Can bullying succeed against fanatics?
President Trump has bet that pulling out of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action Iran will force Iran to come to accept major changes in the deal or go under economically. Furthermore, he has gone beyond invoking crippling sanctions to make an implied threat of military action if Iran continues its outlaw ways in the Middle East. Does Trump think Iran is trembling in fear of a U.S. attack?
I wonder. I just took a backward look at the Iran-Iraq War, that lasted from 1980-1988 and cost Iran more than 150,000 lives.* The minimum age for military service in Iran is 15; estimates put the fraction of fatalities aged 15-19 at one third (50 thousand). Iran also sent even younger children into battle. Although Iraq attacked first, Iran pushed the offensive for most of that time. As a fraction of the 1980 population of Iran (38.67 million), it is about 1 out of every 258 Iranians. A proportional loss inflicted on the U.S. today would cost 1,163,000 lives—more than twice the number of U.S. military killed in WWII (405,400), and close to twice the number killed in our Civil War (618,000). Given such past sacrifices, I expect that Iran is ready to let its people starve rather than yield to the U.S. After all, the North Koreans have been doing so for a long time, and Iran has far greater resources, and more friends, than North Korea.
Continue reading “Expecting Iran to Break Is a Risky Bet: Lessons from the Iran-Iraq War”