The Neighbor From Hell

Israel and the United States delivered a blow to Iran. But it could come back stronger.

By Graeme Wood

Photo-illustrations by Alex Merto

Shortly after the end of the Iran-Iraq War, the United States Institute of Peace held an event in Washington, D.C., to discuss the Middle East’s delicate prospects.

Panelists suggested ever more intricate ways to give regional peace a chance, until the neoconservative Michael Ledeen spoke out heretically. “You have heard the case for peace,” he said. “I rise to speak on behalf of war.”

He said that the conflict, which lasted from 1980 to 1988 and killed perhaps a million people, had been “a good war.” And he said that any “peace” between the United States and a government as malevolent as Iran’s would be a sham, and a prelude to more war.

Peace is what happens “when one side imposes conditions on another,” Ledeen told me in 2013. He said it is not enough for both sides to stop fighting. One of them must lose. Ledeen died in May, well into his fifth decade of arguing against peace, or at least a sham peace, with Iran.

War had its chance just weeks later. On June 13, Israel assassinated high-ranking Iranian officials and neutralized Iranian air defenses. During the next 12 days, Israel and Iran traded missile strikes.

About 1,000 Iranians and dozens of Israelis died. Iran’s “Axis of Resistance,” its federation of militias and other allies, did not show up to fight. On June 22, the U.S. bombed three Iranian nuclear sites and declared the conflict over.

The Trump administration said that the country’s nuclear program had been “obliterated,” but no public evidence has confirmed that claim. Ledeen, if he were alive, would no doubt note that at the end of the war, Iran did not accept any cease-fire conditions.

In fact, Iran’s official position is that it never accepted a cease-fire at all.

Now that talk of what happens after war is back, I rise to make the case for déjà vu. The region risks reverting to its default setting, which is peace that has characteristics of war, with Iran planning to attack its enemies but not actively doing so, and vice versa.

“This is a regime on its last legs, but it could last like that for another 20 years,” Michael Doran, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, told me. “They took a blow, but I see no signs that it’s ready to fall.”

In the past, Iran has recovered from its tribulations by revising its strategy and finding novel ways to subvert the United States, Israel, and their interests. It should be expected to recover once more.

Rest of the article coming soon!