The peace with Iran has broken down. We frankly did a half-baked job of fighting the war in the first round. Let’s finish it in the second. America’s flag and general officers (FOGOs) are superb tacticians and technicians, but they are poor strategists and practitioners of the operational art. So far, Iran has been a good example.
It was clearly President Trump’s initial intent to use the war as a means to encourage the restive Iranian people to overthrow the regime. Instead of using a mix of information warfare and intimidation of the Iranian Republican Guard Corps — the real power brokers in Iran — our FOGOs chose to treat the whole thing as a targeting exercise, concentrating mainly on purely military targets. The Israelis took out leadership individuals, but the real power was in the ability of IRGC units to disperse to their homes and only come out in force to suppress the large gatherings of dissidents intent on storming government buildings, as happened in the 1979 revolution.
In the second round, we should go after the IRGC, which is the real center of gravity of the regime. Using a combination of drone-delivered leaflets and radio broadcasts, we should call for the people to occupy government buildings in key cities such as Tehran, Qom, and Bandar Abbas. When IGRC units come out of hiding to disperse the crowds, drone-delivered precision-guided munitions should target them, giving the revolutionaries confidence. This will require imagination and initiative that the U.S. military has not shown to date. This is not armchair generalship; it is common sense. I suggested it in this publication shortly after the war began. Plodding military leadership merely wounded the tiger in its den instead of killing it. Now, it is more dangerous than ever. (RELATED: Choke Points and the Future of Naval Power)
There is something to be said for utter ruthlessness. You don’t dabble at war.
As it turns out, the IRGC’s power has been increased by the war. It is reportedly building new bases in Iraq already, and they would use the billions that they gained in the peace agreement to restore their influence with Hezbollah, Hamas, and the Houthis in Yemen. We are admittedly poor at managing regime change in foreign countries, but we do not really care what happens as long as the IRGC is eliminated as a factor. The best case would be a democratic government; the worst would be a civil war. In any case, the Iranians would not be causing trouble in the region for a long time. We need to finish this.
At a minimum, if there is not an uprising, we should totally destroy their capability to produce drones and ballistic missiles and seriously consider irradiating their three primary nuclear sites so they cannot be used for a generation at least. They clearly have no intention of complying with any agreement to limit their nuclear ambitions.
We should allow the Israelis to finish the job of decapitating the regime’s leadership and driving the IRGC command back into their fallout shelters for fear of their lives. Once we are done, we should leave the smoking wreckage of what was Iran as a warning to other nations that wish to disrupt world peace, of what America is capable of doing when it is riled.
If the Iranian people are smart enough to overthrow their corrupt and evil regime, fine. If not, let them wallow in the rubble.
I was frankly skeptical of starting this war for fear that we would settle for half-measures, and I was initially right. I did not believe that the peace would hold, and I was right again. I am skeptical that our civilian and military leaders have the competence and moral courage to finish the job properly, but I would be delighted to be proven wrong.
The leaders of the old Roman Republic made an example of Carthage that gave the world a lesson for 500 years. They created a desert and called in peace. There is something to be said for utter ruthlessness. You don’t dabble at war. We should have learned that in Iraq and Afghanistan.
READ MORE from Gary Anderson:
The Washington Post Occasionally Gets It Right
The Senate’s Gutless Republican Wonders
How a War With China Should Go
Gary Anderson retired as chief of staff of the Marine Corps Warfighting Lab. He served as a special advisor to the deputy secretary of defense and is the author of Beyond Mahan, a Proposed Naval Strategy for the 21st Century.
