Marines in the Strait of Hormuz won’t fix this war
Congress must deny Trump’s request for $200 billion.
Jake Auchincloss, who served in the Marines, is the representative for Massachusetts’ Fourth Congressional District.
President Trump is dialing 911 with his deployment of two Marine Expeditionary Units to the Strait of Hormuz. These are crisis-response brigades. With thousands of combat Marines supported by air and naval assets, the units can fight on air, land, and sea for about 15 days.
As always with this president: Put him on mute and watch what he does. Listening to the lies is a distraction. While White House interns post sizzle reels of bombs, and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth briefs about the war like it’s “Call of Duty,” the National Security Council is grasping for help. With two MEUs and soldiers from the 82nd Airborne being deployed to the Middle East, this is the largest US military buildup in the Middle East since the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
The Marines are not reinforcing success. They are being sent to bail out failure. Before this unauthorized war of choice, the United States and Israel had air dominance over Iran. The allies gained this air dominance via the 12-day war last year, a successful one-two punch in which Israel knocked out air defenses and missile sites and then the United States buried Iran’s nuclear facility (though not its uranium) and brokered a cease-fire.
Thus far into this war, the United States and Israel have made no further strategic gains. They are executing at the levels below strategy, which are operations and tactics. By blowing up Iran’s missile and drone sites, the allies are exploiting a strategic asset — air dominance — for operational ends: degrading Iran’s power-projection capabilities.
Defenders of the war argue that this is the logical approach. After all, why gain air dominance if not to use it for operational ends, like the destruction of missile sites and the disruption of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ command-and-control system? Because the enemy has a vote, that’s why.
In exchange for operational setbacks, the Iranian regime has snatched a strategic asset in the Strait of Hormuz. The new Ayatollah, Mojtaba Khamenei, is more hardline than even his father, who was killed in the first strikes on Iran, and can deny transit in the strategic waterway. On the strategic ledger of this war, the United States and Israel played the card of air dominance. Iran picked up the card of sea denial.
Using drones, mines, and missiles, Iran is strangling the Strait. China and Russia are benefiting. The United States and its allies are paying the price. Trump, who promised an “America First” foreign policy, had to ask China to help open the Strait so that Americans can pay less at the pump. China’s president, Xi Jinping, said no. Now Trump claims the Strait will “open itself.”
The Strait will not open itself. Enter the US Marine Corps. Marines train for amphibious assaults. If the commander-in-chief orders them to seize shoreline and islands in the Strait, they will seize them. Marines do not fail missions.
And then what? In a few weeks’ time, under fire from drones and rockets and depleted in materiel, the Marines will need resupply and reinforcement. The result? More boots on the ground.
The president’s order for Marines to seize the Strait would be yet another bloody blunder. It’s one more reason for Congress to reject his appropriations request. He’ll be asking for up to $200 billion; that’s more than enough to enroll every American child in early education.
The answer from Congress must be no. No to the waste of money, no to the sophomoric military strategy. Here’s what Democrats could say yes to: ending the war in exchange for reopening the Strait of Hormuz.
Congress should also promise to work with US allies to neutralize Iran’s new sea and air strategic leverage by instrumenting the Strait for counter-drone and counter-mine capability, hardening Gulf energy and industrial targets with air-defense upgrades, and fast-tracking critical projects on the “Golden Road” of the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor, an infrastructure effort meant to promote economic integration and bypass both Chinese and Iranian influence.
For the Islamic Republic itself, Congress needs to codify a policy that recognizes the strategic value of air dominance over Iran, offers carrots and sticks to curb a hardline regime, and promotes the self-determination of the Iranian people.
The Trump administration launched a war of choice. It did not consult Congress. It did not expose its plans to scrutiny that might have revealed its errors in judgment. Now the president is searching for an easy button to end the war. There isn’t one.
By: Jake Auchincloss
Source: Boston Globe