WHAT CAN THE USA DO?

Continuing with the third work in our five-article series on the current war on Iran, we are adopting the strategic lens of the United States of America (hereinafter: USA). In this article, we put ourselves in the position of the North American state to understand what it can do to win this war. As the secondary aggressor in this war alongside Israel, the USA could simply retreat, and the war would be over. However, there are reasons why the USA decided to fully support Israel in this war, making this assumption “just to stop the war” unrealistic and superficial. Without assessing the normative dimension of the USA’s strategy from an external perspective, we aim to create an understanding of their position and look at the war from their perspective.

The value and purpose of this series is to display our impartiality, flexibility, expertise and the strategic strength of our analytical framework. Usually, work in the political field is limited to cognitive and conceptual frameworks of ideologies and interests. With this series, we underline that politics can, and should, be approached from a technical angle to ensure that crafted measures truly reflect functional and sustainable solutions. It follows from the above that we are not inherently adopting the stances of the parties but merely adopting their lens for the purpose of our strategic analysis. This series must therefore not be read as a positioning from our side.

USA’s Goals And Interests In This War

Although the USA are positioned very prominently in this war with essentially real-time media coverage of their key political actors, their involvement in this war is completely optional from a societal perspective. Not even the fact that the USA attacked Iran first alters this situation. The USA waged this war on behalf of Israel and to further Israeli interests (find out more about Israel’s motives) because its political system has been infiltrated by the Israeli intelligence service through compromising politicians in the Epstein affair. Many politicians or influential lobbyists are themselves Jewish, while others have either been compromised through incriminating evidence held by the Jewish intelligence agency, or are under severe pressure exerted through economic and physical threats by that very agency. Therefore, it is of paramount importance to distinguish between the true national interest of the USA and its population and the constructed interest of the government cadre. While the former is parallel to all other nations’ interests, namely advancing society through genuine knowledge production, the latter’s interests are centred around furthering the constructed interests of the Israeli state.

In the case of the ongoing aggression against Iran, the USA have no technical interest in destroying or toppling the Persian government. Expressed interests, such as controlling natural resource supply chains or ideological shifts, are (next to being against principles of good governance) ineffective in light of the USA’s massive economic capacity in comparison to Iran. If controlling Iran was aimed at containing China and Russia, past cooperation between these nations have not been intense enough to amount to a significant change in the military or economic power balance between Iran and the USA, as they were never highly formally allied, had defence pacts or free trade zones (the Eurasian Economic Union, a free trade zone between Iran, Russia, Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan was only established in 2025). In terms of regional influence, Iran’s past state behaviour was reactive as a response to past diplomatic and economic moves against itself. Adding to the argument, decades-long efforts to control Iran, paired with the current war, have resulted in an economic burden that would require the full exploitation of Iranian resources for many more decades before any economic gain could be recorded, making the aggression also economically ineffective. Finally, the war also takes a socio-political toll on the North American nation as inefficient tax management, psychological pressure and loss of popular sovereignty reduce trust in the political system.

It follows that the interest of the USA’s population and its political system (normatively seen) is to end the war and detach itself from vassalage of Israel because it does not add to the advancement of the North American society. Neither does it further relative political strength, nor does it add to the USA in the economic sense, compared to the ongoing resource investments and spending of the past. However, since the political system of the USA is currently heavily controlled by Israel, the path towards independence is very difficult. Also, if the interests of North American politicians and the population do not align, there will always be a conflict between what is best for the nation and what politicians will pursue. Here, we are going to outline a hybrid strategy that the USA can follow to gain independence somewhat smoothly, to avoid domestic disruption. Full and eternal commitment to the Israeli cause is not considered a viable policy strategy for the USA, as every nation that pursued any other interests than those that lead to their societal good has vanished.

USA’s Strategy To Achieve Its Goals

Military Strategy

Because of the dual path that needs to be aligned as quickly as possible, the USA cannot simply stop the war against Iran, which would trigger a series of measures by Israel to disrupt the USA domestically, or would even involve military sabotage. Therefore, the USA will need to continue attacks on Iran for the time being. However, the scale and the targets can be adjusted in ways that lead to decreasing devastation and casualties in Iran, which is important for future times processes of rebuilding relations with Iran. By targeting rural areas, “accidentally” missing targets and falsifying attack statistics, the USA can save resources and signal Iran that it is gaining the upper hand. It is also important to build a narrative that justifies ceasefire talks and an eventual halt to military operations. Adding to that, the USA would need to abandon its military bases in the region – not the military personnel, which would be evacuated, but the territorial infrastructure. Weaponry and personnel should be pulled away with the justification of damage and dysfunctionality.

Although costly, bigger parts of the fleet could be sacrificed as well after evacuating important technology and staff. This would be an important rhetorical demoraliser for the alliance and give the USA enough grounds for justification towards Israel to prevent a potential ground offensive, and even to push for a ceasefire altogether. Of course, this is a hefty price. However, this is a much cheaper and diplomatically more sustainable option than continuing the war and losing many more resources and potentially suffering massive political setbacks. In this scenario, USA would save their face (to some degree) and create at least a basis for the next steps quite quickly.

