The Dahiya Doctrine and Iran

Cult leader, convicted felon, and failed President Donald Trump has involved the United States in a war for reasons that he is unable to explain. He has thrown out so many different justifications that his cult followers are unable to keep up with the evolving talking points. For instance, many Republicans recently started claiming that Trump didn't actually start the war. In fact, these Republicans claim, the war was started 47 years ago by the Iranians. This would date the war to the Iranian Revolution in 1979, but one wonders why that date would be chosen rather than 1953 when Kermit Roosevelt Jr. and the Central Intelligence Agency led a coup against Mohammad Mosaddegh, the democratically elected Prime Minister of Iran. Nevertheless, numbers can be confusing, as demonstrated by Republican Representative Rick Crawford, who chairs the House Committee on Intelligence. Crawford appeared on Fox News this weekend and claimed that "We have been at war with Iran since 1947." Apparently, Crawford read "47" on his most recent set of talking points and got confused. But we really can't blame Crawford for not being sure why this war started. He certainly was not consulted about it. Trump did not bother consulting Congress, let alone asking for a declaration of war as the Constitution requires. Nor did Trump consult the American people, who have mostly opposed this war from the first shot. One person that Trump did consult, and extensively at that according to media reports, was Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Netanyahu, according to his own account, has wanted this war for 40 years, and Trump was the first U.S. president that he could convince to go along with it. As a result, Netanyahu's and Israel's fingerprints cannot be removed from the war. One area in which Israel's involvement is appearing is in the tactics being used to fight the conflict.

In 2006, Israel fought one of its periodic wars with Lebanon, primarily against the Hezbollah resistance group. Hezbollah had its headquarters in the Dahiya suburb of southern Beirut, and Israel heavily attacked the area. In addition to going after military targets, Israel intentionally attacked civilian infrastructure. Large parts of the area, including civilian housing, were flattened. These tactics would later be christened the "Dahiya doctrine," which Wikipedia explains as "an Israeli military strategy involving the large-scale destruction of civilian infrastructure, or domicide, to pressure hostile governments." In effect, the Dahiya doctrine is the intentional use of collective punishment, a tactic once considered exclusive to regimes like that of Nazi Germany. But when used by Israel, much of the world simply ignored it or, like the United States, actively supported it. The Dahiya doctrine almost immediately became central to Israeli military operations and has been repeatedly used in Lebanon as well as Gaza. In Gaza, for instance, Israel has repeatedly attacked water facilities, which are central for human survival in the area. Now, both Israel and the United States appear to be utilizing the doctrine in the war against Iran.

The most spectacular employment of Dahiya doctrine tactics was Israel's attack on oil refineries and storage facilities in Tehran over the weekend. Tehran, a city of over 9 million people, was lit up by infernos that erupted from the oil facilities. As burning oil poured through the irrigation ditches that funnel water to trees that line major thoroughfares, a surreal vision of hell was created. The next morning, there was no daylight in Tehran as clouds of oil fumes blocked out the sun. Residents were exposed to oil raining from the sky. This toxic brew will have significant health impacts on Tehran's residents. Altogether, at least 30 Iranian fuel depots were struck.

This was far from the only attack on civilian infrastructure. On Saturday, Iran's parliament speaker accused the United States of attacking a desalination plant on Qeshm Island, adding that the attack was launched from airbases in a neighboring country. Iran's foreign minister also commented that the "Water supply in 30 villages has been impacted. Attacking Iran’s infrastructure is a dangerous move with grave consequences. The US set this precedent, not Iran." One reason to avoid Dahiya doctrine tactics is that they are inhumane. Another is that they are often ineffective. But a major reason is that they invite retaliation on similar targets. Indeed, on Sunday, an Iranian drone attacked a desalination plant in Bahrain. Desalination plants are highly critical infrastructure in the Gulf area and, if their destruction is normalized, would present considerable challenges for those living there. As Al Jazeera reports:

About 42 percent of the UAE’s drinking water comes from desalination plants, while that figure is 90 percent in Kuwait, 86 percent in Oman, and 70 percent in Saudi Arabia.

Meanwhile, Israel has continued Dahiya doctrine tactics in Lebanon. Israel has ordered all Lebanese residents of southern Lebanon to evacuate, amounting to a half million or so people. In addition, Israel ordered the evacuation of the Dahiya suburb, the namesake of its destructive doctrine. This is roughly another 600,000 people. The Israelis routinely destroy entire civilian residential complexes due to suspicion that a single Hezbollah member might live there. Just today, Israel destroyed a bank in Beirut. According to Sky News, the Israeli attacks on Lebanon have killed at least 400 Lebanese.

