Trump must be wary of sleepwalking into Iraq war-like scenario with one move: expert

Donald Trump must be wary of walking into an Iraq-war-like scenario with Iran, a military intelligence expert has warned.

Colonel Jonathan Sweet, who spent 30 years as an intelligence expert and led the US European Command Intelligence Engagement Division from 2012 to 2014, believes the current strikes on Iran may start to line up with how the Iraq war escalated under President George W. Bush. While Col. Sweet and national security reporter Mark Toth urged Trump to find the center of Iran's military with a potential boots-on-the-ground operation, doing so would pave the way to a repeat of the US involvement in Iraq.

The pair wrote in The Hill, "Tomahawks, Precision Strike Missiles, and bunker busters may set the conditions, but at some point, the physical removal of these forces on the ground will be required.

"That could lead to 'boots-on-the-ground' in the form of clandestine U.S. operators or special forces teams reminiscent of the initial operations in Afghanistan, working directly with resistance in the regular Iranian military or the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps itself.

"Recognizing that there is a pathway to the center of gravity — and degrading the military is that pathway — the Trump administration must act to support the Iranian people and set conditions for them to act.

"The people need a partner on the ground, and the White House needs someone to step up, take charge and build up a transitional government. But this cannot lead to an Iraq-style occupation. As we have learned, occupation leads to insurgency."

A call for targeting the center of the Iranian military comes after Col. Sweet and Toth note the strikes so far had wiped out much of Iran's military, but not the strength of the regime.

They wrote, "The Iranian navy and air force have been nearly eradicated; ballistic missile and drone mobile launchers, production and storage facilities have been mostly destroyed; Iran’s ability to enrich uranium and produce a nuclear weapon are being neutralized; and their proxies — Hezbollah and Hamas — have been left withering on a vine.

"Yet the regime remains in place. Trump’s war has not stopped Iran’s ability to threaten the Iranian citizens whom Trump would prefer to serve as his boots on the ground, rising up and bringing about regime change.

"What happens when the Trump administration achieves its military objectives, but fails at regime-change? The question is especially pressing now that Iran’s Assembly of Experts has chosen Mojtaba Hosseini Khamenei — much younger than his father Ayatollah Ali Khamenei — as the country’s new Supreme Leader.

"This is not regime change, nor does it meet the conditions for Trump’s 'unconditional surrender.' As the saying goes, they just rearranged the deck chairs on the Titanic."