No. of Recommendations: 14
The short term goals are these:
-Ensure Iran never has a nuclear weapon
-Reduce/eliminate their ability to project power in the region. That means reducing their capabilities to develop and launch ballistic missiles and cutting them off from their terror proxies.
But these aren't short term goals. These are goals that extend out into the future - in perpetuity if taken literally.
You can't ensure Iran never has a nuclear weapon by destroying things they have today. You can't reduce Iran's capabilities to develop and launch ballistic missiles and cut them off from their terror proxies going forward by destroying things today. Because as long as the regime continues to control the country, they can always restart these things and get back to where they are now within a year or two. If not faster.
These are goals that can only be accomplished by either: i) overturning the regime; or ii) getting them to agree to an enforceable deal that you believe they can be relied on to abide by going forward. Based on our prior conversations, it seems like you believe that the second option is not possible. And we're not pursuing the first.
Put the United States on a much stronger footing vis a vis China in the event of an invasion of Taiwan by:
-Reducing China's influence on world trade choke points
-Increase the United States' influence on these same choke points
-Realign global energy markets to reduce the influence of bad actors operating in shadow markets (Russia, Iran, Venezuela)
But Iran doesn't further any of these goals. China's got more influence over world trade choke points now, because Iran has vastly more influence over Hormuz than they did before the war - and Iran's going to need China so much more once this war is over. Similarly, the U.S. is going to have less influence over Hormuz once the war is over, because Iran will have demonstrated they have the unilateral ability to close it against the wishes of the U.S.
I'm not sure that removing sanctions on oil exporting nations "realigns" global energy markets. China's going to continue to be the largest customer of Iran and Russia even if we take sanctions off them, especially since we're using other levers to try to force Europe to buy less Russian oil and gas.
