President Trump has boldly, if erratically, maneuvered the United States into a classic security dilemma on Iran. According to reports of the interim Memorandum of Understanding being negotiated with Iran, the deal will conclude an important part of the present impasse by ending the Iranian and American blockades and opening the Strait of Hormuz to international shipping. Resolution of the critical issue of Iran’s ability to produce nuclear weapons, Trump’s ultimate red line, theoretically will follow in the next several months. The temporary agreement will reduce pressure on rising fuel prices, a decisive factor in America’s mid-term Congressional elections. But, if the deal is finalized and consummated in its present contours, it could prove to be a colossal strategic mistake, a matter of choosing short-term political gain while ensuring sustained future pain under an insufferable criminal regime allowed to remain in power indefinitely. Based on what is presently known of its terms, it is clear the agreement will ill-serve the safety and welfare of the long-suffering Iranian people, the imperative of regional stability, and the long-term interests of the United States as the reluctant protector of global peace and security.
Failed Western policies toward Iran for the entire half-century of its repressive rule have repeatedly demonstrated that the Islamic Republic is ideologically irredeemable, a painful reality the people of Iran have recognized for 47 years and, unarmed as they are, sacrificed mightily on several occasions to change. Last month, President Trump called on the Iranian people again to “rise up and attack the institutions” of the regime, this time with the explicit U.S. promise that “help is on its way.” It was clearly a call for the overthrow of the Islamic Republic and a U.S. commitment to assist in its removal. At least 45,000 Iranians who answered Trump’s call were slaughtered in the streets by the Iranian authorities under the brutal leadership of the Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). Every day since then, the civilian death toll mounts as Iranians who want a better economic and political future are relentlessly pursued and executed by the regime while Washington again pursues the illusion of a binding understanding for a normal, peaceful relationship.
If there is anything more shameful than President Obama’s rejecting the urgent pleas of the Iranian people for at least U,S. moral support during their 2009 uprising, it is Trump’s encouraging them to risk their lives by demonstrating in the streets against their oppressors, then ignoring their plight, and even now denying that regime change was ever a strategic objective of the U.S. and Israeli military intervention. But the stalemate on achieving any meaningful agreement by Iran to end its pursuit of nuclear weapons program has reinforced the reality that there is no other long-term solution to the existential threat to Western civilization posed by the Islamic Republic than removing the regime from power
Trump can show strength of character by acknowledging that his administration underestimated the difficulty of coercing Iran to adopt a more responsible international behavior and going to Congress to ask for the support he would surely get for the Iran operation. He could show that he is capable of adjusting his policy to address a new situation by doing more than denying reality and shirking responsibility as he did with the 45,000 Iranians who went to their deaths relying on his pledge of support if they would finally shake off the shackles of the Islamic Republic. He can also correct his mistake of dismantling America’s instruments of soft power and restore and revitalize the information warfare agencies, such as the Voice of America, that helped win the Cold War. A creative coordination of the information agencies, the intelligence services, and the judicious use of military power can finally end the nightmare of the Iranian Republic’s rule.
A successful information operation, e.g., by targeting the families and friends of IRGC members, will also send a subtle and non-kinetic message to China and Russia, hostile major powers who have aided and abetted Iran's anti-Western ideology and provided the intelligence, weapons, and diplomatic cover Iran has used to attack America's regional friends–and to kill American soldiers and civilians.
America’s enemies have not stopped their hostile actions as the ceasefire talks proceed–fighting while negotiating was a Communist tactic perfected in the Korean War and followed in the Vietnam War. America and the West can apply the doctrine non-kinetically by using the information warfare tools available to eliminate the scourge of the Islamic Republic.
Joseph Bosco served as China country director for the secretary of Defense from 2005 to 2006 and as Asia-Pacific director of humanitarian assistance and disaster relief from 2009 to 2010. He is a nonresident fellow at the Institute for Corean-American Studies, a member of the advisory board of the Global Taiwan Institute and member of the advisory board of the Vandenberg Coalition.
