Two simple tests for bad commentary on the Iran War
And a more subtle test.
There is a lot of poor quality commentary about on the current Iran War—or, as the Chinese call it, the War in West Asia. Fortunately, there are two simple tests that winnows out much of the noise so you can focus on signal.
First Easy Test
Would this commentator ever admit that Trump had done something positive?
If the answer is no, ignore them. They are not commenting on the War, they are commenting on Trump. They are just providing anti-Trump talking points for this particular issue.
Second Easy Test
Does this commentator pay any attention to the record of the Islamic Regime? Its record of domestic repression, including various mass executions and mass killings of protesters? Its record in supporting and constructing proxies: in Lebanon, in Gaza, in Yemen, in Iraq, in Syria, in …? The record of those proxies and how they disrupt and degrade those countries? Its record in promoting terrorism across the globe? Its record in massive economic and environmental dysfunction …?
If the answer is no, ignore them. This is especially so if what they do comment on is Israel. They are not commenting on the War, they are commenting on Trump and on Israel. They are just providing anti-Trump, anti-Israel talking points for this particular issue.
The more of a regime of internal exploitation the Islamic Regime has become, the more it has built up its proxy forces. The more it built up its proxy forces, the more disruptive and destructive it has become.
It is a regime of eschatological terrorism. Israel and the US are its proclaimed enemies-to-be-destroyed, but so is every Sunni monarchy: Israel and the US are simply more salient targets. The Islamic Regime’s role in both Lebanon and Yemen has been highly destructive. Where does it end with a regime that has been ever more violently destructive and disruptive across decades?
This second test also applies to commentary on the Russo-Ukraine War. Does a commentator examine or consider the patterns of Russian history? If the answer is no, ignore them. They are not commenting on the War, they are commenting on Western politics and policy.
Putin is acting like a Muscovite autocrat from anytime in the last half a millennium. This is something Russia’s neighbours understand. If a commentator refuses to do so, or is so ignorant they do not realise that there is a clear historical pattern, then their commentary can be dismissed.
As I have previously noted, both the Russo-Ukraine War and the current Iran War are part of much deeper historical patterns of the wars of continental anarchy and with the mercantile maritime order.
Third, More Subtle, Test
The third test is about how wars work. Does the commentator understand that good strategy in war is a decision-tree? If you do X and Y happens, then follow up with Z. If you do X and A happens, follow up with B.
If they do not understand that, if they treat successful war strategy as being able to operate according to some plan so what the opponent does in response to it does not matter, then they do not understand war, and you can ignore them.
A classic way to fail in military affairs, is to not treat military action as a decision-tree, but to continue with the previous plan of action despite some crucial change in circumstances.
Yes, great battlefield commanders have an excellent sense of the opponent’s responses and have already incorporated that into their own operational plans. Yes, better trained and equipped forces, with superior operational capacity, can overwhelm opponents, sometimes with startling speed.
But, with any military campaign—and particularly such a complex, multi-level campaign as the Iran War—successful military action is going to operate as a decision-tree, even in such lopsided cases. This is even more so in a period of flux in military technology.
Now, one can hope that one’s side has a well-thought out if-then decision-tree, but there is still going to be a fair bit of “if, then”. The real test is how one copes with the unexpected.
A persistent advantage Western armies—including the Israeli Defense Forces, the IDF—have displayed in conventional warfare is being much more able to cope with a fluid battlefield than their Arab opponents. Indeed, the IDF, and Western armies in the Gulf Wars, found generating fluidity on the battlefield very much to their advantage.
This has also proved true for the Ukrainian Army fighting Russia. Hence the successful advances to Kherson and from Kharkiv in late 2022. Unfortunately for Ukraine, the Russian Army has learnt how to block such fluidity from arising. Well, mostly. Recent, albeit limited, Ukrainian successes suggest turning off Starlink has degraded Russian ability to follow its preferred operational patterns.
Whether the Iranians have the same military limitations as Arab conventional forces have displayed is less clear. The disruptions of the revolutionary military purges, problems of coordination between the regular army and the IRGC, and the Iraqi use of chemical warfare, complicates assessing the (highly variable) Iranian performance during the Iran-Iraq War of 1980-88 and they have not been involved in a major conventional land war since.
The US and Israeli forces have very rapidly established naval and air supremacy in the war against the Islamic Regime, but they are superior forces at every level—number, training, equipment, technology, operational capacity, command and control. This has included completely negating the operational strategy that Iran had developed for use against the US Navy in the aftermath of Operation Praying Mantis (1988). The US and Israel have still not been able to fully suppress IRGC missile, and especially drone, attacks, even in such circumstances.
So, two easy, and a more subtle, test to winnow out the truly remarkable amount of bad commentary on the Iran War.
References
Kenneth M. Pollack, Armies of Sand: The Past, Present, and Future of Arab Military Effectiveness, Oxford University Press, 2019.
The commentary is terrible with reporters sounding as if they actually know what is happening and what the USA is accomplishing. When that is largely unknown and subject to in depth analysis and intelligence. The are overtly sophomoric.