Isaac Saul (18:49)
All right, that is it for the left and the right and some writers from abroad are saying. Which brings us to my take. I think a good deal of the chaos that we've seen in the last few weeks can be attributed to a fractured and chaotic Iranian government. To grasp why I think it's important to revisit the Iranian government's pre war makeup. On the theocratic side, which is the side with all the power, there's the supreme Leader at the top, in this case Ayatollah Khamenei. He is the ultimate authority. And then underneath him there's the irgc, the Revolutionary Guard, this guardian council that vets candidates and laws, and then the judiciary, which is appointed by the Supreme Leader. On the other side of Iranian's government is the quote, unquote, elected institutions. That's the President, the parliament, the cabinet, the ministry. Some of those people take part in negotiations. These people are vetted by the Supreme Leader, but they operate a little bit separately. The theocratic state of the government up top holds most of the power. The Supreme Leader, he directs all of the military power, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, or irgc, while the Guardian Council approves all of the elect legislators. The Ayatollah's handpicked parliamentary fell mostly in line with him, but at times it splits. And one notable example, the President Masoud Pezeshkian, who ran as a reformer and was almost certainly allowed to win because Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei wanted to relieve some tension, was much more permissive than Khamenei. During the January protests, Possesskian even went as far as to say the regime must listen to the people. Now the Supreme Leader is dead, as are a long list of senior officials in the irgc, including the secretary of the Supreme National Security Council, the intelligence minister, a top nuclear advisor, the commander in chief of the irgc, the Defense Minister, the chief of staff of Iran's armed forces, and the Navy intelligence chief, just to name a few. The United States was hoping that in the vacuum created by the deaths of these leaders, reformers like Possesskian would rise up and some have, to a degree. Iran's foreign minister, who serves under Pizzki and has been at the center of negotiations to end the war. Yet by and large, a reform minded Iranian government has not emerged. In fact, the opposite has happened. Iran's new younger supreme leader is reportedly more extreme, read theocratic and anti Western than his predecessor. And the new IRGC leadership is also more radical. Iran's new national security chief is Mohammed Bagr Zogadir, who is so radical that Qasem Soleimani, the general Trump assassinated in 2020, once reportedly quit his role in the military in protest over Zolgar's views. Anti Western hardliners are dominating military decision making, and they've expressed their ideology and their power by holding the global economy hostage in the Strait of Hormuz, something Ali Khamenei opted not to do when Israel and the United States struck around nuclear facilities last year. The disparity between Iran's negotiating team and its military leadership played out in real time over the Weekend, Iran's foreign minister announced the Strait of Hormuz was fully open after negotiations with the United states. Less than 24 hours later, the IRGC said the waterway was still closed, and they're keeping it closed while the United States attacked an Iranian flagged cargo vessel. Power vacuums aren't usually filled in an orderly manner, and right now, Iran's leadership is unstable. That instability is upstream of the miscommunications, inconsistencies, and inability to land a stable ceasefire, a word that has been so misapplied as to be totally meaningless. We have a ceasefire right now that includes multiple exchanges of fire, constant barrages, and very little negotiating. It is also upstream of intensified crackdowns on dissent and the deployment of regime supporters to the streets of Iran. They recognize their leadership is fragile and they only have one way to keep it hard. Power. We're now on day 51 of the war, and it contains all the ingredients for a prolonged conflict. Nothing speaks to this quite as clearly as the celebration of opening a waterway that was once open before the war started and doesn't actually appear to be open at all. The men across from us at the negotiating table represent a government that is somehow more radical than the one we thought was too radical to negotiate with originally. Iran reportedly still has about 40% of its pre war stock of drones, and it's using the reduction in fighting to dig out missile launchers it's been hiding underground. Its drone capacity could soon return to 60% of what it was pre war. These estimates, like all intelligence, are inexact, but at the very least, they imply that Iran is capable of keeping up the fight. And the new regime seems happy to do so. A week ago, I wrote about the risk of Iran becoming a kind of ambient war, a conflict that fades into the background noise we in the US all become accustomed to. This scenario looks something like this. The United States and Iran work in an uneasy stalemate with few major breakthroughs and the occasional blip. Perhaps Iran kills a US sailor in a drone attack. Or the US Seizes a cargo ship and oil prices temporarily spike. Or the Iranian regime engages in a particularly horrific crackdown on protesters. Or an Israeli rocket hits a civilian center in Beirut. Or maybe a Hezbollah missile breaks through and lands in downtown Tel Aviv. This becomes the new normal, relative quiet, punctuated by big newsy events. Meanwhile, Iran remains controlled by a radical regime, the Middle east remains unstable, and our regional allies remain unsafe, all while stalled negotiations start and stop. And an energy crisis continues to spread across the Eastern Hemisphere. Eventually, some new thing will demand our attention. Maybe China invades Taiwan or Russia tests the border of Poland, or the US reconsiders an incursion into green. Or we all simply turn to the midterms and other domestic matters instead. In time we come to accept the war that did not exist two months ago as a fact of life, and the untold money, blood and even financial sacrifices at home fade into background static. This is my fear. I've made the habit of steel manning alternative views to check this perspective, but that sunny alternative seems less and less likely to me each day. I can make the case, sure, though committing to dominating the Strait would be costly. Our navy is capable of achieving it by confiscating Iranian cargo ships that account for so much of the regime's revenue. We could put Iran in a vice grip that requires them to back off their current demands. Maybe the Gulf states turn against the new leadership to create a kind of unified front that totally isolates Iran fully bringing its theocratic leadership to heel. In a clearly positive development, we have greatly diminished Iran's nuclear program, taking a live Iranian threat off the table. Yet expecting those upsides to lead to long term peace anytime soon, within months or even years feels Pollyannish to me. Iran is already angling for a cash deal from the United States, one much larger than the kind they received from previous administrations. If they don't get it, they will likely use their grip on the Strait of Hormuz to squeeze more money from the West. Remember, Iran's current regime is more radical than the last, and the window for decisive regime change has closed. How other impacted nations respond now will be crucial to determining the length of the conflict. Gulf states and some European and Asian nations are surely infuriated by and scared of the new Iranian regime. But those same countries also need Iran's oil, and the energy pinch they find themselves in is not domestically sustainable. The UAE is already asking the United States for a financial lifeline. I could bet on a future where America's eastern allies stand strong with the US while Western allies join in its war with Iran. Or I could bet on eastern countries desperately meeting whatever condition is asked of them to get their oil from Iran while Western allies criticize the United States from the sidelines. The rational thing is to bet on the latter. Again, we're 51 days into this conflict. We are cheering the opening of a shipping lane that was open pre war and still isn't really open. We're facing a new, more radical regime. We're still grasping for long term peace plans, and we're staring down the barrel of a prolonged global energy crisis. I want to be wrong, but every analytical bone in my body believes this is not a better recipe for a peaceful tomorrow than the one we had just a few months ago. We'll be right back after this quick break.
