Did the US misjudge Iran? What this war reveals — Talk to Al Jazeera

[0:00] As the fighting pauses in the U.S.-Israel war on Iran, at least for now, a more difficult question begins to emerge. [0:14] Not who struck hardest, but whether this war was ever clearly defined to begin with. [0:21] Because from the outset, Washington's objectives appeared to shift from dismantling Iran's nuclear program to full-scale regime change, [0:30] and then finally settling on degrading its military capabilities. [0:36] And yet, despite overwhelming force, Iran's leadership structure has adapted, its military networks have endured, [0:44] and its most consequential lever may still be firmly in place, the Strait of Hormuz. [0:51] So did Washington misunderstand the nature of the conflict it was entering? [0:55] And if the most decisive pressure point in this war remains untouched, what in fact has been achieved? [1:03] Former Pentagon official Brian Clark, a specialist in naval warfare and military strategy, talks to Al Jazeera. [1:11] Brian Clark, thank you for talking to Al Jazeera. [1:19] I want to look at all of the detail of the current conflict in a moment, [1:23] but can I start with a theoretical military theory question? [1:27] How do you assess success in warfare, whether a country wins or loses a war? [1:33] Is it about military firepower, or is it about the strategy? [1:38] Well, things are up and beyond. I appreciate it. [1:40] I think it's definitely much more about strategy. [1:43] It's about can you achieve the outcomes that you had laid out at the start of the conflict, [1:49] and can you achieve acceptable results, because those outcomes might change over the time that the conflict is going on. [1:57] But it's much more about strategy than it is about strictly achieving some level of attrition against the opponent or taking a certain amount of territory. [2:05] So, with this particular war, is it clear to you what the strategic goals were? [2:12] Because, I'll be honest, I've heard so many different rationales, goals and objectives. [2:17] Going back to January, it was going to be about coming to help the protesters. [2:23] Help is on the way, is what the president said. [2:25] Then at the State of the Union in February, it was about Iran having a missile that could reach the US. [2:30] Then it was about Iran's nuclear program. [2:33] Then when the war started on the first night, the president urged people to rise up, suggesting regime change was the aim. [2:42] It's been all over the place, hasn't it? [2:45] Absolutely. [2:45] I think at the beginning, the goal was simply to achieve regime change by collapsing the top level of the Iranian leadership. [2:54] And then the hope was that the bottom levels would dissipate and that the people could then rise up and establish a different form of government. [3:02] I think that was the early on goal. [3:04] And that's why the decapitation attack against the leaders of Iran was the first day's action. [3:10] And then when that didn't materialize, then they had to come up with some other rationales to allow for a wider range of outcomes and then be able to claim victory on those wider range of outcomes. [3:23] And that's why you've seen the proliferation of goals, because they're looking for something that they can actually achieve and count as accomplished to give them the face-saving exit that they're looking for. [3:35] But isn't that the wrong way around? [3:37] How can you be successful in a war if you haven't settled on what you want to achieve at the beginning? [3:44] Well, I mean, arguably, you can be successful if you're very flexible in your objectives. [3:50] So you can claim victory based on a changing range of goals, and that's in part what they're trying to do. [3:57] Now, that's not necessarily the right way to conduct a war, because if you're going to go to the expense and the potential risk of starting a conflict, you'd ideally like to have some way of calling it done and being able to exit the conflict once you start. [4:12] Because if you continue to change your objectives, that's a recipe for protraction and a recipe for getting bogged down in a long-term confrontation. [4:21] Of course, this was a military operation involving the US, but not the US alone. [4:26] I think it is interesting some of the reporting that's since emerged of what happened in February. [4:30] February the 11th, a meeting at the White House Situation Room, where it wasn't the President of the United States at the head of the table. [4:40] It was the Prime Minister Israel, and the President sitting in one of the other seats making the case for war was the leader of another country. [4:50] Does that surprise you? [4:52] It does. [4:54] Normally, you'd expect, at least when you're in the US, you'd have the US proposing a path forward. [5:00] I mean, I think we've had, historically, there's been cases where you've had multiple allies come together, formulate