Another Middle East Quagmire

I pray that I am wrong … but I have the same feeling now that I had in 2003 when President Bush flew out to the USS Abraham Lincoln and declared “Mission Accomplished” in Iraq.

Since 2010 when I was Director of Intelligence and Counterintelligence at the Department of Energy, I have been preoccupied with the best strategy for keeping Iran from becoming a nuclear weapons state. I have never considered it wise for the US to put American troops on the ground in Iran as we did in Iraq. Nor have I ever thought Iranian opposition groups had the wherewithal to take on the regime directly.

Therefore, I came to believe that America’s best strategy was (1) to use a big carrot and small stick approach to convince Iranian leaders to back away from nuclear weapons in the short and medium term while (2) making the long-term bet that economic prosperity would encourage younger Iranians to gradually subvert the regime. This type of long-term strategy worked with China in the 1970’s and worked with the Soviet Union in the 1980’s. My belief was also consistent with the 2015 Iran nuclear agreement negotiated by President Obama which sharply limited Iran’s uranium enrichment for 15 years.

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This long-term bet, of course, was never certain. Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu legitimately criticized the agreement for doing nothing to constrain Iranian government support in the short and medium term for the anti-Israel activities of Hamas, Hezbollah, the Basher Regime in Syria, and the Houthi’s in Yemen, nor did it guarantee that Iran would never become a nuclear weapons power. Netanyahu believed that Iran’s leaders desperately needed relief from economic sanctions but had no intention of moderating their behavior or their nuclear ambitions.

Trump agreed and, so, walked away from the 2015 agreement after he became President in 2017. In response, the Iranians resumed their uranium enrichment efforts.

A Timeline of Key Events

Now, we are taking a more tactical approach. I am keeping a timeline below of key events as a reference for future analysis. All entries are taken from publicly available, unclassified sources.

On 7 October 2023, Hamas launched a savage terrorist attack on Israel, murdering innocent Israeli civilians. Netanyahu responded with a savage counterattack on Hamas with many innocent Palestinian civilians caught in between.

In 2024, brutal but effective Israeli attacks altered the strategic map of the Middle East at least in the medium term. Hamas was decimated. Netanyahu then escalated attacks in Lebanon and in September 2024 decimated Hezbollah. Without the support of Hezbollah troops, the Bashir Regime in Syria fell without resistance to a ragtag group of Syrian dissidents in December 2024.

On 20 January 2025, President Trump was inaugurated for the second time. With the altered strategic map of the Middle East, most of the weak points of the 2015 Nuclear Agreement with Iran had disappeared. There was a real strategic opportunity to negotiate an improved agreement.

Around the beginning of March, the President sent a letter to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei proposing negotiations to resolve the nuclear issue without hostilities. Around the end of March, the Iranians agreed. The first round of negotiations was held on 12 April, at which time the President impatiently said he wanted to see progress within 60 days.

On 11 June, with only minimal progress evident at the 60-day mark, US embassies in the Middle East began to evacuate personnel. The Iranians responded to this pressure on 12 June by announcing their intent to open a secret new enrichment site. Later that same day the President made two seemingly contradictory statements; (1) that the US and Iran were close to an agreement at the next round of negotiations scheduled for 15 June and (2) that an Israeli strike on Iran “could very well happen.”

The next day, 13 June, Israel launched surprise air attacks on Iran, catching the Iranian leadership flat-footed. The Israeli Air Force wiped out Iranian air defenses and killed top Iranian military officers and nuclear scientists. Afterwards, President Trump revealed in public interviews that he had been aware of Israel’s plans beforehand.

From 13 June through 20 June, the question was whether the US would join the Israeli attacks on Iran. Specifically, would President Trump authorize the use of American B-2 bombers to drop “bunker buster” bombs on Iran’s underground enrichment facility at Fordow?

On Friday, 20 June, the President assured that he would take up to 2 weeks to decide whether to attack Fordow. That was a ruse. In fact, the B-2’s took off from Whitman Air Force Base in Missouri early Saturday morning, 21 June, and Saturday afternoon the President gave final authorization to attack. The bombers struck Fordow and Natanz around 6 PM US Eastern Time and submarine-launched Tomahawk missiles struck Isfahan at about the same moment.

Where are We Heading?

Maybe there was never any hope that President Trump and Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei could negotiate in a modicum of trust and good faith. But if there ever was such a hope, it is now gone.

At 86, Khamenei will die soon but he will never surrender no matter what the cost for the Iranian people.

I continue to believe it unlikely that the Iranian people are willing or able to overthrow the Islamic Republic directly.

Thus, the US military may be in for a very long fight with Iran.

A long fight with Iran will unfortunately divert American attention and military resources from more important and more urgent strategic concerns in Ukraine and Taiwan.