Yes to the U.S. planning to seize Iran’s shoreline

Reports tell us that the U.S. is considering plans for occupying Kharg Island and the Iranian half of the Persian Gulf shoreline.

Good for our policy planners.

It should be done.

Why US policymakers are right about wanting this

This is an absolutely solid policy idea on what’s needed, both for the Iran war in general and for the Gulf in particular. The shoreline is too vital for world commerce to leave it under the control of a local regime, moreover one that’s volatile, unstable, and malicious. Taking it over is right, both immediately and long-term.

Immediately, it’s needed to help reopen the Gulf and secure its reopening.

Long term, it’s a good Trumpian plan for taking territory. Yes, a good Trumpian plan, not “another wacky Trump idea”.

And yes, we take the logical follow-on step after that: we should annex the shore area. Not just go in and out. We didn’t leave Japan or Germany after we occupied them; we transmuted it into an alliance where we made a huge profit over the decades from the relationship. And we didn’t leave New Mexico or California after we won them. We didn’t call it a forever war when we stayed, or blame ourselves for imperialism.

Owning the shoreline will give us a good incentive to stay, not just abandon it after we win in Iran. We can add more incentives later, like building seafront properties, maybe even Trump Plazas.

We need good incentives like this. Territory and money. Real interests. Real skin in the game. So we never again will repeat the spiteful behavior of Obama, when he abandoned Libya after we won it.

Obama was acting on his underlying anti-American prejudices. These prejudices were expressed in many lines he used, and even more used by others in and around his Administration — lines like, our intervention is OK this time because “we have no national interest in it”; “no regime change”; “no forever wars”; no “imperialism”.

Rejection of any Western imperialism was Obama’s underlying ideology taboo – and the underlying hate-doctrine of the American Left for the last half century and longer. It was the underlying reason why he abandoned Libya to chaos as soon as our side won. Without this taboo, we could have gotten a good naval base there – literally on the shores of Tripoli. And could have spared Libya and its near-neighbors the chaos that ensued instead, and is still giving trouble to us as well as to them.

The same underlying anti-American prejudice was the cause for President Carter’s mistakes, from abandoning the Shah to abandoning the Panama Canal.

We must avoid repeating the Obama-Carter disasters this time. The cost of them is too high.

Dangerously, the slogans of some people today, even a few Administration people, repeat the slogans of Obama about this. They give reasons for fear that we will repeat the Obama-Carter mistakes.

Fortunately, Trump has often said more commonsense things than the people who claim to speak in his name. Things like, “Why not regime change?” About himself deciding the timeline for our presence, not tying himself down in advance. And about territorial acquisitions. And about the virtues of great Americans presidents such as McKinley and Teddy Roosevelt, who stayed in the places we won.

This gives a good realistic chance that the good realistic policy-planning for taking over the shoreline will be acted on this time.

Getting this solid policy plan readied and acted on

To be sure, taking the shoreline is not being discussed on its merits in the media, much less prepared rationally there. Instead it’s being mentioned only for the sake of the polemical sarcasms, typical in our media, about Trump being a “hypocrite” about boots on the ground. Not many journalists seem to realize that the cry of “hypocrisy” is a teenager’s complaint against their parents, not a basis for a grown-up’s policy planning. But then, they do not feel normal good vibes about this President doing something right, much less about good military moves that provide opportunities for US power expansion.

We should ignore the defects of our media — and of the academia that trained them. We should all go ahead an discuss the matter ourselves. Discuss it seriously and rationally.

And so should our policy planners at DOW, NSC, and the White House. Fortunately some of them seem to be doing so already.

Taking the shoreline and setting up a new authority there would be the answer to the media complaints that we haven’t prepared a replacement government, the way we usually do for regime changes. The media have repeatedly warned that, without this, regime collapse could bring chaos. It is one of the few justifiable media complaints in recent times. It would no longer be reasonable after we take the shoreline.

How to take the shoreline and Kharg. And keep them.

Militarily, it would probably be best for the U.S. to do it at the start, fast and effective; and then bring in the other allies. There are however plenty of options for who would provide the troops after the initial push. Americans of course. And allies from Japan to Italy to Argentina to Israel to Gulf States.

Once we take the eastern shores of the Persian Gulf, it would become an Iranian liberated zone.

The follow-up from there could proceed in several ways:

* Iranian opposition groups could enter the area, once we’ve secured it. We’d select the groups for this. We could easily unite them in a joint structure for this, once we made it clear we were serious.

* The Iranians on our side could set up a joint provisional Iranian government there. It could build up an armed joint military force there under its authority. We could supply ample arms for it to become something real.  (This might also enable some of the U.S. and Allied troops to leave.)

* This liberated zone would be a good initial place to receive surrender of IRGC and Basij and Army forces. More places for this would come later.

* It’d be a beginning of an opposition government and army that we can support, make agreements with, and develop future policies with.

* Once in place, it would be able to lead the people in a united way to replace the collapsing Tehran regime.

Only this — getting a new, genuinely friendly government in Tehran – will enable us to truly fulfill our basic declared goals in this war: to completely, verifiably dismantle the nuclear weapons program; to dismantle the other weapons programs that threaten us and our allies; and to dismantle the entire apparatus of Iranian support for terrorist proxies around the region and the world.