a plan in concert with one another, and then move out on that. [5:10] I mean, you could think of the World War II example. [5:12] You can even think of the example of Operation Desert Storm, when the US pushed Iraqi forces out of Kuwait, where allies came together to formulate a plan. [5:21] But in those cases, the US was largely in the lead, and at least when it came to what US forces were going to do, US leaders were going to make those decisions. [5:31] And this seems like it was much more of an operation that was initiated by Israel, and then the US sort of came along. [5:39] And as you know, Prime Minister Netanyahu has been warning about Iran's nuclear program. [5:45] He's been saying that Iran is imminent to getting a nuclear weapon. [5:50] The thing is, he's been saying that for 30 years, continuously. [5:55] And we've heard from Secretary of State John Kerry that he tried to persuade previous presidents to launch a war. [6:00] Did the US end up fighting someone else's war? [6:03] Well, the US, I mean, I think clearly the president wanted to pursue some kind of action against Iran. [6:11] He was unhappy with the JCPOA that had been negotiated by the Obama administration, and he tore that up when he came into office last time. [6:19] He's talked in the past about how he's wanted to go after Iran in retaliation, in some cases, for their 1979 hostage seizure. [6:29] So there's been a longstanding, I guess, effort by the president to try to do something about Iran. [6:36] And I think he was looking for a legacy measure that would change Iran permanently into a at least neutral, if not more favorable state to the United States. [6:47] So this is not a new thing for the president to be pursuing. [6:50] I think what's new is the perceived opening that was created by the 12-day war last year and by the internal challenges that Iran has had. [7:01] And I think both the US and Israeli leadership thought this was a time when they might be able to finally bring the regime to heel for good because it was on its back foot. [7:11] And I think that reflects maybe a lack of historical grounding because Iran is not going to be a country that's easily dislodged from its current leadership structure. [7:23] When you look at previous large wars in the Middle East, and I'm thinking about Operation Desert Storm, a 42-nation coalition back in 1991, or Iraqi Freedom in 2003, Israel was not involved. [7:39] Israel was seen by the allies who were involved as too politically toxic to actually involve in the war. [7:48] And on this occasion, those allies that in the past have joined the US, it seems most of them weren't even consulted. [7:54] Does that surprise you? [7:57] It does surprise me they weren't consulted because it seems like at least you'd want to give them the warning that oil and gas supplies are going to be disrupted from the Middle East. [8:07] So at least they have some indication, some idea of what might be happening so they can make some preparations. [8:14] I think the US and Israeli plan was to go it alone, whether the allies were on board or not. [8:23] So I think consulting the allies would have been mainly just to give them that kind of heads up that this was going to happen. [8:29] And there was no expectation that they might help out early on. [8:34] So it's unusual they weren't consulted. [8:37] I can see the practical reason why they didn't feel like it was necessary. [8:41] But now as we get to the, you know, now we are in the later stages of the conflict, it would have been beneficial to have the allies at least knowing that this was going to happen, [8:49] so that they could perhaps be better partners in dealing with ramifications of it, such as the closure of the Strait of Hormuz and the need to potentially clear minds through the Strait. [8:59] In the past, Donald Trump had made it clear that he didn't want to get involved in foreign wars. [9:03] And he's pretty limited in his military action in his first term. [9:08] We had that war last year against Iran, and then we had the special forces operation in Venezuela, taking out Nicolas Maduro, the president of Venezuela, capturing him. [9:20] Do you think that President Trump became seduced by the military because of those successes? [9:27] He became overconfident, and this was a case of hubris? [9:31] I definitely think that the White House and the administration probably became overconfident because of these successes, not just in those, [9:41] but the efforts they've had in Nigeria and other parts of Africa to go after terrorist and rebel groups. [9:49] They've had a series of successes during this term in terms of using the military in targeted ways to deal with very specific problems. [9:57] The military action removed Maduro, but then that gives you more power for the diplomacy to work out an agreement with his successor. [10:04] And I think that's what they were hoping to do here is that if we can take some actions