using military force for limited strikes like this, they tend to be at least somewhat approved by the public and Presidents often enjoy a little “bump” following them. It makes them look “Presidential.”

2. Congress is more likely to ride the coattails of the event or grudgingly accept the events, because individual Congresspeople seldom want to be perceived as dove-ish when it comes to protecting America.

3. Congress is currently run by the President’s own party, and Trump has easily controlled them to this point where they all tend to fall in line with what he wants. No Republican wants to be on the wrong side of a Trump Truth Social Post.²

4. Only the most liberal of Democratic Pols tend to make a stink about these things, and as if on cue you had AOC calling for Impeachment, as if she were The Queen of Hearts in Alice in Wonderland screaming to everyone “OFF WITH THEIR HEADS!” That’s not a good look or one that people are going to rally around, not to mention, Impeachment? You need a majority of the House and 2/3 of the Senate for that and you’re not going to come close to either. Why even bring it up? It just makes the lunatic fringe of the Democratic Party look even more lunatic-y.

5. Iran has been a thorn in the side of the U.S. for almost 50 years. There has always been a large contingent of the public wishing for them to get hit for all sorts of horrible shit they’ve done over the years, even if that perception from the public is a little two-dimensional at best. It’s what made the Iron Sheik such a great heel character in wrestling.

So nothing is likely to come of this on the American side of things. My hunch is that if this event was a one-off, it’ll be forgotten in a month. Missions like this tend to have an “out of sight/out of mind” experience in the zeitgeist and once the public puts it behind them it stays that way. The American public tends to watch these things on the news for a couple days saying “OMG That’s Horrible!” and then goes back to having their dinner and watching America’s Got Talent. Barring any repurcussions prolonging the item, it’ll be “here today, gone tomorrow.”

The wild card, however relates to the consequences within Iran and what the mullahs do as a result. I’m pretty sure that there are people in the CIA who have a better sense of how Supreme Leader Ali Khameini in Iran thinks, and generally it’s not a good “war plan” to do something where you haven’t considered the potential fallout of an action. I have faith that they anticipated the response when formulating their plans, but with Trump’s National Defense team (clowns) and the Intelligence toadies running the show (Tulsi Gabbard?³) who’s to say?

As far as I can tell, there are several possible scenarios here, that can play out in different ways, each with different consequences for the U.S.. These are what I think are the possible potential repurcussions:

1. Nothing. Iran has been debilitated as it comes to their nuclear program, they are largely ostracized from the Middle East writ large and they spend some time re-assessing their future as a country. The Supreme Leader is old, the heads of their military and intelligence communities are largely wiped out, and there is going to be a huge turnover in coming years. Either they shift the focus to domestic problems and work towards solving those, or face the potential for protests, uprisings and potential rebellions. That means there are no real repurcussions towards Israel or the U.S. in the immediate future, other than attempted squabbles in places like Yemen. In fact, the lack of likely retaliatory consequences may have been a reason to bomb the sites now.

2. Generalized Terrorism in the Middle East, mining the Strait of Hormuz and the Persian Gulf and fueling economic problems for the west. A large chunk of the world’s oil goes through the Strait of Hormuz. Eliminating that as a thoroughfare for oil will greatly decrease supply and cause prices to spike. It is a card that Iran knows how to play well and has done so in the past.

3. Increased rhetoric and covert operations against Israel. This has some potential, they don’t want to seem toothless and impotent in the utter destruction of Hamas and Hezbollah over the previous two years, and this direct attack certainly makes them look that way. They may devise some operations targeting places like Tel Aviv or Jerusalem (likely some mortar shellings and such) and recruit an entire generation of Gazans to their cause now that they are mostly stateless. Netanyahu’s aggressive posture towards Iran may well result in counterproductive enabling of the regime to appeal to more radical elements within the Muslim world.

4. Direct war with Israel. As I mentioned, this action is deliberately an act of war. It may prove provacative of a widening military incursion between Israel and Iran. Israel has the nuclear bomb but would be reluctant to use such a weapon. If Iran does declare war on Israel, the questions mount quickly: Who else will side with Iran? Would militants across the Islamic World look upon this as a chance to go war against it’s enemies? What weapons and military infrastructure (both overt and covert) does Iran still have and is willing to use, including potential chemical weapons? How fast and broad does this escalate? My personal opinion is that this is an unlikely scenario, but it’s very easy to see it happen. If it does, I do not feel confident with the current Administration or it’s National Security appointees in handling and containing such a series of events well.

5. It’s not a one-off and the U.S. directly engages in war with Iran, whether Iran declares it first or not. Probably the unlikeliest of scenarios, but let’s count what this would entail:

   1. A series of bombings and sorties similar to what just was done.

   2. Troops on the ground, likely based in Iraq or Turkey, in very substantial numbers. The peak number of servicemen in Iraq was 173k soldiers, and Iran is a much bigger country in terms of population and size.

   3. That also means approval FROM THOSE COUNTRIES, to receive our troops.

   4. Strong approval from the public; we just got out of two wars and are at peace for the first time since 9/11. Nobody is itching to get into another one.

   5. Congressional approval. There will be balking on all sides about committing the funds and personnel to such a campaign.

   6. Money. A lot of it. The U.S. is going broke and the commitments to interest on our debt is about to surpass the entire military budget. Either large cuts to Social Security and Medicare would be needed to offset the costs, taxes (largely on wealthy people) will need to be raised to offset those costs or such a war would bankrupt the country.

   I just don’t see the political or public will to do this (yet, and probably in the future).

So for now, Trump is going to get a pass on this. It’s not worth making a stink about in the near term politically. How it plays out though may result in opportunities to contest his overall foreign policy, his military acumen and his administration more thoroughly as indirect consequences become more apparent, both short and long term.

PurpleAmerica’s Cultural Corner

God bless the pro Wrestler The Iron Sheik. Behind the scenes the other wrestlers really loved the guy. If you get a chance, watch “Young Rock” on Peacock where The Rock recalls stories of his youth growing up around such icons as the Sheik, Andre the Giant (the best episode is where he goes fishing with Andre and then sees E.T., making Andre cry) and Randy “Macho Man” Savage. But the Sheik’s Twitter account before he passed away was pure gold. A few of the real *chef’s kiss* tweets:

PurpleAmerica’s Obscure Fact of the Day

The Iron Sheik’s real name was Hossein Khosrow Ali Vaziri. His closing move was the “Camel Clutch” and he was both a WWF Champion and a Tag Team Champion with Russian Nicolai Volkoff.

PurpleAmerica’s Final Word on the Subject

Iran is so far away.

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Footnotes and Fun Stuff

1. The exceptions to this tend to be North Korea, Russia (somewhat) and various proxy countries around the world.

2. Currently, the only GOP politician I’ve seen be critical of it was Right Wing lunatic Thomas Massie. Massie is the Uber-MAGA of MAGA and it’s a little surprising that he is the most vocally opposed, until you realize he is also a Bannonite True Believer of the anti-Globalist world conspiracy bullshit that MAGA typically pedals in.

3. An interesting side note in the run up to the bombing was that Gabbard told Trump Iran that based on intel Iran was nowhere close to making a bomb and Trump responded he didn’t care what the intel said, HE thought they were close to making a bomb.