Q: How did QS end up in such a vulnerable position? It seems it was rather easy for us to target and eliminate him, unlike the Bin Laden mission which took months and years of planning and still only had partial confirmation.
SJMB: My take is that QS became far too independent-minded for his own good. Like most things that pop-off on the international relations stage with respect to world leaders or significant players, it boils down to an ego problem. He ultimately fell the same way all failed leaders fall— he became emboldened, then overconfident, and then he became careless. He was not appropriately put in check by the previous U.S. administrations, Obama-Biden and Bush-Cheney. High-ranking U.S. military officials like Gen. McChrystal have gone on the public record as to why they believed striking against QS at the time would have been counterproductive.
That decision— which some would politely call an oversight, and others would perhaps more properly call a poor decision up to and including utter negligence— can be extended by way of analogy to the general mood of pre-Trump Administration U.S. relations with Iran. That is to say, in evaluating the U.S. relationship with Iran as a series of checks and balances, prior to the advent of the Trump administration, the U.S. political and military leadership was far more interested in balance than they were in checks. There was, in fact, quite a disbalance, with the scales tipped all-too often in favor of Iran.
Now, with respect to the Trumpian engagement with Iran in matters of general foreign relations and Iran-specific diplomacy, the U.S. made repeated, exhaustive attempts to engage in diplomatic conversation with QS, Khameini, Rouhani, and a host of Iranian officials, to utilize tried-and-true diplomacy-driven negotiations, including bolstering Iran’s economy. In each and every instance, Iran ultimately rejected all such U.S. initiatives because the secular and non-secular Iranian leaders are, at their core, demonic people, totalitarians who, like a cancer, harm everyone and everything they come in touch with.
Historically, the only time we see effective de-escalation in that region—and particularly with Iran—is when they are come at in a way which the hyper-liberal radical leftist peace-mongers infecting today’s college campuses would actively refute. Those clueless, magic wand-waving Social Justice sycophants are of a mind that, “War is bad, violence is bad, we are not being nice enough to them, if we would just be nicer everything would be OK because everyone loves one another naturally but we can’t treat people badly or they will treat us badly.” I agree with that paradigm as a general principle of daily living and interpersonal success in individual-to-individual relationships; it even extends to business in that healthy economics are built on relationships, good customer service, etc.
Be it soft or hard diplomacy, however, diplomacy does not work amongst totalitarians or fascists or radical extremist theocrats as exemplified in the personalities of the Iranian leadership. There’s a saying that, “Diplomacy is the art of the possible” which is not to be confused with President Trump’s excellent book, “The Art of the Deal”. Another saying claims that, “Diplomacy is war by other means”. A related if not inverse meaning was presented by Clausewitz in “On War” when he said, “War is the continuation of politics by other means.” That last phrase is apt here, though, we should be clear, just as President Trump was clear that the U.S. took this action not to start a war but to prevent a war, while also recognizing the asymmetrical war footing Iran has long-maintained against us and to which we are thus obligated to respond in force. In short, when diplomacy with such types fails, violent conflict is inevitable. As the old saying goes— and this is particularly appropriate with respect to the Iranian leadership, “the only language they understand is violence.” And hey, I would wager it made former Amb. John Bolton happy, so it’s a win-win.
Think Again 