Option 4: Coup de Main

The debate occurring this month at Cato Unbound has thus far turned out to be a very ordinary debate regarding the current dilemma of Iran's pursuit of nuclear weapons. What has evolved are three standard positions: attack now, attack later, and don’t attack. Although Reuel Marc Gerecht, who advocates attacking Iran’s nuclear sites sooner rather than later, brings us deep into the Iranian box, no one has really offered any thinking outside the box yet. But our military, designed to fight two foreign wars simultaneously, is already doing just that. The American public is weary of war. But the alternative is to stand and watch as a nation ruled with an iron fist by a clique of zealous, fundementalist religious clerics, who frequently fantasize in public about annihilating Israel, obtain the means to do so. The risk of a regional nuclear war that would result from such a development, not to mention the dangers posed to the west by the Jihadist groups sponsored by Iran, are intolerable.

But Iran's unique political and demographic situation, along with our evolving military capabilities, may combine to present us an alternative to both inaction and full-blown war. Let's review:

 • Iran’s government is a strange half-democratic theocracy. There is an elected legislature, but a mostly appointed judiciary which in turn fills the position of a combination judicial/executive supreme leader and an unelected grand council to do his bidding. Most of the danger we face is contained in the “Mullahocracy” portion of the government, which is not only responsible for putting the Iranian nation on a militarily aggressive footing, but also routinely interferes with and corrupts the electoral process practiced by its democratic side.

• The Iran-Iraq War decimated about a generation and a half of Iranians. As a result, an unusually high percentage of Iran’s population is 35 years old or younger. As a group, they more or less despise the Mullahs.

• Iran’s military isn’t up to the standards of the US military, but they are large and they aren’t without capability. Destroying them will require a non-trivial effort on the part of the United States.

• The Mullahs have managed to successfully make Iran’s nuclear programs a populist domestic issue and a matter of national pride. Destroying Iran’s nuclear sites would attack that pride, and would be experienced by a majority of Iranians as a particularly poignant national humiliation. Moreover, Iran has spent the last several years hardening their nuclear facillities, making their destruction from the air even more problematic.

• Nuclear weapons are obviously seen by the Mullahcracy as a guarantee of their regime’s survival, capable of deterring all enemies—which is of course more or less true.

• Unlike many nations in the region, Iran is ethnically diverse and somewhat less tribal; their culture has at its roots an ancient tradition of trade, learning and civilized cultural pursuits.

• The west, including the United States, has nothing that the Mullahs want, other than perhaps our political capitulation. Thus our bargaining power with the Mullahs is effectively nil.

The more one looks at Iran, the more one understands that our problems with them aren’t rooted in their support of Jihadist terrorism, their pursuit of nuclear technology or the Iranian nation itself. The security issue the world faces with Iran is rooted in the Mullahs themselves and the unchecked, totalitarian power they wield over the government of Iran.

One need not look far to find rich discussion and analysis concerning the changing nature of warfare itself driven by technology. On today’s battlefield, modern military forces are more mobile, possess more firepower, and are capable of delivering that firepower more accurately using near real-time intelligence thanks to ever-more sophisticated communications systems. Air power and guided munitions have undergone remarkable evolution even since the Gulf War of 1990-91. Modern strategy and tactics have evolved along with communications and weapons technologies, enabling military objectives to be attained faster with less collateral damage to non-targets and civilian population centers, even when striking enemy military assets deployed in their very midst.

Given all of this, there is something about Reuel Marc Gerecht’s suggestion of attacking Iran’s nuclear installations that sounds so, well, '80s. What is so unacceptable about the idea of Iran possessing nuclear weapons in the first place aren’t nuclear weapons per se, it’s the fact that it will be the Mullahs with their finger on the button. So at this point I believe the most useful question is: could we kill Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, The twelve members of the Guardian Council, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and perhaps destroy the offices of the Assembly of Experts in one fell swoop—without attacking Iran’s nuclear facilities, without attacking Iran’s military, and without attacking any Iranian infrastructure? Could such a war with Iran be won without making the lights go out in Tehran?

After the fact, a conditional surrender could be offered directing the Majlis (legislature) to remove the Mullahs from the Iranian constitution, allow the IAEA in to dismantle strictly weapons related nuclear development, and hold open elections in exchange for not having the first American boot ever touch Iranian soil, allowing them the opportunity to forgo any type of occupation and reform themselves. If they refused, then hostilities would resume, although it’s difficult to imagine how any second string of Mullahs would be anxious to step up to bat at that point, or how the otherwise loyal Iranian military would fail to find a solution that doesn’t involve their destruction or humiliation attractive. And finally, it's not difficult to imagine the Iranian people themselves responding more constructively following American military action if their national dignity and their right to true self-determination aren't taken from them by force. But if it were to happen, we could simply continue to peel the onion from the inside out, as it were.