that neutralize the Iranian power projection capability [10:13] and we eliminate their top-level leadership, then maybe they capitulate and we can get to some negotiated settlement. [10:19] But when that was not forthcoming, they didn't slow down the military tool. [10:24] They just kept doubling down the military tool. [10:27] And I think that that confidence coming in there from those previous successes led them to think that that same military tool would be able to catalyze diplomacy [10:37] and give them a success in a short period of time. [10:40] And when it didn't, they didn't really have a plan B. [10:43] They didn't have an off-ramp that they could use to then further perpetuate the diplomacy [10:48] and try to reach some kind of negotiated settlement. [10:52] Let's talk about how this war started. [10:55] It has been reported that the timing of the start was down to intelligence, quite remarkable intelligence, by the Israelis and their Mossad, their spy service. [11:07] They knew that there was a high-level meeting with the Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, present, and they decided to stage a decapitation strike. [11:18] Did they use their best card first? [11:22] Yes. [11:22] I mean, we would, in strategy, we would sometimes call that the escalation trap, where you early on use the highest escalation action you have, which gives you a few, doesn't give you any moves after that. [11:37] So in the case of Iran, the highest escalation action you can take is to attempt to take out the leadership because it's an authoritarian regime. [11:44] It doesn't have traditional centers of power like you would see in a more democratic society. [11:51] So if you go after the regime leadership, that's the worst thing you can do right off the bat. [11:56] And when that fails to dislodge them and fails to result in regime change, then you're left with just perpetuating the conflict and hoping that a protracted conflict will somehow impose enough costs that the regime will seek a negotiated settlement. [12:12] Whereas you might normally, if you're mounting this kind of action, step up the escalation ladder by starting with attacks against military systems or by blockading the country, and then eventually work up to attacks on the leadership as sort of the threat that you leave out there until the very end. [12:31] Because they went and put themselves into this escalation trap, now they're forced to just perpetuate the conflict in the hopes that eventually a negotiated settlement will emerge. [12:41] The Secretary of Defence, of course, the administration, called him the Secretary of War, but Pete Hegseth, let me read this quote to you. [12:49] The most lethal and precise air power campaign in history. [12:55] But isn't there a problem here, a limit to what you can achieve with just air power, without boots on the ground? [13:02] There definitely is a limit. [13:04] For one, you can only attack targets that you can see and that are reachable from the air. [13:10] So things that are buried, things that are hidden, are not going to be amenable to airstrikes. [13:15] So clearly that takes a series of targets off the table. [13:19] And then if you've got a country that has been preparing for this and is maybe used to some kind of level of privation, [13:26] making these kinds of attacks has limited impact, because the regime may not feel bound to do anything about the people suffering, [13:36] at least in the near term, and the regime may still be stable with even a small number of weapons remaining, which is the case here. [13:44] So the high capacity, highly accurate firepower strike approach is limited against any adversary, [13:54] but certainly limited against this adversary, which has been hiding and burying its capabilities [13:59] and is able to exert power in the region, even with a relatively small military force because of geography. [14:07] Well, let's look at that. Let's look at Iran's strategy, because it clearly had prepared for this sort of attack [14:14] and maybe learnt some lessons from that war in 2015. [14:19] They went to a plan of decentralisation. [14:23] Already the Iranian system has many centres of power, [14:26] but they actually decentralised their military resources across 31 regions of the country, [14:33] 31 separate commands. They called it the Mosaic Defence. [14:37] It was very successful, was it not? [14:39] It was. This decentralised approach meant that even with communications cut off [14:46] because of US attacks on the communication infrastructure and US jamming operations, [14:53] these individual cells could operate independently and be successful. [14:57] The other dimension of this that's important is because Iran sits along a vital national waterway, [15:07] or international waterway, those small cells that are along the coast between Karg Island to the northwest [15:13] and all the way down through Bandar Abbas out to the coast on the