Iran has proxies such as Hezbollah and the
Houthis, says Clifford May, and it is using them to wage a gray-zone war
against America, its friends and allies.
By the same token, Israel has America as
main proxy, and through it, members of the NATO alliance who are called upon to
assist when the going gets rough. Israel too is waging a gray-zone war against
Iran with the use of cyber-attacks, assassinations and American hit-and-run
operations.
In fact, the war between the two camps
started in the decade of the 1950s when America and Britain engineered a coup
in Iran, effectuating a regime change that the people of Iran considered an act
of war to which they have been retaliating seriously in tit-for-tat responses
since the 1970s.
Clifford D. May wrote a column, expanding
on his views regarding that war. The column came under the title: “Iranian
regime's 'gray-zone' war tactics are the new norm,” and the subtitle:
“President Trump striking back at those attacking US does not put us on 'the
brink' of war.” The column was published on January 21, 2020 in The Washington
Times.
To make his points, May chose to enter
into a debate with those who deemed that “President Trump's droning of Gen.
Qassem Soleimani put America on the brink of war.” That's what Martin Indyk and
Tucker Carlson have said, according to Clifford May. But does he agree with
them or does he not? You continue reading his column to find out where he
stands on the issue.
You find that he does not answer the
question directly. Instead, he gives a history lesson in which he portrays
Qassem Soleimani as an evil person, the intent being to say that the man
deserved to be killed. Clifford May went on to explain that Iran retaliated by launching
missiles at American bases in Iraq, after which the Supreme Leader, “announced
he was finished –– at least for now”.
At this point, Clifford May clarified his
thinking by saying that President Trump did not put us on the brink of war, but
that he began to re-establish the deterrence, which the United States had lost
over the years. Pretending to accommodate the anxiety of the skeptics, he
speculated the following: “What if the ayatollah had decided to climb the
escalation ladder?”
It was in response to this question that
Clifford May began to pave the way for saying what he really wanted to say,
which is that Trump did not risk a war this time, but it would have been okay
if he did. May did not say it this overtly, but in the same way that he let the
readers conclude Soleimani deserved to die by portraying him as an evil person,
he portrayed the Iranian nation as being so evil, the readers will be inclined
to conclude that it should be destroyed, that it would be easy for America to
destroy it and there would be no serious consequences if this happened.
The following is a condensed version of
the passages carrying that subtle message:
“Wouldn't American boots have been in
Tehran by Valentine's Day? No. Mr. Trump would have considered sinking the
ayatollah's navy in port, to wiping out his combat aircraft on the ground, to
destroying his nuclear weapons facilities. In April 1979, Iran was declared an
Islamic Republic. In the fall, the ayatollah's followers seized the US embassy
and took hostage. In April 1983, a suicide bomber hit the US embassy in Beirut,
killing 83 people. In October, Hezbollah bombed buildings in Beirut, killing
241 US military personnel and 58 French soldiers. In December, terrorists
bombed the US and French embassies in Kuwait City. After four decades, we ought
to have settled on a strategy to counter this threat. But when a scholar on the
left and a television host on the right don't even grasp the reality, it
becomes apparent why we have made so little progress in this conflict”.
In asking the rhetorical question about
American boots being in Tehran by Valentine's day a few weeks from now, the
writer is suggesting that it would be an easy thing to do. But the reality is
that it will take a million soldiers stationed in Afghanistan or Iraq to do
that. And the reality is that America does not have this many soldiers to fight
Iran on the ground. And even if it had them, it would take 6 months to
transport them there. That's assuming Afghanistan and Iraq would give
permission to use their soil to invade Iran, which is hard to believe.
As to sinking Iran's navy in port, wiping
out its aircraft on the ground and destroying its nuclear facilities, these
make up the fantasy of someone that lives in the era of the Japanese sneak attack
on Pearl Harbor, the Israeli sneak attack on Egypt, and the American carpet
bombing of Dresden. The trouble is that the Iranians are not going to be taken
by surprise, and they are prepared to meet all these contingencies and overcome
them.