By Mark Montgomery
In less than three weeks, the United States and Israel have destroyed many of the military assets Iran has used to menace the Middle East for decades. The Pentagon reported 15,000 strikes in the first 10 days, which not only blew up launchers, missiles and ships; they also leveled some of the production sites that once replenished Iran’s arsenal.
At least another two weeks of attacks will be necessary to ensure the regime cannot pose a serious military threat for several years — if it survives at all. Forcing the threat from Tehran into remission certainly would constitute a military victory, arguably the United States’ first in Iran since 1979.
But there are two actions that would subvert such a victory. The first is if President Trump prematurely calls off the operation before the necessary targets have been hit. He did this last summer, forcing an early end to Israel’s military campaign against Iran. Another week of operations then might have prevented Tehran from responding as forcefully as it did in the first days of this conflict.
The second failure would be if the United States allows Iran to maintain control of the Strait of Hormuz. Should the regime survive the war with the power to close Hormuz at will, disrupting the transit of fossil fuels and other crucial commodities, any declarations of victory by the United States will ring hollow.
I participated in convoy operations nearly 40 years ago, and I learned that there is no fast option — only methodical work that takes weeks, not days, of persistent satellite surveillance, as well as air cover by fighter jets and armed helicopters. Most likely, over the next two weeks, a sufficient number of American destroyers will arrive in the northern Arabian Sea to escort commercial vessels. It would be helpful if allies supplied capable warships, but this is not a necessity in the short term.
Opening the strait won’t be easy. Iran can threaten shipping with aerial drones, primarily Shahed drones loaded with explosives, and unmanned fast attack boats. It also has cruise missiles that are especially dangerous because the strait is just 21 miles wide at its narrowest point, giving American warships only 30 or 40 seconds to employ defensive measures.
If the United States can hold firm for the next few weeks, it can fully degrade Iran’s war-making apparatus. This would usher in a multiyear interval of calm of the kind that neither sanctions nor diplomacy has been able to produce in over four decades. In that window, a better regional order could emerge.
Mark Montgomery is a retired U.S. Navy rear admiral and a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. He was formerly a policy director for the Senate Armed Services Committee.
Gods damn, that dude is drinking the koolaid hard
