Brian M Downing
United States Secretary of Defense Gates recently complained there was no plan to halt Iran’s nuclear research, which is thought to be aimed at building atomic weapons. It is more accurate to say that plans to halt the program – both diplomatic and military – are impractical or have grave consequences. In the absence of a way to halt Iran’s nuclear research, worrisome though the program is, the US might consider a containment policy, or perhaps even a diplomatic opening with Iran.
Iranian intentions
The US intelligence community’s most recent position holds that Iran has no weapons program, but neither the previous US administration nor the present one believes it – a sign of the community’s lack of credibility. If US intelligence cannot adequately assess the state of Iran’s research program, it’s unclear it can understand Iran’s intentions. Assessments are filled with group-think and worst-case scenarios presented as virtual certainties. But there are non-aggressive reasons for a nuclear program.
The most oft-heard rationale is that the weapons are being developed to attack Israel. A single nuclear explosion over the business center of Tel Aviv, it is said, would destroy the economy on which the nation is based. This underestimates the Jewish commitment to their homeland and trivializes the severity of an Israeli response. Any such attack would lead to devastating counter-strikes, which would be as proportionate as recent Israeli responses to rocket attacks from Lebanon and Gaza,
This scenario relies on the view that Iran is governed by apocalyptic mullahs who would welcome their own destruction, as it would bring the return of the Hidden Imam and the rule of Islam worldwide. Though this belief is indeed part of Twelver Shi’ism, there is no indication the mullahs conduct government with an eye toward imminent destruction and the end of the world. American Christianity has apocalyptic strains; American foreign policy does not.
In the aftermath of the Ruhollah Khomeini revolution of 1979, calls for Shi’ite uprisings in the Gulf region resounded from Tehran, but rather than seeking the apocalypse, the calls looked to consolidate the revolution and spread the imam’s ideas in this world. They led to very little, and since then Iranian foreign policy has been pragmatic. The mullahs are concerned with day-to-day government and with strengthening their control after the unrest following last summer’s electoral unrest.
Defenders of the attack-Israel scenario point to the irresponsible rhetoric of Iran’s President Mahmud Ahmadinejad, who has repeatedly called for Israel’s destruction. His statements are irksome, but Ahmadinejad has no control over the military (or much else in government) and so cannot put his words into action.
Control rests in the hands of superiors on the Guardian Council, whose words and actions are more cautious. Ahmadinejad’s rhetoric seeks to weaken Iran’s Arab rivals by playing to the urban poor who question their leaders’ quiescence vis-a-vis Israel. Ahmadinejad has been criticized by reformists in Iran who better represent the country’s future.
Iran’s nuclear program is more likely based on defense concerns. Shortly after 9/11, the George W Bush administration targeted Iran as part of the “axis of evil” along with Iraq and North Korea. Iran was clearly a candidate for forcible regime change, though as runner-up to Iraq. Had chaos not erupted in Iraq following the 2003 invasion – in part due to Iranian actions – US forces might well have turned east.
Every country looks on the actions of foreign powers through the lens of its national history. And Iranian history over the past century is a litany of foreign occupations, coups and various oil and arms transactions of dubious fairness – all of which stemmed from Britain, the US and Russia.
Today, the US has about 200,000 troops on Iran’s eastern and western borders and keeps one or more carrier groups offshore. Though these forces are dedicated to operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, Iran cannot be certain of benign intent. The presence of Western-supported insurgencies in the Kurdish northwest, the Arab southwest and the Baloch southeast – some of whom have engaged in terrorist bombings – further elevates Iran’s concerns.
Rising powers look on their militaries as emblems of national honor, legitimacy and prestige. In the 19th century, countries such as the US and Germany built white-water navies, including immense battleships, though they didn’t figure meaningfully in national defense.
As its empire gradually gave way in the decade and a half after the end of Word War II, France embarked on a nuclear weapons program as a means of restoring lost prestige, especially after the loss of Algeria. In some respects, nuclear weapons are the battleships of our age: impressive, dangerous, but of little military use.
Doubtful effectiveness of sanctions
The US is seeking to organize a sanction regime on Iran, but it is unlikely to meet with success. It will need the support of Russia and China, both of whom have votes on the UN Security Council and important trade and geopolitical ties with Iran.
The history of sanctions does not inspire confidence in their effectiveness. Numerous countries, including Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, endured over a decade of sanctions without political change. Smuggling is far from unknown in the Gulf region, many tribes there specialize in it, and the Shi’ite leaders in Iraq will facilitate illicit trade with the country that helped them during Saddam’s oppressive rule. There is little to prevent smuggling from the Caucasus region to Iran’s north, where such activity thrived even under Soviet rule.
Sanctions are not effective in the best of circumstances. Russia and China both benefit from trade with Iran. China buys oil and Russia sells armaments there. Sanctions are unlikely to impact a country that sells huge quantities of oil and buys equally large quantities of weaponry. Even several years of sanctions are unlikely to have an appreciable effect on the nuclear program, except perhaps to stimulate it in the face of foreign pressure.
