What Next After the Bombing Stops?

Israel has sworn to kill Iran’s next Supreme Leader before he can say “Fatwah.” That is probably not an idle boast, as they appear to have a better handle on the ruling elites than the Persian security services. I suspect that aspiring ayatollahs are not fighting each other to get in line for the job, given the fate of the last group of would-be successors. The Israelis have made it clear that they don’t want any more theocratic rule in Tehran, as has President Trump and the majority of the Sunni neighbors of Iran. Our NATO allies and the European Union do as well, but they lack the intestinal fortitude to stand up to a major regional oil producer. (RELATED: US and Israel Continue to Degrade the Islamic Republic)

Trump has said that once the air defenses, ballistic missile capabilities, and nuclear production facilities of Iran, as well as the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), are neutralized, he hopes the opposition will rise up and overthrow the regime. That would be a great thing, but there is a problem. We don’t really know how many of the potential revolutionaries there are. Israeli and U.S. intelligence regarding the movements and location of the ruling elites is excellent, but our cultural intelligence as to the true mood of the bulk of the population is far less precise. We don’t know the true numbers of the dissident population; however, we do believe that there are about 30,000 fewer than there were during the January uprising.

Chances are that the majority of the population will remain passive, but we need to expect that many — we don’t know how many — will support the regime. Whatever happens will not be a relatively peaceful European-style colored revolution or even an Arab Spring. There will likely be blood. Which side the secular police and security forces come down on will probably be critical to the eventual outcome.

President Trump has urged the dissidents in the population to rise up after the bombing has ended, but given the news and internet blackout, how will they know? I’m not sure if the civilian and military planners have thought that through. I hope so. If not, they should start doing so. However, there is a precedent for foreign forces trying to influence a foreign crowd in a real-time manner. I throw it out as something to think about.

In 1995, the U.N. requested U.S. help in evacuating what was left of the U.N. mission in Somalia. The administration tasked Marine Corps Lieutenant General Tony Zinni with organizing and commanding a joint amphibious task Force to accomplish the mission in what became known as Operation United Shield. Zinni was a veteran of the original U.S./U.N. humanitarian operation that had ended in 1993. He and most of us Marine Corps planners for the operation had experienced the tactic of Somali militias to blend in with civilian crowds and cause mayhem. The ability of civilians to disrupt the evacuation was a major concern. We did not want a repeat of the infamous “Blackhawk Down” debacle.

There were a number of potential courses of action for influencing crowd behavior. One that might be informative here would be to use Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) — which we now commonly call drones — to influence the crowds. The idea was to use one to broadcast messages to the civilians to stay away from the evacuation sites while using armed drones to pick off armed elements infiltrating the civilian groups. Most of the civilians were in it for any loot they could pick up, and we figured they would likely disperse once they saw the gunmen getting picked off.

Instead, General Zinni picked a non-lethal option. We had available some exotic-looking non-lethal weapons, and he used the popular BBC Somali language broadcasts to warn the locals to stay away from American lines lest they be zapped by these “wonder weapons.” They actually were not very effective, but the psychological impact worked, and the evacuation was successfully conducted without American or U.N. casualties.

That said, a variation of the drone approach might well work in Iran. If Psychological Operation drones would fly above places like Tajrish Square in Tehran and other popular gathering places in major cites encouraging citizens to rise up, they could assure the dissidents that the armed UAVs would attack IRGC and other regime thugs attempting to suppress the uprising. There is no guarantee that this will work, but the assumption that uprisings will spontaneously break out after the carnage in January is by no means a sure thing. The IGRC has probably gone to ground and is waiting for the bombing to stop to reassert control. Instilling continued terror in the ranks is a good way of evening the odds. If American and Israeli planners are basing mere hope for an uprising, they need to be reminded that hope is not a strategy.

Any uprising will be bloody and might lead to a civil war or at least protracted instability. But, at least Iran won’t be causing mischief in the region or building weapons of mass destruction in the immediate future. The best we can probably hope for is a weak transition government that is willing to accept foreign aid to rebuild. The worst is that the regime is resilient enough to survive in some form and remains malign. In either case, the nation will be inwardly focused for the next few years. And that is not a bad thing. The question is whether or not the opposition will try to seize the opportunity to influence events.

READ MORE from Gary Anderson:

What to Watch for in Operation Epic Fury

American Muslims Must Acknowledge the Supremacy of the Constitution Over Sharia Law

Military Incompetence Has a Price Tag

As the Director of Marine Corps Wargaming, Gary Anderson participated in the planning for Operation United Shield.