​Strategic blunder: on the U.S., the Iran war

By picking Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei as the Supreme Leader, after the assassination of his father Ali Khamenei in a joint U.S.-Israeli strike on February 28, Iran has signalled defiance and continuity. Last week, U.S. President Donald Trump, who demanded Iran’s “unconditional surrender”, made it clear that the younger Khamenei was unacceptable to him. But Iran’s Assembly of Experts, the 88-member clerical body, chose the 57-year-old ayatollah, who also lost other close family members in the February 28 strike, as the new “leader of the revolution”. Having fought “on the frontlines” of the Iran-Iraq war and studied Islam in the seminaries of Qom, Mojtaba Khamenei has maintained close ties with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and the clerical establishment. By elevating him, Tehran has sent an unmistakable message: the Islamic Republic stands firm despite the war. If Mr. Trump believed that his initial decapitation strike would lead to the Islamic state’s collapse, he was mistaken. Instead, all branches of the state rallied behind the military and the clergy, while Iran regionalised the war by attacking U.S. bases and energy infrastructure in the Persian Gulf as well as Israel. Now, a new Khamenei is in power; the Iranian state is far from collapsing; energy prices are soaring and leaders in the U.S. and Israel are searching for exit strategies.

This was a wholly unnecessary war. Israel and the U.S. began attacking Iran hours after Oman, which mediated talks between Tehran and Washington, had said that a nuclear deal was within reach. After the war began, Mr. Trump kept shifting the goalposts. On day one, he said the overthrow of the Iranian state was his objective; by the fifth day, he said he wanted to be involved in selecting Iran’s new leader, and by the eleventh day, he declared that America had already won and that the war would be over “soon”, even as Iranian missiles continued to rain down on Israel and target U.S. bases in the region. To be sure, the U.S. and Israel possess immense air power and can continue to pound Iran. Independent investigations have found that American missiles struck a girls’ school in Iran on February 28, claiming over 160 lives. Last week, Israeli strikes on Iran’s oil storage facilities enveloped Tehran in thick smoke. But what is the point of continuing to bomb a people whom the Americans promised to “liberate” until a few days ago, without clearly achievable political goals? The Iranian state is not folding, it is fighting back. If Mr. Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu continue this war, the global economy will come under even greater stress. Whether they realise their grave miscalculation or not, the way forward is not more bombing. This war must be brought to an end immediately.