southeast, [15:19] those cells could then exert control over the Strait of Hormuz or threaten shipping and neighbours [15:25] on the other side of the Persian Gulf. [15:27] Even at small scales, they were able to exert pretty high costs on their Gulf neighbours. [15:35] So you don't have to have a very large military when you've got geography on your side. [15:39] They clearly had geography on their side, yet remarkably, [15:43] President Trump said he wasn't expecting the attack on the Gulf nations. [15:49] He said they weren't supposed to go after these other countries in the Middle East. [15:53] Nobody expected that. [15:56] We were shocked. [15:57] I mean, was there a lack of planning here, or did no-one explain it to the Commander-in-Chief? [16:02] I think it was probably they didn't explain it, [16:04] because I've been involved in plenty of war games. [16:07] We just did a couple of war games for the Department of War a month ago [16:11] and looked at various aspects of a conflict like this, for example. [16:14] And this is an expected action, that we would expect the Iranians at some point [16:19] to try to cut off access to the Strait of Hormuz, [16:22] which is normally a pretty escalatory action on their part. [16:26] So the expectation has always been it would take... [16:29] You'd have to get pretty far into a conflict before they would do it. [16:33] And then the expectation was they would attack bases around the region, [16:37] such as in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and in Bahrain. [16:41] Maybe less of an expectation that they would attack Gulf countries' oil and gas infrastructure, [16:46] but apparently that's where the Iranians decided to go. [16:50] But a lot of these attacks were anticipated in our war gaming and the planning that we've done. [16:54] So I think this is mostly a case of those military leaders not wanting to go to the president [16:59] and give him a bunch of if-then statements about what might happen once this war starts. [17:05] Brian, some analysts have said in this war, Iran is playing chess, [17:10] and yet the U.S. is playing poker. [17:15] I think... I mean, yeah, the... [17:17] I would say our military planners anticipated most of what we've seen from the Iranians [17:22] and in the war games that we've done, that I've done even recently, [17:27] and incorporated a lot of these actions. [17:29] I would say one thing we didn't expect was maybe the level of attacks [17:32] on civilian infrastructure that the Iranians executed. [17:34] I think the other thing that maybe hasn't been until now fully baked into U.S. planning [17:39] is the prevalence of drones and the ability of drones to exert pretty high costs [17:45] and even evade missile defenses. [17:48] I think a lot of the U.S. plans were sort of still reflecting Iran's ballistic missile threat, [17:54] the cruise missile threat, the attack boat type of threat, [17:58] but not necessarily the scale of the one-way attack drone threat that they pose now. [18:05] So there's a couple of things where I think the U.S. plans were fallen... [18:08] had fallen short maybe, but a lot of this was anticipated. [18:11] I think it was more like they had not really conveyed it to the leadership [18:15] that was making decisions about going to war [18:17] because of a desire to avoid having to give bad news [18:22] or explain a lot of potential consequences [18:26] that nobody in the leadership was willing to hear. [18:28] There's often something described as the fog of war, [18:32] but in this particular conflict, some of the fog of war [18:35] seems to have come from the commander-in-chief himself, [18:39] constantly changing his position, ultimatums, threats, flips and reverses. [18:44] How frustrating do you think that has been [18:46] to military commanders, military officials who used to serve in the Pentagon? [18:51] How frustrating do you think sometimes that's been [18:54] to those in the chain of command? [18:58] You know, surprisingly, in this conflict, [19:00] I think it maybe hasn't been as frustrating as you'd think it would be. [19:04] So because the military forces' direction [19:08] has been pretty straightforward, right? [19:10] They've been given... they've been pursuing target packages [19:13] and they've been striking a certain set of targets [19:15] and they've had an order in which they're doing it. [19:17] A lot of these plans have been built long in advance [19:20] and they've been updated over time. [19:21] And so they're executing plans that they've already had in place. [19:26] And the response of strikes, for example, against missile launchers, [19:30] you know, that's something that they've been planning to do for a long time. [19:32] So at that tactical level, [19:34] commanders are probably just carrying out the actions [19:38] that they expected to carry out. [19:40] And the back and forth from the commander-in-chief [19:43] and the secretary of war, the