There Will Be No Regional War In The Middle East

Last week, Israel attacked Iran. So many people on the right and the left are warning that this would turn into a wider regional war that would turn into a prolonged war involving the United States. They are even comparing this to the Iraq War. They are all wrong.

First of all, how is this similar to the Iraq War? First of all, 22 nations sent 160,000 troops to fight in Iraq, 130,000 of them Americans. In contrast, there are no boots on the ground in Iran, and only one country is fighting to date: Israel. If the United States gets involved, it will be with B-52 bombers that destroy Iran's nuclear enrichment facility in Natanz.

Second, this will not be a regional war because it’s in nobody’s interest to make it a regional war. The Arab states in the Persian Gulf do not want to be involved. Iran on the other hand is losing as it is. It will be insane to attack another country and invite other militaries to join forces with Israel.

Nobody is going to come to Iran’s defense, either. The Russians are struggling to win a war in Ukraine and have no interest in opening another front while losing the one war they have already started and care about more. The Chinese have no assets in the region to help Iran. An Iranian official went on TV and said that Pakistan had told them to help, and Pakistan quickly denied it and washed its hands of Iran.

They have an economy as big as Bangladesh’s. Their population hates the Islamic Republic, which the government knows, and they cannot arm the population to fight against Israel because they fear that Iranians will start shooting at the rulers in Iran instead of Israelis. Their military technology is only slightly newer than the Stone Age tech. And it has no real friends to help it. A country dealing with these facts can never be a real threat to an entire region.

The problem with Iran is that it is run by religious lunatics. To the extent that it has been a problem, it is because they thought that they could rely on miracles from the heavens and because we allowed them to be. But reality always kicks in.

There won’t be any regional war in the Middle East, and there will not be a prolonged conflict, either. The Wall Street Journal has reported that Iran is already begging for the U.S. to intervene and end the war. They have realized how weak they are and how close to complete defeat they are. They just want the pain to end. If they thought that anyone would come to their help, they would not be so ready to accept defeat. And they know that attacking Saudi Arabia or the Emirates to expand the war would only bring them closer to annihilation.

In 1988, Iran kept saying that it would never end the Iran–Iraq War. As soon as Reagan sank half their navy, they sent messages that they were ready to end the war. If there is one thing Iran knows well, it’s how to cave, not escalate.