Scribblings

Talking About Iran

This Scribbling is about the decision of the US and Israel to launch an ariel attack on Iran, looked at through the eyes of an old labour negotiator.

In our book, Respect, Thoughts on Workplace Collective Bargaining (here), Rick Warters and I lay out a systematic approach to the preparation and conduct of negotiations between management and employee representatives, whether the representatives be a trade union, a works councils, or some other form of legitimate representatives of employee in the workplace, as provided for by national law or practice.

We talk about the need to have clear objectives, do thorough preparation and planning, get a mandate approved by stakeholders, and have a detailed plan of execution. And focus on the follow-up. You need to have identified your options if the negotiations fail. You should also try to put yourself in the shoes of the other party and work out in advance how they will react to your proposals and what they will do if the negotiations break down. You should not be surprised by anything that happens. If you are surprised, then you haven’t planned.

All of this involved much work. If you launch a negotiation without having put in the hard yards, you are either bound to fail or else come up with a second-best agreement. You can’t “make it up as you go along”.

In looking at what has been happening in the Iran war, I am using the framework that Rick and I set out in our book.

The Guardian columnist. Jonathan Freedland says:

The goals identified by Donald Trump have shifted daily, if not hourly. One minute he wants regime change, the next he seeks merely an end to Iran’s nuclear programme. At breakfast, he insists on unconditional surrender; by lunchtime, he’s open to negotiation. here

In other words, there was not one clearly defined objective before the strikes on Iran began. When you do not know what you want, you are never going to get it, or probably get anything for that matter. You end up with a mess from which it can be difficult to find a way out.

There definitely does not seem to have been any in-depth planning before the strikes were launched. It appears that the working assumption was that if the US and Israel dropped enough bombs in wave after wave of blitzkrieg strikes, Iran would quickly collapse and surrender. That did not happen and was never likely to happen.

As an aside, here is a question. Since the end of WW11, is there any war in which the US has engaged that it has actually won? By victory, I mean that there is a stable, democratic government responsive to the needs of the people of the country in place after the war ends.

Can you describe what happened in Korea as a win? The country remains divided into two parts, and the bad side has atomic weapons. It definitely did not win in Vietnam, which today is a one-party Communist state. Nor did it win in Afghanistan, probably the most backwards-looking country in the world. And I am not sure that you can describe the current state of Iraq as a US victory.

Snatching Maduro from Venezuela was no victory as the country remains in the hands of a bunch of thugs, except they are thugs more responsive to US demands, especially when it comes to oil. Venezuelans are not any freer now than they were when Maduro held power.

In all of the wars listed above, there were countless US “boots on the ground”, and still the US did not prevail. Did Trump and his team think he could do from the air what former US presidents could not do from the ground? It seems they did. But then, when you have a reality TV star for president and a Fox News channel presenter as “Secretary of War”, what can you expect?

They seem to see the whole thing as some form of TV spectacular. As Trump said to ABC News: “I hope you are impressed. How do you like the performance? I mean, Venezuela is obvious. This might be even better. How do you like the performance?

When it comes to anticipating how the other side might react, the administration seemed shocked that the Iranians might strike back. As Francis Fukuyama puts it, Trump and his associates:

... failed to anticipate Iran’s capacity to strike back, as it launched rounds of missiles and drones at U.S. allies and bases in the region, disrupting Gulf economies and raising gasoline prices in the United States.

In an interview with NBC News, President Trump said he was “surprised” that US allies in the Gulf have been targeted by Iran. He said it was “the biggest surprise I had of this whole thing.”

It would seem that Trump thought that if he took out the Supreme Leader of Iran, Ayatollah Khomeini, he could replace him with a compliant leader who would bow to American demands, as he had done earlier in Venezuela. That was never going to happen. While the theocratic regime in Iran, like Venezuela, is also run by a bunch of thugs, who thought nothing of gunning down around 30,000 protesters in January of this year, it has deep theological and ideological roots. Iran is run by true believers, and true believers cannot be easily bought, like some second-rate thug in Venezuela.

One Khomeini was replaced by another, harder-line Khomeini.

Further, as it has done, Iran can close the Strait of Hormuz, a chokepoint through which a substantial amount of world oil supplies pass. In any conflict, you use all the leverage you have, and Hormuz gives the Iranians some significant leverage. Pete Hegseth, the Secretary of War, in a somewhat bizarre comment, said that the Strait would be open for shipping if only the Irianians would stop shooting:

“The only thing prohibiting transit in the straits right now is Iran shooting at shipping. It is open for transit should Iran not do that”.

Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, told Fox News that one of the reasons President Trump launched Operation Epic Fury was that the Iranians might close the Strait:

“The fact that the terrorists are holding the global oil industry hostage by threatening to shut down the Strait of Hormuz just underscores the need for President Trump to launch this operation in the first place”

The Strait was open for business before the attack began. The attack is the reason it is now closed. There is some flawed logic in Leavitt’s statement.

In other words, as Hegseth sees it, the Strait is not open because the Iranians will not stop shooting. A bit like you starting a fist fight and then complaining that the other guy is hitting you back. You would be winning only for the fact that he is fighting back. How unfair.

The UK-based writer, Nick Cohen, reports the comments of a former US defence official who told CNN that every previous US president had focused on the danger to oil and gas shipments through the Strait:

“Planning around preventing this exact scenario…has been a bedrock principle of US national security policy for decades,” he said as he watched the oil markets go haywire. “I’m dumbfounded.”

Unlike previous administrations, it is clear that those who started the war never put themselves in “Iranian shoes” and figured out what the Iranians might do in response.

As I write this, the media is reporting Donald Trump as saying that other nations will be sending ships to keep the Strait of Hormuz open and that it should have been a “team effort” from the start. But how can it be a team effort if you do not inform and consult with your allies beforehand? If you expect them to be stakeholders in what you plan to do, you need to tell them and get their input. You cannot expect them to blindly follow.

Stakeholder buy-in beforehand is always critical to the success of any project.

Finally, President Trump told ABC News’ Jonathan Karl on Thursday that he isn’t concerned about what comes next after the war with Iran.

“Forget about next,” he replied to a question about the future of Iran, Karl reported on X. “They are decimated for a 10-year period before they could build it back.”

Another pile of rubble in the Middle East. A sure basis for peace and stability. Some operation. Some plan. Some success.