On the eve of the current war between the Islamic Republic on one side and the US-Israel tandem on the other, I speculated about six scenarios that might take shape.
It now seems that the scenario chosen by Tehran -- or what is left of its leadership -- is the Samson Option aimed at a long war designed to spread the conflict until the temple collapses on everyone's head.
The choice of that option was based on several assumptions. The first was that President Donald Trump has no patience for getting involved in maze-like situations and that if short and quick success seems unavailable, he would move to another headline-catching endeavor.
Last June, Trump terminated US involvement in Israel's war against Iran in just 37 hours by declaring a ceasefire that neither Israel nor Iran wanted. Trump's sensational Caracas coup lasted only five hours.
The thinking in Tehran was that Israel, too, is nurtured on the narrative of the Six-Day War or the day-long joyride to Beirut in 1982. Because of its lack of geopolitical depth, Israel cannot bear the cost of a long war that would disrupt economic activity as people are rushed to shelters.
Israel's long engagement in Gaza was possible because after the first phase of the conflict, Hamas was unable to attack Israeli territory. Thus, Hamas became an anvil that the Israeli hammer could batter at will for as long as it wished.
The second assumption was that neither the US nor Israel enjoyed a privilege that the Islamic Republic leadership enjoys: ignoring public opinion at home.
In Vietnam, after the Tet Offensive, the US had won the war in military terms but ended up losing because of widespread opposition at home and across world public opinion. In 2009, Israel could have eliminated Hamas in Gaza but stopped midstream because of opposition at home and pressure from Washington.
Tehran's calculation is that Israel and the US cannot long tolerate a large number of casualties, while the Islamic Republic could do so with its weird doctrine of martyrdom.
On Wednesday, Ali Larijani, the man put in charge of national security by the late Ali Khamenei, claimed that Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) forces had killed over 500 Americans in the first three days of the war. If that is true, which I don't think it is, at that rate US losses could top 20,000 in just three or four weeks.
Source: Gatestone Institute :: Articles