secretary of state, [19:46] those don't really impact them that much. [19:48] I think where the frustration probably comes in [19:51] is at the senior commander's level. [19:53] So at the central command level, the four-star level, [19:56] the chairman of the joint chiefs, [19:57] those folks are probably somewhat frustrated [20:00] with the fact that the goalposts keep moving around [20:03] because they have to formulate a tactical plan [20:05] that carries out or that achieves the objectives [20:08] that the commander-in-chief has provided. [20:10] And so those objectives change. [20:12] They have to continue to reevaluate the tactical plans. [20:14] But I think once you get down below their level, [20:16] on the execution side, it's been fairly straightforward. [20:20] And it really hasn't been too... [20:24] There hasn't been too much deviation, I guess I would say. [20:28] In any big campaign like this, [20:31] there is information warfare as well. [20:34] Have you been concerned by some of the rhetoric [20:37] that's been coming from the top levels of the Pentagon? [20:40] I mean, there was an attack in the early hours of the war. [20:44] A US Tomahawk missile, we believe, killed at least 175 people, [20:49] most of them schoolchildren. [20:52] And yet the US, it knows it did it, [20:55] but it's not prepared to say it [20:57] and it's not prepared to show transparency. [21:00] And when questioned about this, [21:01] the Secretary of Defence, Pete Hexeth, attacks the press. [21:06] I mean, surely it's not a good thing [21:08] to be blaming the messengers [21:09] when you're trying to win over, [21:11] we used to hear the phrase a lot, [21:12] the hearts and minds of the people of Iran [21:15] and the people of the world. [21:18] Yeah, so that is frustrating. [21:20] And that gets to this mismatch [21:24] between what the commander-in-chief of the leadership [21:27] is saying and what the military forces are doing. [21:30] Because I think early on, [21:33] some of the leaders, such as the president [21:35] and the secretary of war might have said [21:36] they were trying to spawn a regime change [21:40] or create conditions so that the people of Iran [21:42] could rise up against their political system. [21:46] But of course, the tactical actions [21:48] that they've directed are not consistent with that [21:51] because they've been attacking targets [21:53] and in some cases, like the school, [21:55] attacking targets mistakenly [21:56] that are going to actually undermine the goal [21:59] of getting the population to rise up [22:02] against its oppressors. [22:03] So there's a little bit of a mismatch there [22:07] between what the rhetoric is coming out of the top [22:09] and then the actions they've directed [22:10] by those that are executing the war. [22:12] We have a ceasefire now [22:14] and we have a different sort of military operation. [22:17] The US has decided to launch a naval blockade. [22:21] The idea to stop the Iranian closing [22:24] of the Strait of Hormuz, [22:26] to stop the Iranians doing it, [22:28] the US is doing something similar. [22:30] Are you clear about what the objectives are [22:32] of that particular operation? [22:36] I think what the... [22:38] I mean, I think the goal is actually [22:40] to prevent Iran from benefiting [22:43] from its toll booth concept [22:45] where by implying that the Strait of Hormuz [22:48] is mined or closed, [22:50] they've incentivized shipping companies [22:53] to use the path that's closest to Iran [22:55] and then they can charge a toll notionally [22:58] to allow them to use that. [23:00] So the US is trying to deny Iran the benefit of that [23:03] by preventing any ships from coming out [23:05] that have gone through that channel. [23:08] But, Brian, on that point, [23:10] I mean, if you are trying to stop Iran from benefiting, [23:15] isn't the problem that Iran is a country [23:17] that's had sanctions since 1979, [23:20] is very resilient, [23:22] this policy might take a very long time [23:25] and in the meantime, [23:27] the global economy is going to suffer even more. [23:32] Oh, absolutely. [23:33] I would argue that the blockade [23:35] is like another example of this escalation trap. [23:38] Because we did our most escalatory action [23:41] at the very beginning, [23:42] the administration is now casting about [23:45] for other things they can do [23:46] to try to impose costs on the Iranian regime [23:49] in the hopes that they'll come to the table [23:51] with a more amenable settlement. [23:54] But I agree with you, [23:55] this is not going to impose [23:56] very significant costs on Iran [23:58] because all of the money [23:59] they were getting from these tolls [24:00] was free money [24:01] they weren't expecting to get anyway. [24:03] And the amount of exports coming out of Iran [24:05] was already very low. [24:06] So it wasn't like they were going to be stopping [24:08] a significant amount of