Iraq, Iran, and Dictators

And the fog of war theory

I would much rather be writing about mythology and the collapse of the Bronze Age.

But, okay fine. Let's talk about the fog of war.

When countries go to war, things within the realm of information get foggy. Its pretty self-explanatory. Countries try to hide or coverup what they are actually doing in order to protect the integrity of the mission. Don't let the enemy know what you are doing. Pretty simple.

Fog of war can include tactics like narrative warfare, psychological warfare, misdirection, digital disinformation, and outright lies.

Except sometimes, lying to the enemy can backfire in really catastrophic ways.

So, Iraq.

The intelligence failure regarding the Iraq war is probably one of the greatest intelligence failures of history, but not in the way most Americans think.

Iraq did not have nukes.

However, Iraq DID try to convince people that they did. They tried very hard to make it look like they had developed nuclear capabilities and basically, US intelligence bought the lie.

They didn't see through the fog.

The deception was not meant for the US, it was meant for Iran.

At the time, Iraq and Iran were basically locked in a cold war. Each one trying to one-up the other. In the years leading up to the Iraq invasion there were a lot of tumultuous conflicts between the two countries, aided by the kind of US involvement that would make Henry Kissinger giddy.

So, prior to the invasion, Iraq was thumping their chest at Iran by using fog of war tactics. "Look, we are developing WMDs so you better back off."

The US said, "You're developing what now?"

Then Iraq tried to hide the fact that they were hiding nothing.

Sometimes the deception you think your being deceived with is an entirely different deception. Clever, but it ended with catastrophic failure in every possible way and from every angle. A lot of people died.

So on to Iran.

Back in March, Tulsi Gabbard, the Director of National Intelligence said openly that Iran was not anywhere near developing a nuclear weapon. However, since the US attack on Iran, she has walked back her statements in order to agree with whatever Trump wants her to say.

(The DNI is the person who is supposed to know every single bit of classified information within the US Intelligence Community. Intelligence gathering and distribution is siloed so even the best intel analysts will never be able to put all the pieces together. No one but the DNI.)

Fog of war.

Muddy the intelligence. Even with your intel guys.

Except the Trump regime is really bad at it.

I want to be clear that I do not know if Iran has nukes or any type of nuclear capability. I don't have access to that kind of information. (Both countries are lying ass liars.) But I can say that it would not in the slightest bit surprise me if Iran was also playing up their nuclear capabilities in order to thump their chest in a volatile region where their sworn enemy DOES have nukes.

The US doesn’t pursue regime changes when a dictator has nukes. It’s too dangerous.

(See also: mutually assured destruction)

The Middle East has been in a tense cold war for a really long time and Israel seems very happy to light the match.

But ALSO, cold wars are never as cold as they seem. They manifest conflict under the guise of proxy wars in other countries, which have plagued the Middle East for decades. Iran is heavily involved in sponsoring and encouraging those proxy wars. So is Russia and so is the US.

Basically, what we have here is a very foggy (pun intended) and constantly shifting Venn diagram of militaristic deception (including narrative and psychological warfare), cold war style tactics, and mutually assured destruction.

BUT ALSO, when dictators start treading on thin ice on the home front, they always start a war. It serves as the perfect ground from which to build a distraction from the catastrophes at home and unite a divided populace. They gain the ability to erode civil liberties, arrest dissenters as threats to national security, and suspend elections.

(Star Wars, anyone?)

For people who have been paying attention to how the Trump regime was acting, a war with Iran had been on the table since day 1. This was 100% predictable.

Because they also use fog of war on their own citizens.

I would much rather be writing about mythology.