Stephen D. Cook
On April 22nd in these pages, I warned that ships and planes are tools of denial, not governance. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and the theocratic regime it protects can absorb the loss of tankers, missiles, and oil revenue so long as they retain their most valuable resource: armed loyalists on the ground who control the Iranian people. That piece drew on twenty-five years in the U.S. Army, including combat tours as a Green Beret where I watched the same pattern play out in Iraq and Afghanistan. The speed with which the situation in the Gulf continues to evolve compels a follow-up.
We are still fighting the wrong war.
The United States continues to treat Iran as a conventional nation-state whose center of gravity can be found in the familiar pillars of national power: military, economic, information, and political. We impose a naval blockade on the Strait of Hormuz believing the leadership values its economy. We prepare new precision strikes believing the regime values identified targets—missile sites, air defenses, nuclear facilities—the same way a Western government would. Both assumptions are flawed.
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