‘Arm the Iranian people’ is a slogan, not a strategy

President Donald Trump must quickly decide whether or not to resume military action against Iran. Come January, with their large majorities in the House and Senate, Democrats will cut funding for combat operations.The worst option would be a resumption of military action designed to topple the Iranian regime, alongside arming Iranians to stage another revolution. Not because that action wouldn’t be moral, but because it would carry extreme costs and great risks. Trump’s best option is to maintain the U.S. Navy blockade of Iran in the Strait of Hormuz. TRUMP NEEDS TO FOCUS ON WINNING THE AI RACEThe U.S. blockade is causing grave economic damage to the theocratic regime. Total energy exports through the strait are now back to prewar levels, providing relief to America’s Middle East energy exporting allies and their global customers. In contrast, Iran can no longer make the energy sales which underpin its economy. And with the blockade involving only limited combat action, it may be sustainable even without congressional support.Trump should maintain the blockade in order to pressure the Iranian leadership to reach a new nuclear agreement. Although Iran has shown an impressive ability to absorb U.S. economic pressure, the blockade will eventually force its leaders to choose between concessions and being unable to pay their security forces. In contrast to the benefits of the blockade, however, it would be foolish to arm the Iranian people.This bears pointing out amid growing calls for Trump to arm Iranians so that they can overthrow the regime that oppresses them.Conservative author Victor Davis Hansen, for example, says that the problem with Trump’s Iran strategy is that it didn’t target critical infrastructure such as bridges, nor did it “arm the Kurds.” Conservative commentator Mark Levin has also made near-daily calls to arm the Iranian people since the war began in February. Levin explained his thinking this weekend, arguing:“Arm the Iranian people, the Reagan doctrine … [the regime] must no longer exist. … Ignore all these other voices [against escalation], ignore them. And replace any generals who tell you we cannot defeat this enemy. They are doing us grave harm. Presidents in the past have had to replace generals before — this wouldn’t be the first time. In other words, victory is the only answer. Victory. As for this war, it’s not really a war. Are we storming the beaches? Are we parachuting the 82nd Airborne into Iran? Are there ground troops? Are there tanks?”This rhetoric presents arming the Iranian people as a generally cost-free solution to an otherwise intractable problem. It sounds good. Unfortunately, it’s unserious.Indeed, Levin gives the game away when he attacks “generals” who disagree with him. Levin is plainly referring here to Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The Air Force pilot has not said that “we cannot defeat” Iran. Instead, he has earned Levin’s ire for warning Trump that combat operations with Iran have had a seriously deleterious effect on U.S. military contingencies related to China. Caine recognizes that those contingencies are of far greater importance to U.S. interests than Iran. Levin dislikes this viewpoint, so he claims that Caine is doing “grave harm” to the nation.Yet the rhetorical simplicity of Levin’s argument only speaks to two broader truths. First, Levin’s unwillingness to admit that his preferred strategy in Iran has failed. Second, his failure to understand that Iran in 2026 is not Afghanistan in 1980.For a start, facing a U.S. supported armed uprising, the regime would abandon even tentative diplomacy. Facing an explicitly existential American threat to its survival, the regime would respond to the maximal degree possible. It would use its remaining drone and missile forces, of which it has a significant number, to attack land-based targets across the Middle East and possibly beyond. This would drive up energy prices once again, without near-term respite. Iran would also deploy or activate terrorist cells to carry out global attacks and rush to develop nuclear weapons.An additional problem is that you cannot simply shout, “Arm the Iranian people!” and expect those people to confront better-armed and trained regime loyalists. Including core internal security units, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, and the Basij militia forces, Iran could rely upon approximately 500,000 fighters to resist any uprising. And as it has done so many times before, it would engage in indiscriminate bloodletting.Which leads to a reality that Levin explicitly rejects. Namely, that supporting an armed uprising would necessitate the deployment of (at least low thousands) of U.S. ground troops inside Iran. While CIA paramilitary officers could supervise arms supplies and some training operations, an armed uprising would require extensive U.S. military air and ground support to have any probability of success.Iran is roughly the size of Alaska, with a population of more than 93 million people. Arming elements of this population would mean establishing safe zones for months of training, planning, and armament transport. It would mean carefully identifying reliable partners and trusting them not to sell their weapons on the black market or form organized criminal groups. And it would require CIA and U.S. military special operations personnel embedding with these groups in order to maximize their efficiency and survivability (directing air strikes onto larger Iranian military formations, including armored units, for example). It would otherwise be suicidal for Iranian revolutionaries armed with assault rifles and light machine guns to fight the Revolutionary Guard or Basij forces.This strategy would also eventually lead to a state collapse that would burden the U.S. far more than any other nation.As I noted in July, “as in the CIA effort to arm anti-Assad rebels in Syria, [a regime change effort] would involve highly uncertain outcomes. … But amid such state failure, we would see soaring rates of starvation, disease, and refugee flows. … We would see fanatical splinter groups pursuing utterly unrestrained violence. And we would absolutely see the U.S. being forced to dedicate ever-increasing military and economic resources to mitigate these challenges and boost a (almost certainly divided) resistance. It’s understandable why Israel supports this choice of escalation against its nemesis. Israel believes a civil war would distract the regime and reduce its ability to threaten the Jewish state. It also believes that the regime would eventually fall. But Israel’s choice is an easier one because, as it well knows, the U.S. would bear the outsize burden of securing a positive outcome.”Yes, after many months, if not years, the regime would splinter and the rebels would gain the initiative. But even then, tens of thousands of fanatical adherents to the regime’s Khomeinist ideology would choose to stand and die rather than relinquish their ordained project.BLESSING ATROCITIES IN UKRAINE, PATRIARCH KIRILL DESECRATES RUSSIAN ORTHODOX CHURCHIran is the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism. It has the blood of many Americans on its hands. Its nuclear program still poses a major threat to regional stability and to close American allies.But these threats are best handled by forcing Iran to choose between a credible diplomatic accord and the retention of the crippling blockade. Where necessary, the United States can also conduct ‘whack-a-mole’ military strikes. Arming the Iranian people in a new revolution might sound good. But measured against U.S. national interests, it is a slogan, not a credible strategy.