War with Iran: Thought through?

After recently approving military plans to attack Iran, President Trump has pulled the trigger. U.S. bombers just attacked the three major Iranian nuclear sites: Fordow, Natanz and Esfahan. Did he fully think this through?

What considerations have been should be fully vetted before the decision was made? Robert Gates, who has served under eight presidents, and is a former secretary of defense and former CIA director, has long cautioned about how well thought out a decision to militarily engage must be. So has President Reagan’s Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger and President George W. Bush’s Secretary of State Colin Powell, a former general and chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Weinberger laid out basic criteria: the vital interests of the United States or its allies must be involved; don’t commit unless you intend to win; define political and military objectives; the objectives must be achievable; don’t commit unless there is reasonable assurance of support from the American public and Congress; and only commit military resources as a “last resort.”

The so-called Powell Doctrine overlapped and included additional considerations: have the risks and costs, and potential consequences of our action been fully analyzed; is there an exit strategy to avoid endless engagement; do we have genuine broad international support; have other, nonviolent actions been exhausted.

Gates believes that a check list is too confining, as there are dynamic circumstances that may just not fit. However, he says common sense questions need to be answered in advance similar to those articulated by Weinberger and Powell, and while he adopts a number of the considerations of Weinberger and Powell, he says  that we should “never fight unless we have to, never fight alone, and never fight for long.” He further emphasizes that the objectives must be realistic, we must determine what could go wrong and anticipate in advance what your opponent’s next moves will be.

The decision for the United States to engage offensively was in the hands of only the president, not the military, and apparently not Congress. He received and selected a military option proposed by his appointed generals. Whether he has questioned the options presented to him is not known. He has famously said he knows more than all generals. He is also not known to be seriously interested in regular intelligence briefings.

What is also not known is whether and how thoroughly he and his political and military leadership have explored the kinds of questions that Gates, Weinberger and Powell have laid out.   

As of Sunday, Congress had not been briefed on and had a chance to vet in any way the military plans and the objectives. The so called bipartisan Congressional Gang of 8 is available to the president but has not been used. This group, which is informed of extremely sensitive intelligence and military matters, is comprised of the majority and minority leaders of the House and Senate, and the majority and ranking members of the House and Senate Intelligence committees.

It appears Israel has the capability to kill the supreme leader of Iran. Will it now do so to attempt to achieve regime change?

So many questions. How many were answered before the bombs dropped? We may never know.

Jim Hartnett, Navy veteran, attorney, strategic consultant. Graduate of Sophia University International Division (Tokyo) and holder of a Certificate in Public Policy from the Harvard Kennedy School.