Today’s Iran is like Japan in 1944

When the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump demanded Iran’s “unconditional surrender,” I was reminded of Japan before the end of the Pacific War.

However, what comes to mind is not August 1945, when Japan accepted the Potsdam Declaration, but rather the previous year, November 1944, when the full-scale B-29 air raids on Tokyo began. If the maxim “History doesn't repeat itself, but it sometimes rhymes” holds true, I believe Iran will not “surrender” easily to the Trump administration anytime soon.

There are a few parallels between present-day Iran and Tokyo in 1944 but also some important dissimilarities. Here are four that easily come to mind.

Iran, like Imperial Japan, is mounting what could be called fanatical and tenacious resistance against overwhelmingly powerful U.S. military attacks. Iran, like pre-war Japan, has a supreme leader possessing religious authority seeking to balance the anti-U.S. hard-line military faction and a silent, enduring populace. For Iran, like Tokyo then, the sole purpose of fighting is “to preserve the national polity” and prevent regime collapse. And finally, even if defeat is almost inevitable, Tehran, like war-time Tokyo, is seeking to delay it by even a single day, gambling on the slightest chance of victory.

On the other hand, there are also differences between Japan then and present-day Iran.

First, the United States used nuclear weapons in 1945, but it cannot do so this time. Using them against Iran, whose nuclear weapons development the U.S. criticizes, would be a logical contradiction. Second, domestic opposition to war is extremely strong in the U.S. today. Immediately after the Pearl Harbor attack in December 1941, President Franklin Roosevelt called Dec. 7 “a date which will live in infamy,” rallying national unity. The Trump administration has a far different domestic situation.

Third, the president leading this war against Iran is not a career politician or former military officer, but a real estate developer who is practically a layman on military strategy. And fourth, most crucially, the current Trump administration has absolutely no blueprint for what to do with the defeated nation after the war ends. The war against Iran seems even more doomed than the 2003 War in Iraq, which was criticized for its lack of preparation.

This war will be protracted. Even if a ceasefire is achieved in the near future, the resumption of fighting between Israel and Iran is only a matter of time, by drawing a comparison with Japan in 1944.

Fierce resistance

With its supreme leader assassinated, Iran's Islamic regime will fight with desperate determination. No matter the cost in human lives, the religious leaders will be satisfied. Those who die in this fight will be deified as “martyrs.” This value system sets Iran apart from Venezuela. This is why I wrote in my previous column that “Iran has no Maduro.”

Preserving the system

During World War II, Emperor Hirohito struggled to preserve the “national system” of the imperial monarchy, caught between the hawkish, anti-American military faction and internationalist politicians representing the people's desire for peace and stability. Even Emperor Hirohito could not prevent the declaration of war against the United States in 1941.

Similarly, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, although more conservative and hard line, was not averse to certain compromises if they meant preserving the Islamic Republic.

Iran wins a protracted war

Tehran's current strategy is to drag the conflict out as long as possible — fighting to the last soldier if need be — in order to force some kind of ceasefire agreement with the United States and safeguard the Islamic Republic.

This strategy of attrition appears to be bearing fruit. Iran's current situation resembles Japan in November 1944, not July 1945. Presumably, Iran’s Islamic leaders anticipated this day for decades, meticulously preparing for a long, drawn-out war by building countless underground bunkers.

While Iran's losses are undoubtedly significant, as long as deploying ground troops remains politically impossible for the U.S., Iran can sustain the fight for a considerable period. During that time, if a large number of U.S. soldiers or innocent Iranian civilians were to die in combat due to missteps, even the Trump administration couldn't keep talking about “unconditional surrender.”

The outlook

Trump abandoned negotiations with Iran and appears to have been swayed by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu into supporting military strikes. He underestimated Iran's strength and miscalculated, assuming the conflict would be resolved quickly. Tehran will likely aim to prolong the fighting. If it can drag the war out, Iran wins. On the other hand, victory for the U.S. is difficult. More fundamentally, it cannot even define what victory means.

To win an armed conflict, one needs purpose, means, just cause and allies. Yet the Trump administration, which started this conflict to break its domestic political deadlock, possesses only the “means” of military force.

If the Trump administration ever had a chance to win, it was in January when anti-government protests were gaining momentum in Iran and the U.S. signaled support for them. However, Netanyahu and the U.S. military convinced Trump to delay the start of war at that time, citing a lack of preparation.

During the Pacific War, the U.S. did not guarantee the preservation of Japan’s national polity until the very end. This time too, it is hard to imagine that Israel or the United States would accept the survival of the Islamic Republic as a governing system. But if the conflict leads to the deaths of numerous U.S. soldiers, large numbers of civilian casualties from mistaken airstrikes or severe market turmoil driven by volatile gas prices, the United States could dig its own grave.

So at some point, Trump will have to look for an off-ramp — a pretext to make the failure of the military operation appear as an “honorable withdrawal.”