In what we might wish was satire from the likes of The Onion, CNN reported Sunday that U.S. Central Command (the command running the war with Iran) sent an email last week to military analysts unabashedly proclaiming that top military leaders “are looking for new creative and unconventional ways to pressure and punish Iran.” CNN cited a source familiar with the message when describing the email’s content and a second source who said a senior U.S. military officer sent the message.
This may be the most straight-forward admission we will get that the country’s plan in Iran is failing.
MS NOW has not independently confirmed the email, but Capt. Timothy Hawkins, a spokesman for CENTCOM, told CNN, “U.S. Central Command has a long history of thinking and working in innovative ways,” and he said Adm. Brad Cooper, head of CENTCOM, “reaches out to members of our great team, regardless of rank, to achieve the highest levels of operational performance possible.”
This may be the most straight-forward admission we will get that the country’s plan in Iran is failing. The floundering about for help directly reflects the Trump administration’s desperate hunt for an off-ramp to its unsuccessful war of choice. The Strait of Hormuz remains straitjacketed, the Iranian drive for nuclear weapons remains unchanged and slowly mounting U.S. military casualties and the price tag of ineffective air strikes are ratcheting up pressure on the White House to end this conflict.
And by the sound of this email, such high-level desperation to achieve something the Trump administration could tout as success while bringing the war to an end has trickled down the military chain of command.
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In addition to it acknowledging the obvious — that the war is not going well — this email is disturbing on several fronts. First, it represents an admission that a long-known truism remains true: that an air campaign alone will not achieve strategic objectives. Such wisdom should have been heeded before the United States dropped thousands of missiles and bombs on Iran.
More worryingly, the request for “creative and unconventional ideas” reveals a military command carelessly subverting thoughtful, institutionalized and professional processes for developing operational plans in favor of a cavalier, ad hoc indiscriminate solicitation for war plans. Military plans are supposed to closely link tactics and plans to the achievement of strategic and operational objectives. Tactics are to be linked to strategic outcomes. Tactics and operations must also adhere to the laws and customs of war — rules our country helped create so that militaries can succeed even while lessening the inevitable suffering war causes.
It cannot be overstated that asking troops to brainstorm how to beat an enemy is not how professional, competent militaries achieve success. But even worse is the rhetoric about punishment. The laws of war, which are deeply ingrained in U.S. law and policy , are not about punishment.
Lt. Col. Rachel E. VanLandingham (ret.)
Rachel E. VanLandingham retired as a lieutenant colonel from the U.S. Air Force. She is the Irwin R. Buchalter professor of law at Southwestern Law School, Los Angeles, and president emerita of the National Institute of Military Justice.
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