Sober Mornings--Killing the Quds Commander

Yesterday the United States used an unmanned drone to kill the commander of the Quds forces of the Iranian military in his car near the airport in Baghdad. Gen. Qassem Soleimani had been instrumental in building up Iranian alliances with various militia forces in the Middle East, including, Hezbullah in Lebanon, Shai militias in Iraq, Houthi rebels in Somalia, and Islamic Jihad in Gaza. A Pentagon statement justified the killing because Soleimani had been "actively developing plans to attack American diplomats and service members in Iraq and throughout the region.”
This is a very dangerous moment. Iranians are outraged and have promised “severe revenge.” (Already today a man with a knife and an explosive vest stabbed several people in a park in France.)

Danger that spirals
One of the dangers with using violence is that it is hard to calibrate. Say someone hits you. You decide to hit back. But when you hit them you can’t feel how much the blow hurts. You know exactly how much they hurt you. But it’s hard to have empathy for someone you’re hitting—to feel their pain. You may think that you’ve hit them exactly as hard as they hit you (thus reestablishing a rough justice of pain). But in your desire to get revenge, you are likely to hit them a little harder than they hit you. They’ll be outraged and feel that the scales of justice are now out of balance again. They’ll feel the need to hit you back, and will likely hit you back a little harder than you hit them.
And so it goes, spiraling up and up until other parties are drawn into the conflict and general war erupts in the Middle East.
Imagine this rather plausible series of events. U.S. soldiers in Iraq and Syria are attacked at their bases with rockets, killing twenty-two. A popular resort in Spain, where U.S. tourists (escaping the cold of winter) are gathered, is attacked by ten masked terrorists and forty-two civilians (thirty-one of whom are Americans) are killed. The United States responds with attacks against Iranian military bases in Iran. Thousands of Iranians are killed. Two F-35s are lost.
Fighting erupts in the Strait of Hormuz as Iranian forces sink four oil tankers and effectively shut off a large percentage of Europe and the United States’ oil supply. World economies nosedive as oil prices skyrocket. President Trump declares war on Iran (without reference to Congress) and general fighting commences in the region. Heavy fighting breaks out in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, the Gulf of Oman, and Yemen as Iranian-backed militias attack every target of opportunity they can reach. Refineries in Saudi Arabia are bombed continually. The United States carries out heavy bombing raids on Iranian targets, including targets in cities that kill large numbers of civilians. Israel is subjected to constant rocket attacks and Israeli forces invade parts of Lebanon and Syria to try to get at the places where the rockets are being launched from.
Unable to sit on the sidelines, Turkish army units forcibly round up U.S. troops at Incirlik Airbase, expel them, and take control of 18 U.S. nuclear weapons stored there. Soon Turkey is offering several of the weapons, with their permissive action links disabled, to Iran.
The Russians declare that they will support the Iranians, Lebanese, Syrians, Houthis, and Iraqis in their “justified” resistance to American aggression. It is only a few steps from this point to war in Iran with the United States and Russia on opposite sides of the conflict and the chance of large scale use of nuclear weapons increasing by the day.
It is worth remembering that World War I was begun by the killing of a single individual, the assassination of an Austrian Archduke. Millions died as a result of that single spark.

The moral
This morning is a reminder of how dangerous it is to have a system that puts complete and unchecked control of nuclear weapons in the hands of the United States president. The current U.S. president is under enormous pressure as a result of his impeachment and the spiraling situation in North Korea (where Kim Jong Un has promised, in veiled language, to resume missile and nuclear weapons tests.) The president feels powerless to hit back at his Congressional and political opponents and he feels humiliated by the obvious failure of his attempts to negotiate with Kim Jong Un.
It may be that Gen. Soleimani was indeed planning attacks against Americans. It is a claim that will be difficult to either prove or disprove. But what is certain is that this attack is particularly well timed to change the political conversation in the United States and to meet the emotional needs of the current occupant of the White House.
Americans may well die in the near future. Probably soldiers. Possibly tourists or people working abroad. There may even be attacks here in the United States. Do you have faith that the president has weighed these risks carefully? Are you certain that this move, with its risk of escalation, and even the possibility of nuclear war, is justified?
President Trump has demonstrated his lack of self-control, his quick anger, and his unwillingness to abide by established norms of morality, honesty, or honor. Some have suggested that he is unable to feel empathy for others. Yet, under our system, the United States president is given unlimited control over our nuclear weapons.
Kelly Magsamen, who worked at the National Security Council under two different presidents, just tweeted: “I’m honestly terrified right now that we don’t have a functioning national security process to evaluate options and prepare for contingencies. God help us.”
Our president has lit the match. Has he really thought through all the consequences?

Yesterday’s killing of an Iranian general is a reminder of how close to catastrophe we stand.