The Middle East Forum has written the report that has been needed. It is a plan for actually succeeding in getting a friendly Iran out of this war.

The report is here. It cites a bunch of our best think tanks, praising them for doing good work in gaming out every detail of this war. It then politely reminds them that they – we – still need to get to the real question. It proceeds to provide the core question and, on point after point, the bulk of the answer in its report.

The others, it warns, have all ended up instead with plans for how best to limit our effort to one of “mowing the grass” and getting out – till the grass grows up again and we are hit with another, even round of Iran-based attack. Which would be a disaster.

This report doesn’t stop at accepting that disaster. It goes on to do what all those other think tanks should have been doing.

Hopefully it will provide a spur for our officials and our quasi-official think tanks to develop their own versions of a program for completing the job for real.

The One Point We Must Add to the MEF Plan

For a victory program to work, one more thing must still be added to MEF’s report. It needs to add a solid scenario, or scenarios, for actually eliminating on the ground the Islamic Republic regime, and replacing it with another regime.

Regimes exist on the ground. They are structures of authority on ground, with relations of control and subordination between individuals and institutions. Air power is ever more important, and same with information; but the power network of people on the ground is still crucial.

MEF’s section about drawing together the internal and emigre oppositions is an important part of building the new authority, but only a part. It is necessary also to have clear scenarios for organizing the oppositions........

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)