Suppose we could…<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Suppose you were President Donald Trump facing one of the ugliest strategic dilemmas in foreign policy: how to pressure the leadership of Iran without falling into the same trap that has frustrated presidents, generals, and diplomats dealing in the Muslim world for decades. On one side sits escalation, military force, and the risk of civilian suffering. On the other sits the uncomfortable possibility that doing little changes nothing. And hanging over all of it is a problem critics of the Iranian system frequently emphasize: ordinary citizens endure hardship while the people making the biggest decisions remain insulated from it. They just don’t care. Their personal power is most important, winning is surviving, losing means death. Let the people eat cake.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and the institutions surrounding the Iranian state, particularly the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and senior political networks, are protected from the economic instability, inflation, shortages, and uncertainty experienced by many ordinary Iranians. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Their sociopathic tendencies allow them to watch their country destroyed, allow them to put women and children in harms way as hostages to protect military equipment, allow them to spit in the face of a country that has completely destroyed their ability to defend themselves. They are still living as they did before, in virtual palaces with their happy families, wanting for nothing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For Trump, or any American president confronting Iran, that becomes a grim strategic problem. Bombing infrastructure risks worsening life for civilians while strengthening narratives of victimhood or resistance. Expanding sanctions may create pressure while simultaneously increasing suffering among people with limited influence over national policy. But nothing seems to have any effect on the leadership, because they have not been touched by tragedy as their people have.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And that is where this discussion takes a turn so strange that it almost feels inappropriate to say out loud.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Enter the Stink Bomb<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Suppose we could reach them in a way that is exceeding personal, and immune from human shields, that will not hurt our chances to win the hearts and minds of the Iranian people. A weapon that is brutal in its humor and effective in making the leadership and anyone around them unbelievably uncomfortable, taking away their luxuries, making them pariahs in their own country. A weapons that would not require boots on the ground (or at least not many).<\/p>\n\n\n\n A Stink Bomb would do it. One that is unbelievably obnoxious and lasts for about 6 months.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The absurdity of this idea becomes easier to dismiss once history intrudes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n During the Second World War, American intelligence officials working under the wartime predecessor to the CIA explored one of the most offbeat concepts ever seriously considered by a government: a foul-smelling compound reportedly nicknamed \u201cWho, Me?\u201d The proposal sounds like satire written by sleep-deprived bureaucrats, yet it emerged during one of history\u2019s darkest conflicts. The objective was not battlefield destruction or assassination. It was humiliation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The theory, bizarre as it sounds, rested on a surprisingly serious psychological observation. Powerful people depend partly on perception. Authority is theatrical. Prestige matters. Ritual matters. Fear often relies upon image. If intimidating officials could be covertly transformed into social disasters through overpowering odor and embarrassment, their mystique might weaken. The weapon, in other words, targeted symbolism rather than flesh.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Imagine, for a moment, the grim absurdity of the scene. A feared authority figure walks into a meeting expecting silence and obedience. Instead, people subtly step backward. Windows quietly open. Conversations shorten. The room shifts. Nobody openly confronts power, but power suddenly feels awkward, diminished, ridiculous. Somewhere beneath the ridiculousness sat a serious wartime question: can humiliation weaken authority?<\/p>\n\n\n\n As strange as it sounds, governments did not stop there. Later military and security research revisited what became known as malodorants, deliberately overwhelming smells intended for crowd dispersal or area denial. Researchers explored whether unbearable odors could clear spaces, disrupt gatherings, or create non-lethal forms of coercion. The logic, while deeply unglamorous, was brutally straightforward. Human beings have limits, and disgust is among the fastest ways to make people leave.<\/p>\n\n\n\n At some point, government researchers even developed what became known as the \u201cU.S. Government Standard Bathroom Malodor,\u201d a phrase so strangely bureaucratic it almost sounds fictional. Yet somewhere in federal paperwork sits evidence that serious professionals spent professional time standardizing what counted as scientifically terrible smell. History occasionally wanders into comedy without asking permission.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The best-known modern example emerged through \u201cSkunk,\u201d a foul-smelling liquid used in crowd-control settings in Israel and widely described as smelling like sewage, rot, decay, stagnant drains, and several bad life decisions happening simultaneously. Reports describe odors lingering on streets, buildings, clothing, and surfaces long after deployment. Whatever one thinks about such tactics, the underlying principle remained the same: discomfort and disgust can alter behavior without conventional force.<\/p>\n\n\n\n How to Defeat Iranian Leadership<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n At this point, reasonable readers may wonder whether this article has entirely lost its mind.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Fair enough.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But beneath the absurdity sits a deadly serious strategic question that helps explain why such strange ideas occasionally appear in military history. What happens when leadership appears insulated from consequences? What happens when ordinary people absorb hardship faster than decision-makers? How do governments seek leverage over power structures that seem buffered by distance, privilege, and security?<\/p>\n\n\n\n And how do you cause pain to the leadership without causing death to innocents?0<\/p>\n\n\n\n Imagine a weapon that could be fired from a shoulder fired rocket or an airborne weapon that would be cause an odor so foul and intolerable that it would render any edifice uninhabitable for 6 months or so.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Imagine a weapon that could be fired at a bridge full of women and children put their by the IRGC to block attacks that would immediately make them run away and not volunteer for such duty ever again?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Imagine a weapon that could be fired into or near the house or perhaps even the whole neighborhood of the leadership and their families such that they would become homeless – and of course through intelligence sources we would follow them wherever they go, friends houses, hotels, etc., until no one wanted to host them any more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The question may remain as to whether this is “chemical warfare” that might spark a resurgence of deadlier stuff. But the fact that it is nonlethal and temporary should make the precedent much less inviting. And of course, Iran would almost immediately start a propaganda campaign of some kind. This would have to be a clear information campaign ahead of time (leaflets???).<\/p>\n\n\n\n Trump doesn’t want to kill innocent civilians. And he really does have a soft spot for the Iranian people – probably more empathy for them than Iranian leadership does at this point. Non-lethal means could be effective. Not to mention very funny…<\/p>\n\n\n\n NP Editor:<\/strong> I met the people who invented \u201cWho, Me?\u201d at the CIA and took a sniff. It was a horror I would not wish on my worst enemy, and a single drop was more than enough to clear a room.<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Suppose we could… Suppose you were President Donald Trump facing one of the ugliest strategic dilemmas in foreign policy: how to pressure the leadership of Iran without falling into the same trap that has frustrated presidents, generals, and diplomats dealing in the Muslim world for decades. On one side sits escalation, military force, and the risk of civilian suffering. On the other sits the uncomfortable possibility that doing little changes nothing. 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