Signs are mounting that in Tehran, which faces rising pressures at home and abroad, the country’s powerful hardline conservatives are circling the wagons, raising the odds of still more Iranian global provocations. The question is whether Washington — which continues to tighten the economic screws on Tehran — is ready for what might come next.
For years, Iran’s ruling ayatollahs have grappled with a profoundly vexing problem: how best to maintain the loyalty of the country’s growing (and increasingly unruly) population. The question isn’t strictly a political one. It is also made significantly more complicated by the age of the Islamic Republic’s population, which cuts against the regime in key ways.
The latest proposals laid out by the president are simply too little, too late.
Recently, while participating in a wargame, I was asked by a military officer whether today’s Space Force has the equivalent of an Air Corps Tactical School, the military institution which originally matured the modern theory of airpower.
The Islamic Republic is too weak to wage a conventional war on the U.S. — but that doesn’t mean it poses no threat.