A Military Engagement Against Iran Will Cost Trillions

Mass demonstrations in Iran against Rouhani and the regime. (Supplied)

William Hartung, CNN: Regime change in Iran could cost the US trillions

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo's speech this week on next steps in US policy toward Iran read more like a call to war than a carefully crafted foreign policy stance. So much so that the obvious next question is what it might cost if the Trump administration seeks to provoke regime change in Iran.

That's tough to answer, since it depends entirely on how the Trump administration chooses to go about it, if it indeed chooses to go down that disastrous road. Pompeo's threat to bring Iran to its knees with punishing economic sanctions clearly won't get the job done, especially since the Trump administration has just alienated its most important potential partners by withdrawing from the Iran nuclear deal. Good luck getting France, or the United Kingdom, or Germany, much less Russia or China, to join in a campaign of maximum economic pressure on Tehran after the Trump administration has walked away from a painstakingly negotiated multilateral deal that was working to achieve its only stated objective -- stopping Iran from developing a nuclear weapon.

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WNU Editor: I am old enough to remember reading many American news columnists and commentators in the early 1980s talking about the same thing on how it much it would cost to overthrow the Communist regimes in eastern Europe, and why the U.S. under then President Reagan should not get involved. What they failed to realize then is that you can succeed in changing authoritarian systems by employing methods that have nothing to do with the military .... and all to do with exposing the "who and what" the regime is while employing sanctions to show your commitment to change and giving morale support to those within these countries who want change. In regards to Iran .... the administration has made it very clear that they would be happy to see the regime replaced with someone less radical .... no surprises there. But a military engagement .... we are not even close to something like that .... and aside from maybe a few neocons .... no real appetite among the public to engage in a military conflict with Iran. But what I do see is an administration that will engage with Iran on sanctions .... as well as in a media campaign that consistently exposes who they are. This is something that I do support. Will this succeed .... I do not know. But this approach is far more preferable than the one that the CNN commentator is speculating on.