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Source: https://www.wsj.com/opinion/hawks-and-doves-got-iran-wrong-4af36874?mod=opinion_lead_pos8
Iran War Is Harder and More Necessary than Americans Expected
(Wall Street Journal) Walter Russell Mead - Iran doves in past U.S. administrations hoped that a mix of conciliation and deterrence would allow America to coexist with Iran. Kicking the can down the road in the hopes that something might turn up looked to a lot of smart people like the best of bad options. Iran hawks saw an Iranian regime committed to a revolutionary religious vision and determined on economic and geopolitical grounds to seize control of the Gulf region to become a world power. Tehran was hell-bent on developing military capabilities and networks that, at some point, would pose unacceptable threats to free navigation of the Gulf - and of global access to its fossil fuels and other commodities. Currently, Iran's ability to close the Gulf and inflict major damage on its neighbors, even after airstrikes from Israel and the U.S., underscores the unacceptable danger that Iran's military power poses to the region. At the same time, the massive economic result of the closing highlights the reality that American interests remain inextricably bound up in freedom of navigation in and around the Gulf. So here we are. Despite military successes by air and sea, Israel and the U.S. have so far been unable to keep the Gulf open or to protect the Gulf states from Iranian attacks. The writer, a fellow at the Hudson Institute, is Professor of Strategy and Statecraft at the University of Florida.