Despite claims to the contrary, the Political-Military-Industrial Complex is loathe to actually “Fight Smarter Not Harder.”
I’m not talking about developing “smart” weaponry operated by grown gamers.
I’m talking about tailoring an effective military response to the type of existing threat that would lead to a clear definition of victory – something the last five or six Administrations have failed to provide at the cost of thousands of lives and hundreds of billions of wasted dollars.
No president and no Department of Defense since Reagan has known how to properly conduct effective regime change. One would think someone inside the Idea Fairy Factory (aka: the Pentagon) would have conducted a data dive into the Lessons Learned files at the U.S. Army War College at Ft. Leavenworth to prepare an effective OPLAN for regime change in Iran long before now – or read any of the hundreds of books published on the subject by experts who have actually conducted them.
Instead of consulting the subject matter experts (if there are any left) within the Special Forces Command at Ft. Bragg, each successive president, Secretary of Defense and the Pentagon continue treating special operations with a bit a disdain – jealous of the organizations’ “common sense” approach to planning, executing and killing our enemies. “Big Army” has always been protective of its’ institution – a bloated bureaucracy concerned more with climbing the career ladder through collusion with Defense Contractors and politicians than correctly assessing our national threats and how to defeat them.
In public administration, the adage “Institutional memory is only about a year and a half.” That is exponentially true in the US military. Just as civilian libraries are purging the classics for the politically correct and fewer syllables aimed at the seventh grade level, the military’s largest vulnerability is it is constantly looking forward “to the future” while totally ignoring the past. That’s a fatal mistake – one our adversaries don’t make.
Russia’s military doctrine – like it’s political dogma – hasn’t changed since Lenin.
China’s military looks forward (On War, 1999) and backward (Mao, Tsun Tsu).
As mentioned in a previous blog, Major General Shachnow was the last general to know how to conduct regime change without using a “golden” sledgehammer. He coined the phrase “peeling the onion.”
To paraphrase movie director Peter Bogdonavich “There are no old books, just good books you haven’t read yet.” That goes for Army Field Manuals like FM 3-24 Counterinsurgency that 99.99% of the Army never read. Or the excellent series of training manuals on guerrilla warfare published by TRADOC in the ’90s that were also totally ignored.
Instead, administrations and the Department of Defense continue pretending they know how to conduct regime change by continuing to fight World War II over and over and over again.
Why? Because that’s where the money is. This is the consequence of ignoring Eisenhower’s warning against the Political-Military-Industrial Complex [he was “advised” by members of Congress to remove “Political“] from his farewell speech.
Of Reagan’s Star Wars Initiative (SDI) budget of between 30 to 60 billion dollars only 2% was actually spent on the program. The rest was spent on conventional weapons and platforms. SDI died a quiet death when cancelled by Clinton in 1993. (see: The Great Deformation: The Corruption of Capitalism in America by David A. Stockman)
To properly conduct an effective, lasting regime change campaign one only follow the doctrinal Insurgency Pyramid – basically copy our previous Low-Intensity Conflict Third World (conventionally that’s really what the Middle East is regardless of their nuclear threat) threat’s SOPs and apply it Iran:
Many “Public Intellectuals” have wondered from “high atop New York City” about how to replace the current clerical regime in Iran if the U.S. attacks.
They have no clue.
Neither Trump (the draft dodger) nor Rubio nor Hegseth despite their much touted “boots on the ground” have a clue either.
Simply attacking the clerical leadership and the IRG would only create a political vacuum resulting in the same chaos Bush created in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Correct, effective and lasting regime change requires something Trump would not do if he did know how to do it. It requires taking the Klieg light off of him and shining it on someone else.
In the case of Iran, that person is Reza Pahlavi. He is the eldest son of the former Shah of Iran who trained as an air force fighter pilot in the U.S. when his father was deposed. The Pahlavi name is currently very popular with the overwhelmingly secular, democratic and pro-Western Iranian population.
The Trump administration needs to throw the entire prestige of American political and military support behind Pahlavi and his shadow government. Trump needs to employ the Voice of America in broadcasting that fact to the Iranian government and the Iranian population.
The Voice of America desperately needs a legitimate propaganda campaign focused on the Iranian population – but it needs to be backed by an effective, organized political resistance to the Ayatollah.
Secondly, the CIA in coordination with Israeli intelligence needs to start identifying, equipping and arming resistance cells within Iran – a reverse of what Sir Robert K. Thompson called the “Ink Blot” approach in which clandestine resistance groups are organized in preparation for the all-out coup.
Having a shadow government standing by, the armed insurgency cells organized on a national basis, the groundwork is set for total regime change without leaving a political vacuum.
The Bush, Jr. administration was approached five times by high-level Iraqi dissidents who were willing to risk their lives (and, due to incompetence and dilly-dallying by Jr.’s incompetent boobs, many did) if they knew the US government would support them in their coup. They were amazed that the U.S. chose invasion over the inside job. (see: Imperial Life in the Emerald City: Inside Iraq’s Green Zone by Rajiv Chandrasekaran, 2006; 336 pages)
Why? Because that’s where the money is.
Forrest Trump using his Golden Sledgehammer approach is going to needlessly cost American lives – and I pity any US serviceman who is captured by Islamic radicals. They make Mogadishu look tame in comparison.
That’s when the Iranian people should rise up and overthrow the clerical dictatorship.
That’s when swift Justice should be meted out to the Ayatollah and the IRG. When the Iranian people have the means to administer it – without the possibility of retribution by a resurrected dictatorship.
That’s how Lenin, Mao, (see: Mao’s classic “3-Phase Model of War) and Castro did it.
In Iraq’s case, Phase I -gaining the active support of the population – is already well established. Phase II can be expedited moving within months into Phase III – mimicking more Castro’s rapid revolution rather than Mao’s drawn out protracted war.
The recent massacre of tens of thousands of Iranian citizens was a tragedy and a crime of genocidal proportions. It was an emotional response to devastating economic and political oppression but was doomed from the beginning due to lack of planning, organization and weapons.
The latter being just one of the reasons the Second Amendment is so critical to the freedom of the population from an overreaching government.
This is a simplified sequence of events but the U.S. taking a supporting role in changing the current regime in Iran is the only effective and lasting way to implement democracy in Iran. It would be the first “Islamic” country in the Middle East to have it.
“Forest” Trump and his Political-Military-Industrial Complex needs to take a step back, do their homework. Identify the political, military and economic Subject Matter Experts – if there are any left alive – and let them organize, equip and execute an OPLAN that has a real chance of succeeding without embroiling the U.S. in another 20 year defeat.
This would, of course, require Trump to have the real interests of the Iranian people as a priority – not trying to figure out who to leave in charge so he can profit personally off his false bravado as he did in Venezuela and wants to in Ukraine.
For those who know how to do it, effective and successful regime change in Iran really is a “no brainer.”