Iran's oil [24:11] from reaching the market. [24:12] So they're really not adding [24:13] any additional costs on Iran. [24:16] And what I think the administration is hoping, though, [24:18] is by mounting this military operation, [24:20] they're going to create conditions [24:22] where maybe shipping can be restored [24:24] from non-Iranian ports along the strait. [24:28] So I think what this is in part doing [24:30] is having naval ships go out there. [24:32] They're doing some demining [24:33] or mine hunting right now. [24:35] And they're hoping that perhaps [24:36] they can create conditions [24:38] so that here in a week or two, [24:40] they can demonstrate [24:41] that the strait is actually open [24:43] and that shipping [24:44] from non-Iranian ports can proceed. [24:46] And how easy is that going to be? [24:49] How easy, Brown, is that going to be [24:51] to reassure shipping companies [24:54] to actually send their vessels back [24:56] and their insurance companies to let them? [24:59] You mentioned, for example, sea mines. [25:01] And it's not clear, actually, [25:03] whether anything has been mined. [25:05] But the fear that it might be [25:07] means no-one wants to send their vessels. [25:11] Well, the U.S. has already sent [25:13] a couple of ships up to the strait. [25:15] I get the impression [25:16] that they are already doing [25:17] mine hunting operations [25:18] with remote vehicles [25:20] or unmanned vehicles [25:21] based on what CENTCOM has been announcing. [25:24] So what I expect is that the U.S. [25:26] will continue those [25:27] mine hunting operations [25:29] to verify there's a clear path. [25:31] And then what the U.S. will have to do, [25:33] to your point, [25:33] they're going to have to drive [25:34] military ships up and down the strait [25:36] to demonstrate that it's mine-free. [25:38] And then they're going to have to [25:40] maintain that presence of military ships [25:42] to reassure shipping companies [25:44] that they're going to be defended [25:45] in the event that there are attacks [25:47] by the Iranian forces along the coast. [25:49] Brian, military operations of the U.S. [25:52] often have unusual code names. [25:55] But this one is called Operation Epic Fury. [25:59] Whose fury? [26:01] And should military operations [26:02] be conducted in anger? [26:04] I think the name is probably part [26:08] of this whole rebranding [26:09] that the Department of War [26:11] is trying to do [26:12] by making the military [26:15] seem more aggressive [26:16] and more assertive [26:18] than, I guess, [26:19] the perception had been in the past. [26:21] So I think this rebranding [26:23] is an effort to, I guess, [26:25] scare people by, [26:27] and maybe instill more confidence [26:29] in military personnel. [26:30] I don't think it's necessary. [26:32] But it's part of that. [26:35] There may be more diplomacy [26:37] to play out. [26:39] And clearly there may be more talks [26:41] that are more successful [26:42] than the first talks in Islamabad. [26:45] Iran has been degraded militarily. [26:47] It's lost a large part [26:49] of its leadership. [26:50] It's lost substantial damage, [26:52] suffered substantial damage [26:53] to its infrastructure. [26:55] But if things stay [26:56] exactly as they are now, [26:58] what is your assessment? [26:59] Is Iran now more dangerous [27:03] to the U.S. [27:04] than it was before the war [27:06] or less dangerous? [27:09] I'd say more. [27:10] More dangerous to the U.S. [27:13] because the tool it has now [27:16] is the Strait of Hormuz [27:18] because they really couldn't [27:20] threaten the U.S. directly otherwise. [27:23] But now they can threaten [27:24] the U.S. economy [27:24] by closing the Strait of Hormuz [27:26] and raising energy prices [27:28] and damaging the world economy [27:29] in a way that that would have [27:31] affected the U.S. [27:32] much more than any other [27:33] military action [27:34] they could have taken. [27:35] So I feel like [27:36] by breaking the seal, [27:38] if you will, [27:39] on closing the Strait of Hormuz [27:41] as an acceptable military response, [27:44] we've now made it [27:45] part of their toolkit. [27:48] Whereas before, [27:49] it was a theoretical possibility [27:51] that Iran would only take [27:52] in the most extreme circumstances. [27:54] Now, I think they would view it [27:56] as one of their first actions [27:58] is to close the Strait of Hormuz [28:00] if they perceive [28:01] that they're under attack [28:02] or if they don't like [28:03] the way the negotiations [28:04] are going regarding [28:05] their nuclear program [28:06] for a lot of different reasons, [28:08] they might choose [28:09] to threaten shipping [28:10] and get the world to now [28:12] have to come and compensate them [28:14] or compromise with them somehow. [28:17] Brian Clark, [28:18] thank you for talking to Al Jazeera. [28:22] Thank you. [28:23] I appreciate the opportunity.