Open source investigators writing in New Lines Magazine have documented a "double tap" strike on a base for emergency first responders in Shiraz, Iran. Local media reports that 20 people, including three medical professionals, were killed. The only identifiable military target in the area was left untouched.

Iran reports that over 6,000 civilian sites have been damaged or destroyed so far in the war. Certainly, information provided by the Iranian government, like that coming from the U.S. government, should be taken with a grain of salt. Moreover, some of this may be unintended collateral damage. Still, it is hard to deny that many of the civilian targets were struck intentionally. Especially among Israelis, attacking civilian targets is considered fair game. Even the Israeli opposition leader, Yair Lapid, has said that "Israel must destroy all of Iran's oil fields and energy industry on Kharg Island; that is what will cripple Iran's economy and topple the regime."

Lapid's statement highlights what proponents of the Dahiya doctrine believe it will accomplish. They argue that damaging civilian infrastructure will weaken the Iranian government and cause it to collapse. However, the doctrine does not provide answers for what comes next. Is the goal of the United States and Israel to simply destroy Iran and leave it behind as a failed state? If so, the example of Afghanistan should illustrate the dangers of such a policy. Is the goal to see the current Iranian regime replaced by one friendly with the U.S. and Israel? Trump has said that he expects to choose the next Iranian leader. But how successful will such a leader be if the civilian infrastructure has been decimated? Moreover, these attacks alienate the civilians who dislike the current government and are inclined to support the war. Iranians are perfectly capable of hating the ruling regime but also resenting the U.S. and Israel due to their tactics. Trump has also suggested the "Venezuela model" would be the guide for the outcome in Iran. In Venezuela, the government was left in place and Trump extorted a portion of their oil production. U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham said this weekend that "Venezuela and Iran have 31% of the world’s oil reserves. We’re going to have a partnership with 31% of the known reserves." How does that goal square with the destruction of Iran's oil production capabilities?

Trump administration officials and those aligned with them seemed to have recently become cognizant of the dangers of the Dahiya doctrine. The aforementioned Graham tweeted yesterday that:

Our allies in Israel have shown amazing capability when it comes to collapsing the murderous regime in Iran. America is most appreciative.

However, there will be a day soon that the Iranian people will be in charge of their own fate, not the murderous ayatollah’s regime.

In that regard, please be cautious about what targets you select. Our goal is to liberate the Iranian people in a fashion that does not cripple their chance to start a new and better life when this regime collapses. The oil economy of Iran will be essential to that endeavor.

Graham's message is clear: go ahead and kill the people, but leave the oil facilities alone. Trump was reportedly also upset by Israel's attacks on the oil depots. Axios reports that a Trump advisor told the news outlet that "The president doesn't like the attack. He wants to save the oil. He doesn't want to burn it. And it reminds people of higher gas prices." As in the case of desalination plants, Dahiya doctrine tactics could provoke retaliatory responses. Axios describes an Iranian military spokesperson as saying, "Iran so far hasn't targeted regional fuel and energy infrastructure and threatened that if Iran does, oil prices could hit $200 a barrel."

The fact that Graham and Trump are reacting after the fact is telling. Had this war been properly planned with agreed-upon goals, there would be no confusion about whether Iran's oil infrastructure should be targeted. However, by all appearances, Netanyahu — and to an extent, Graham — was the driving force behind the war. Trump cannot articulate why he started it or what he hopes to accomplish from it. It is no surprise then that the Israelis have behaved according to their normal tendency, which, for nearly two decades, has been the Dahiya doctrine. I suspect that the more this war goes in ways contrary to Trump's expectations, the more he will be willing to unleash the Israelis, and also utilize the U.S. military, to engage in the wanton destruction of civilian infrastructure. Netanyahu will convince him that is the path to victory. What may stop Trump is the one thing that seems to get his attention: the stock and bond markets. If oil prices continue to rise and the markets crash, Trump will likely TACO faster than he has ever TACO'd before.

There was a time when modern warfare was marked by precision. Anyone who remembers the Gulf War will recall the "bomb through a window" news clips that were extremely popular. However, the Dahiya doctrine ushered in a new era of warfare in which civilian infrastructure is explicitly targeted. The goal is to create widespread suffering rather than to avoid it. Most of these tactics are war crimes and would be prosecuted if anyone cared about international law anymore. But Israel and the United States have been among the leaders in decimating international legal structures. The United States has actually sanctioned members of the International Criminal Court. But while Trump doesn't care about lives or the law, he does care about money. Neither legality nor morality can prevent the Dahiya doctrine, but Trump's greed might be the match for it.