US Army Major Speaks Out: US Military Should Stay Out of Iran
Last week, after Israel reportedly
shot down an Iranian drone and Prime Minister Netanyahu proudly displayed a hunk of twisted metal … Americans were treated to
fresh calls for regime change from some prominent neoconservatives. …
The last thing the
overstretched U.S. military needs is another hot war. … President Obama
bombed seven countries in 2016, and President Trump has continued apace. …
In December, when protestors hit the streets of Tehran based on mostly economic motives, Trump immediately rallied in support and not-so-subtlety
tweeted “Oppressive regimes cannot endure forever.” Except, that is, for Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and other illiberal authoritarian regimes
we support. …
if the recently released
National Defense Strategy is any indicator — it lists Iran as one of four core threats —
U.S.-imposed regime change is certainly on the table. It shouldn’t be. At present, Iran does
not present a clear and present vital threat to American national security. …
The secretary [Mattis] is the boss, my boss, but his focus on the Iranian regime qualifies as his blind spot, a veritable Iran
obsession. … “Iran, Iran, Iran.” …
Iran spends about as much on defense annually as the U.S. does on a single aircraft carrier. … Iran’s
GDP was about $427 billion, and it spent
some $11.5 billion on defense in 2016. U.S. allies, like Saudi Arabia (GDP: $678 billion; defense spending: $66.7 billion) and Israel (
GDP: $348 billion; defense spending: $19.6 billion) can more than hold their own. And … standing behind them is the real behemoth, the U.S., which plans to spend $716 billion on defense in 2019—that’s $300 billion more than Iran’s entire GDP. …
While Iran definitely is engaged in the Mid-East, its own neighborhood, it’s rarely
behind much of anything and doesn’t have nearly the power or influence to pull all the various regional strings. Yemeni and Bahraini unrest were homegrown. Conflict in Syria and Lebanon preceded Iranian deployments there. And Iraq, well, the U.S. handed Baghdad to Iran on a silver platter …
try and view the last decade of U.S. military actions from Tehran. Washington toppled and seemingly permanently occupied Iran’s neighbors on its western (Iraq) and eastern (Afghanistan) flanks, encircled the country with its military bases, and intervened in just about every country in its neighborhood. ... Who could rationally blame Iran’s leaders for fearing they were next? And who would be surprised to see them turn to Shia militias to trap the U.S. military in a Baghdad quagmire? That’s basic survival instincts. …
Iranians also have a long memory. The CIA helped overthrow a democratically elected government in Tehran in 1953. Then, throughout the 1980s, the U.S. backed Saddam Hussein in Iraq’s brutal invasion of Iran. …
this must serve as a reality check for Washington’s triumphalism and an unfathomable commitment to strategic overreach. Walking the proverbial mile in an adversary’s shoes isn’t “soft,” it’s smart. …
Iran’s military is far from the imposing behemoth threat of hawkish imagination. … Saudi Arabia is much better armed … it spends more than five times much on its military than Iran. …
Iran is spatially large and mountainous with an enormous, fiercely nationalist population. … U.S. military occupation of the Islamic Republic would make the Iraq War, for once,
actually look like the “
cakewalk” it was billed to be.
America’s armed forces are currently spread thin in a dozen simultaneous operations and deployed in nearly
70 percent of the world’s countries. ...
Eastern Europe; manning the DMZ in South Korea; training and advising across Africa; conducting raids in Somalia, Yemen, and Niger; and actively fighting in Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan.
So where are the troops available to topple Tehran? They don’t exist. The U.S. military is already running at full throttle … The
polling data is clear: Americans don’t want another war. …
And these days, with Turkish tanks just miles from U.S. forces in Syria and openly
threatening Washington …
Indeed, it might be time for Washington to swallow its pride and admit to some common
interests with Iran in the region—the defeat of ISIS, suppression on Sunni Islamists, and a stable, non-threatening
Afghanistan—rather than harping on the exaggerated negatives. …
Forget a new war. Iran isn’t worth it. Not now, probably not ever. … Washington should ditch the alarmism and get
real in the complex Middle East. ...
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