Vibe Statecrafting in Syria, Iran, and Venezuela

Full Context in the Back
IN IRAN, the regime is caught in a dictator’s dilemma after the snapback sanctions activated in October; inflation surged over 100% over November and December. With no ability to legislatively address lingering problems, millions took to the streets, resulting in weeks of protests. On Thursday, the regime attempted a violent crackdown using police and paramilitary foces, leading to escalating street battles which threaten the regime’s hold. Depending on your estimate, between ~500-1,500 civilians have been killed, as well as between 50-100 Iranian security officers. In addition to these grim statistics, telling video depicts the kind of signs I look for to indicate a state may be in the process of failing or tipping over. Security forces retreating from advancing crowds. The uninterrupted burning of municipal buildings. The persistent loss of control over significant sections of major metropolitan areas. However, Iran has yet to deploy the military. Internet and communications has been severed across the country, and though Starlink was briefly activated Saturday night, by Sunday morning it was already being jammed by what are likely conventional military units of the Iranian Guards or deployed QODS assets. Indications the regime may be ready to deploy the full military to retain control.

IN SYRIA, the year-old regime that replaced Assad run by former al-Nusra and al-Qaeda commander Ahmed al-Sharra. al-Sharra has attempted and failed to integrate different heavily armed factions remaining from the civil war. These efforts led to sharp clashes with the southwestern Druze earlier in the year, of which Israel intervened. Over the past few weeks, however, armed conflicts between Sharra’s Syria and the Kurdish Syrian Defense Forces (SDF) have escalated. Ceasefires have been negotiated and broken. But more fighting broke out Friday. Although Trump abandoned the Kurds at the peak of our operational (if not strategic) victory over ISIS, the US continues to operate in and around Syria in partnership with Kurdish forces. How this plays out, with President Trump backing al-Sharra even while the US military actively partners with the SDF is going to be tricky to navigate. And absent some strong resolution, it looks like Syria may be heading to another civil war. Unlike Iran, where a dictator’s dilemma exists between large masses of relatively unarmed civilians vs. the regime forces, in Syria every faction left standing after years of the civil war is heavily armed with highly experienced fighters. This will look more like a conventional light and medium infantry conflict absent conventional airpower and heavy armored resources. It will be interesting, to what extent drone technology now pioneered in Ukraine vs. Russia will make its way back down into Syria. Turkey’s also nearby, backing its faction and territory it gained when Trump ceded the Kurdish lands, but as far as I know they have not taken an active stance to back either the (new) Syrian government or the SDF.

IN VENEZUELA, unlike Syria and Iran, the status quo prevails after a US military raid captured and removed the dictator Maduro and his wife. But don’t call it regime change, or even nation building. More like leadership change in an existing regime. Without a strong legal basis for intervention, Trump got lucky that only a handful of US service members were injured on the raid – and we didn’t end up with a Black Hawk Down in the middle of Caracas. But the raid itself appears to have had little permanent strategic effect. Marking perhaps the first time in history, US oil companies have signaled a “hard pass” to Trump’s offer to hand over foreign oil resources to them, noting that he has no actual control and his word is not credible over time. And despite Republican announcements of “new democracy,” there’s no indication, absent a much larger intervention with boots on the ground, any election held in post-raid Venzuela would be all that different from the last election in pre-raid Venezuela, where Colectivo thugs deployed in opposition districts to suppress the vote, resulting in a widely panned election and continuismo of the illegitimate leadership of Maduro.

HOW THESE LINK TOGETHER-For the first time in my memory the US has no carrier assets within range of assisting, if needed, either the Syria or Iran scenario. As I (and many others) warned about when the President started his force deployment in the Caribbean, we have few carrier groups to move around. And the US Naval Institute fleet tracker (pictured) clearly shows no major carrier groups anywhere in the neighborhood. Despite President Trump’s assertion that the US was ready to strike Iran, apparently, the US military today briefed him that they did not have the appropriate assets available and would need to move resources and personnel into the area. Although fighters can stage out of some of the regional bases, what this means in practice is a carrier (or two) in the region. And there’s none even close. So recognizing the tradeoff of vibe statecrafting. Yes, the most powerful military in the world using one of our most important assets – a full carrier group – can indeed destroy a handful of fast boats, seize some tankers and even do a daring raid to seize a high-value target. But in doing so we are now caught out of position for other world exigencies which occur in live time. President Trump never really had to deal with overlapping crises in his first term, but now he’s got to manage multiple at the same time, even while dealing with the domestic strife arising out of the ICE killing and his own self-inflicted crisis over annexation of Greenland.