If the USA were to continue the war to further interests that lie outside of the societal interest, the other policy option would be to massively increase pressure on Iran by mobilising more troops and fleets. It would also mean that a ground invasion of Iran would be necessary to keep up with Iranian technology and tactical experience. However, there are different dynamics to consider here. First, the USA have never won a war clearly and as the core actor. Second, the diplomatic repercussions in this scenario would potentially include diplomatic isolation and economic sanctions by some nations, but certainly more intense cooperation and coalition-building of Russia and China against the USA. The dollar would be the first target, making war financing increasingly more difficult with a declining currency value. Third, this would drain economic resources, and the reduced trust in the USA and its economy would make it more difficult to sustain prolonged attacks and even the control of Iran. With mounting economic problems and a political legitimacy crisis, domestic unrest and capital flight would open many more flanks.

Diplomatic And Political Strategy

One of the most important areas in this duality in which the USA are captured is the diplomatic realm. There is a need to signal to Israel a genuine commitment to the war, without fully committing. On the other side, allies and the global public need to be smoothly and indirectly convinced that the strategy is changing away from the war. As allies already supported the war to varying degrees and the global society has outspokenly stood against the USA’s aggression, they cannot simply stop, as this would trigger a legitimacy and credibility crisis, making future diplomatic conduct more ineffective. Accordingly, there needs to be a clever transition. Finally, the USA needs to signal to the opposite side that peace is desired, but also that the peace process is subject to constraints. This, however, will happen automatically with the application of the corresponding diplomatic interactions with the global public. In the meantime, the USA will need to seek to replace its government cadre with politicians loyal to the national interest of the USA.

Israel Relations

For the USA, the most imminent challenge is to reduce war efforts and investments without triggering a panic response from Israel. Of course, in the grand strategy to detach themselves from vassalage to Israel, there will be a diplomatic disruption. However, to shield the domestic political system and make preparations for the transition, the USA cannot afford a drastic panic reaction from Israel, which controls much of North American politics. As we outlined the military strategy above, the diplomatic strategy will need to be centred around overly intensive rhetoric support for the Israeli cause. Psychological manipulation is the primary vehicle to distort the perception of Israeli political cadres. It is important that the said word by the North Americans is so convincing and positive in terms of Israeli interest that it will take longer for them to realise the mismatch in actual commitment to the alliance and the war. However, this rhetorical strategy should be structured bilaterally and should not involve productive efforts to convince other actors to intensify support for the war.

Europe Relations

Traditionally, many European nations have been pushed into developing deep dependencies on the USA, which are used to gather support for all kinds of foreign policy objectives. However, in the current war, European nations are very reluctant to position themselves clearly, except for Spain. Backdoor diplomacy could be a dangerous approach, as decentralised communication with Israel and European nations could decipher the North American tactics. Therefore, rhetorical neutrality and agenda shifts in European relations would be the best approach to shift bilateral ties away from the war without appearing incongruent. Talks with European partners on matters unrelated to the war can serve as a basis for this approach.

Global Public Relations

On the global stage, a similar approach would not work so well, as the primary recipient of information is the public, opposed to political actors as primary counterparts in the European example. What would work better is to direct global public relations communication towards international bodies, predominantly in the legal realm. Increased calls for international committees, legal examination or even submitting to the authority of the International Criminal Court would somewhat outsource accountability and give grounds for justification towards Israel. Of course, the main component of these moves would be honouring the commitment to adhere to those bodies’ rulings; something the USA have historically had problems with.

Economic Strategy

Currently, there is a high financial burden that the war has caused. The operation costs are, compared to military progress, exorbitant. Financial and resource markets have been disrupted and exert additional pressure on the domestic economy. Additionally, there is a high public debt rate and a declining global trade market share. Under the pretext of fiscal tightening, the USA could introduce legislation that makes budget approvals significantly more difficult. In addition to that, special committees can be introduced to monitor spending meticulously. That way, additional payments to Israel, as well as excessive military spending, can be limited without triggering a panic reaction by Israel. Further, legislation could be introduced that redirects state funds more into domestic infrastructure and education spending to prevent capital from moving into unproductive areas. For example, if healthcare and university education were to become free, which the USA could easily afford, this would also immediately lead to wide public support, making the path to independence from Israel even easier.

Societal Strategy

This leads to the final dimension of the USA’s potential strategy, where the primary objective must be to reclaim the government’s legitimacy. Boosting internal cohesion and societal resilience through legitimacy-building is a prerequisite in the transition to independence because Israel – sooner or later – will aim exactly at disrupting domestic cohesion when it understands that the USA is becoming independent. However, instead of uniting the society under a slogan of a revolution, government policies need to reflect a clear commitment to societal values and produce quick and tangible benefits for citizens. Here, we have overlaps with the diplomatic and economic realms, as we have seen above. Additional measures could be social programmes that support different racial groups more effectively, hold the wealthiest people more accountable, wipe out education debt and introduce accessible investment opportunities. By doing so, the North American people will understand that the government tries to realign itself with the people, amplifying support for a further transition away from the vassalage to Israel. Motivated new politicians should then fill the gradually opening positions in the government.

Final Remarks

Although we have examined the situation in the necessary depth, we stress that there are still many more policy options available to the USA at more micro-levels of policymaking. These options, however, fall more into the category of tactics, as opposed to strategy, which is the focal point of this work. Moreover, it needs to be stressed that we are examining this topic from a perspective of limited informational resources. From what is available, we conclude that the above strategy would enable the USA to achieve their goals. It is also very important to consider the limitations of political actors. These can be in terms of resources, normativity or structure. Therefore, the assessments above should also be read in light of those real-life constraints of the said actors.

In our next article in this series, we are looking at the second actor in this war: Arabia. Here, too, we are going to adopt the lens of the said actor and argue in light of its interests. As we move forward in the series, we will see that interests diverge but also converge at some points among the different actors, which then paints a complete picture of the war.