Now What?

President Trump attacked. Iran’s nuclear program is in shambles. Are we better off today than we were last week? Only time will tell.

For the better part of the last two decades, I have argued that diplomacy – not military action – was the better way to deal with the Iranian nuclear program.

My views flow directly from lessons I draw from the greatest American strategic blunder since Vietnam, George W. Bush’s post-9/11 Iraq War.

My skepticism about attacking Iran doesn’t mean I have illusions about the Iranian regime. It oppresses its people, terrorizes the region, unequivocally threatens to destroy Israel and hates America.

I also firmly believe a nuclear-armed Iran would be an unacceptable threat – not just to Israel and its neighbors but to the United States and the world.

I’m not a pacifist either. Tactical military operations have their place in national security strategy. I acknowledge the successes Israel and the US have achieved in military operations against Iranian facilities and personnel.

Finally, I’m aware that the Israeli public overwhelmingly supports both the US and Israeli military operations. My skepticism about the wisdom of this attack is not shared by many allies and friends in Israel.

Here at home, swathes of the American Jewish community are cheering President Trump’s decision. (I witnessed this firsthand last night at the bar in my hotel in LA when local Jewish Iranian-Americans ordered champagne to toast President Trump at the table next to me.)

Nonetheless, popping champagne seems beyond premature in these early hours.

First things first – let’s see what the Iranian response will be.

Will Iran opt for a limited response that the US can essentially ignore? If so, that’s a potential off-ramp that could allow Trump – and the Netanyahu government – to declare victory and to close this chapter.

I certainly hope that’s the case – in the near-term, that’s without question the best-case scenario.

More worryingly, Iran could launch a more meaningful, large-scale attack on US forces in the region – one that the President would feel compelled to answer.

My biggest concern if that happens – and the concern of the pro-diplomacy camp before the attack – was that the Iranian response and our answer could set off a cycle of escalation that would entangle the US in another long-term military conflict in the Middle East.

Will that happen? I hope not, but we’re all about to find out together.

There are other scenarios – none of them good. For one, Iran could take an action that has global economic impacts such as mining and shutting down the Strait of Hormuz. What would we do then? What would other countries in the region do?

Will the Russians step in to assist the Iranians in rebuilding their program? Remember that Iran has been helping the Russians in Ukraine.

The Houthis could restart firing on crucial shipping lanes. Hezbollah could be brought out of hibernation. The Iranians could continue to fire on Israeli towns and cities intermittently for weeks in a war of attrition. Will their missiles or Israeli interceptors run out first?

Then there’s the risk that Iran has assets abroad that could engage in terror or assassinations against American, Jewish or other interests globally. Action of that kind might only happen weeks or months from now at a time and place of Iran’s choosing.

The use of military force is rarely a simple ‘one-and-done’ scenario.

As I listen to more hawkish voices argue for a US strike to “finish the job,” I worry that Netanyahu and his hardline allies won’t be satisfied if, after the US attack, the Iranian regime is still in power, still taking shots at Israel and maybe US forces, and the nuclear program is only set back, not truly destroyed.

In the best case scenario, military action stops here. But we’ll soon see that the Iranian program won’t have been “permanently eliminated.” In fact, the regime will have increased incentive to get right back to work, this time with determination to produce a weapon, far away from public view and international oversight.

Won’t the temptation then be for Netanyahu and Trump be to push for regime change? Was that the goal all along? If they try to take out the country’s leadership, what then would follow? Disintegration of the state? A more radical military regime? A country so destabilized it becomes a haven for terrorists and jihadis from neighboring countries?

Some advocates of military force may – I fear – have been conceiving of this as a video game in which the US simply needed to push a button and destroy Fordo and a big “game over” sign would start flashing, with Iran permanently neutralized and peace breaking out across the Middle East.

Rather than “Game Over,” the American strike only means the game moves to the next level.

At a moment like this, we should remember the wisdom of Clausewitz in his seminal On War: “No one starts a war… without first being clear in his mind what he intends to achieve by that war.”

I want the best for the people of the region, for all those in the direct line of fire, and for the world as a whole.

I fear unfortunately the worst. I have little confidence that either leader – Trump or Netanyahu – has a strategy or an end game in mind. I don’t know what worries me more: That they don’t know clearly what they hope to achieve or that what they hope to achieve is going to leave the region and world in a far more dangerous place.

But one thing I do know: Wars are easy to get into. Far harder to end.