Speaking on Fox News recently, Sen. Tim Sheehy (R-MT) delivered a scathing assessment of the Iranian regime and an implicit call for a return to military action. The senator’s words have earned him plaudits from opponents to President Donald Trump’s diplomacy with Tehran. Iran hawks such as Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AK) and Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) say that Sheehy’s rhetoric is pitch-perfect. A Wall Street Journal editorial offered a similar endorsement.
The reality?
Sheehy accurately identifies the Islamic Republic of Iran’s fundamental hostility toward the United States. But he exaggerates the regime’s power and wrongly claims that maximal military force is needed to address this threat. Unless absolutely necessary, a return to war would not be in America’s interest.
On one issue in his interview, the former Navy SEAL and Afghanistan War veteran absolutely hit the nail on the head. That moment came when Sheehy observed that Pakistan had harbored Osama bin Laden and was an unreliable mediator for U.S.-Iran negotiations. Considering that Pakistan sponsored the insurgency in Afghanistan, which killed and wounded so many Americans, this criticism is absolutely deserved. And it is timely in the context of Vice President JD Vance’s absurd (and diplomatically damaging with India) lavishing of Pakistan with praise.
Sheehy’s assessment of Iran was less accurate, however.
The former Navy SEAL officer noted that, “The reality is [that the Islamic Republic of Iran] is a murderous regime that doesn’t want a deal … they want you and your family and all of us to be killed. They want to wipe our civilization off the map.” Referencing public concerns over another drawn-out war, Sheehy added, “But you know what’s worse than a forever war in the Middle East? It’s a forever war right here on our streets, just down the road like on 9/11. The Iranians want to bring that war here. Radical Islamic ideology — whether it’s ISIS, whether it’s al Qaeda, or whether it’s the [Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps] — this ideology doesn’t stop at the Persian Gulf. It doesn’t magically end at Israel. Their borders don’t recognize oceans; they want to spread this murderous global regime of terror right here where we’re sitting, and they want all of us and our families gone.” He concluded, “With the IRGC, they want to create a global caliphate of Sharia law and kill all of us … Having our troops fight them there is far better than us fighting them here.”
Sheehy is correct that Iran is a “murderous regime” beholden to its systemic blood feud with America. This enemy has killed hundreds of Americans, many in a most brutal (see William Buckley and EFP attacks in Iraq) and entirely dishonorable (2007 Karbala raid and 1983 Marine barracks bombing) fashion. Qassem Soleimani, Imad Mughniyeh, and all the other IRGC/MOIS officers the U.S. and Israel have eliminated over the years had an overdue rendezvous with death. That said, Iran’s power projection forces are extremely limited vis-a-vis its ability to bring scaled bloodshed to American streets. It is also inaccurate to portray Iran’s agenda as essentially the same as that of ISIS. Nor is it accurate to claim that the U.S. must wage a high-intensity conflict with Iran to prevent terrorism on American streets. These oversimplifications are similar to those President George W. Bush offered during the war on terrorism.
Unlike ISIS, Iran does not pursue the violent, absolutist establishment of a caliphate designed to subjugate the world under Sharia law. Instead, Iran seeks to displace the U.S. from the Middle East, to establish the hegemony of its Khomeinist ideology over the Islamic world, and to destabilize its foreign enemies further afield. Iran’s ultimate objective is to set the political conditions for the return of the “Mahdi,” a messianic figure believed by regime ideologues to be in hiding, who will then usher in a new era of Islamic governance on Earth. Put simply, ISIS is hyper-aggressive and impatient, whereas Iran plays the long game. For what it’s worth, ISIS and Iran also despise each other. Recognizing such variances in U.S. adversaries’ matters. After all, it informs America’s better management of specific threats.
Nor does Iran have a power-projection capability that demands prolonged, high-intensity war. Iranian terrorists plotting against the U.S. are significant and enduring. The Washington Examiner was first to report on some of these plots. Still, the best way to manage these threats is via a mix of whack-a-mole covert/military action against Iranian terrorist networks globally, and counterterrorism/border security operations at home. The great error of this war was its assumption that the regime would easily fall, that the costs of Iranian retaliation could be easily tolerated, and that other U.S. interests wouldn’t suffer amid the war.
Instead, the war caused serious damage to the U.S. and international economy, alienated many allies, and, as predicted, wholly undermined the far more strategically important U.S. readiness for war with China. Iran will now reconstitute its depleted military, especially now that Trump is appeasing Tehran at the negotiating table. It would have been far more sensible for Trump to focus on degrading Iran’s nuclear program. Alongside the aforementioned counterterrorism activity, that approach would have protected Americans and our allies at the best possible cost-benefit juncture.
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Again, Sheehy is absolutely right to note that Iran is both duplicitous and highly adversarial toward American interests. The notion that this regime is somehow going to enjoin a new era of detente is fatuous. But effective national security policy requires a prudent analysis of the best options. Waging a prolonged war with Iran would ultimately require U.S. troops in Iran while delivering highly unpredictable consequences. It would likely cost U.S. interests far more than it would gain.
If diplomacy fails, then the best course of action is a return to limited air strikes and the restoration of the naval blockade of Iranian ports. With time, Iran will eventually be forced into a more concessionary negotiating stance. But we shouldn’t pretend that Iran poses a nemesis threat on the scale of China.