Ivo Daalder, who served as US Ambassador to Nato, writes that that the consequences arising out of the Iran war are already proving far deeper than anything the Iraq War produced, and the conflict is barely in its fourth week.

A former senior American diplomat has made a stark assessment of the United States’ decision to join Israel in Iran war, arguing that it surpasses even the 2003 Iraq invasion as the biggest strategic mistake America has made in decades.

Ivo Daalder, who served as US Ambassador to Nato, writes in Politico that the
consequences arising out of the Iran war are already proving far deeper than anything the Iraq War produced, and the conflict is barely in its fourth week.

STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS ADFamiliar script, Worse outcome

Daalder compares both wars in terms of their intentions and outcomes. Both, he argues, were launched on the assumption that the targeted regime would quickly collapse and be replaced by something more moderate. Both were driven by what he calls a “hubristic belief in American power.”

But there the similarities end, he writes. While George W. Bush at least understood that toppling a regime required ground troops, Trump appears to have believed that airpower alone would be enough to bring down the Iranian regime. But it hasn’t worked.

The end result is that the
Iranian government has survived, and is fully aware that it survived, and is now focused almost entirely on hitting back.

The economic shock

Iranian drones and missiles have struck Israel and Gulf states, energy production facilities, and effectively closed the Strait of Hormuz. The disruption, Daalder writes, is already the largest to global energy supply in history, and its economic ripple effects will be felt across every country for months, possibly years, regardless of when the fighting stops.

The economic damage inflicted so far, he argues, already exceeds the total economic cost of the entire Iraq War.

Allies left in dark

The diplomatic fallout has also been striking. Bush’s administration, for all its failures, spent considerable effort trying to bring allies on board before the invading Iraq.

But Trump on other hand did not inform America’s closest allies of his decision at all. And yet when Iran shut the Strait of Hormuz, Washington demanded the same allies to send their naval forces to escort tankers through the conflict zone.

The effect, Daalder writes, is that the US allies can no longer rely on Washington, and that the United States now poses a real risk to their own economic security.

A gift to Russia and China

Perhaps the most consequential dimension of Daalder’s argument concerns the timing. When Bush invaded Iraq in 2003, Russia and China were still relatively minor powers. The damage from that war, though serious, was manageable. But now, Russia and China are super powers while being in a position to secure maximum possible benefits from the mistakes of the US.

Rising oil prices are generating over $150 million per day in additional revenue for Moscow.

China, Daalder notes, is watching something even more valuable unfold: the US military is drawing down its presence in the Indo-Pacific to feed the Middle East conflict. A carrier strike group, a THAAD anti-missile system from Korea, and a Marine Expeditionary Force from Japan have all been redeployed.

STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS ADThe bottom line

The Iran war, Daalder writes, risks leaving behind a United States that has lost much of its global power, standing, and influence, and it will face an increasingly assertive China and an emboldened Russia largely on its own.

HomeWorldTrump’s Iran ‘debacle’ bigger strategic error than Iraq, Vietnam wars: US’s former Nato envoyEnd of Article