Unlikelihood of a US attack
The US routinely used to threaten to attack Iran. Its fighters and ships probed Iranian defenses, and at times there were three carrier groups in the region instead of the one in support of operations in Iraq. In 2006, Washington trumpeted an upcoming simulation of a nuclear strike on a deep rock stratum in Nevada that was, uncoincidentally, the same depth as the rock stratum above Iran’s underground research center at Natanz. (The test was called off due to environmentalist pressures.)
At the same time, Iraq was in civil war. Sunni and Shi’ite militias fought vicious battles, and Shi’ite political parties and their associated militias fought only somewhat less viciously. Both militias inflicted unexpectedly high casualties on US troops. US policy there was in a shambles and the public was irate.
In early 2008, however, fighting fell off markedly, and not only in the Sunni areas where the “Surge” was taking place. Shi’ite attacks on US forces and on each other dropped as well. Antagonistic political parties reached agreements. Perhaps most surprisingly, US threats to attack Iran disappeared at the same time.
Iran, in the person of Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps General Qassem Suleimani, had brokered agreements that brought peace to Iraq and relief to Washington. The diplomatic history of the region would suggest a secret deal between the US and Iran, probably with the complicity of Sunni-Arab states, especially Saudi Arabia and the smaller Sunni states that balance the Saudi-Iranian rivalry.
Unilateral Israeli attack?
Threats of attack still come from Israel, where a hawkish government reflects on a national history of fear of destruction and makes policy accordingly. Israel has demonstrated the willingness to use devastating air power on Lebanon and Gaza, the ability to defeat Iran’s Russian air defenses in a strike on Syria, and the capacity to travel significant distances to reach targets in Tunisia and Iraq.
The distances to Iran and back are greater than anything the Israeli air force has undertaken. Refueling would be necessary. Reports and rumors swirl of securing refueling facilities in Georgia or pre-positioning fuel bladders in remote parts of Yemen. Failing that, Israeli fighters could ditch over the Indian Ocean near waiting Israeli ships.
Other critical questions remain. Can Israel defeat Iranian air defenses without help from the US? Can nuclear facilities buried deep underground or burrowed into mountains be destroyed, or would they merely be knocked offline but brought back into operation in a few months by a vengeful government? Would attacks rally reformist groups to the government at a time of flagging support for the mullahs?
The US developed and bruited a new generation of bunker-busting weapons while directing dire warnings at Iran. These weapons would be needed to strike underground targets such as the nuclear facilities near Natanz and Isfahan. But after fighting declined in Iraq, little has been said of them. The US has refused to sell the new bunker-busters to Israel or even position them there for contingencies, as it does with many other weapons.
It’s unclear that foreign intelligence agencies know of all Iranian research facilities. The recent acknowledgement of a facility near Qom should lead foreign powers, including Israel, to ask what other sites they don’t know of.
An Israeli attack is unlikely but not as unlikely as a US attack (or a joint one). The Israeli public is more supportive of military action than publics in the US and many other countries. And domestic politics might lessen appreciation of the consequences and increase pressure on the government to attack.
Iranian retaliation options
The most critical question concerns how Iran might respond. Whatever US complicity there is in any attack, Iran would ascribe considerable blame to the US as there would be no doubt about where the planes and weapons were made.
Iran has considerable influence in Iraq. Important political parties were set up in Iran during the Iran-Iraq war. A sign of their leanings was offered after the recent elections when the parties sent emissaries not to Washington, but to Tehran.
Iranian influence in Iraq could be used against the US. It has already been used to order the US out by the end of 2011. The deadline could be stepped up as an insult, but more lethal responses are likely. The Shi’ite-dominated army and militias not yet integrated into it could turn on US troops, most likely in surreptitious, low-intensity attacks with what might be called plausible denial, putting the US in the contorted position of fighting the democratic government it prides itself on installing. Alternately or in conjunction with Iraqi forces, Iranian Quds Force personnel could cross the porous border to conduct guerrilla warfare.
Iraq, with guidance from Iran, could turn on the Sunni Arab population. Over the past year, Sunni Arabs have launched a terror bombing campaign, killing hundreds of Shi’ites. The government’s response has thus far been restrained, but it may be biding its time for a harsh response to remind the Sunnis of their marginal status in national affairs, placing the US in the position of defending the Sunni militias it armed and protected during the troop “surge”.
Iran could also retaliate in Afghanistan. Iran has no affection for the Taliban. In Tehran’s eyes, they are uncivilized Sunnis who are responsible for the 1998 slaughter of 10 Iranian diplomats and thousands of Shi’ite Hazaras. Iran supported the Northern Alliance in ousting the Taliban in 2001 and dropped its support for Burhanuddin Rabbani in the post-Taliban election, shifting support to the US candidate, Hamid Karzai.
Nonetheless, Iran sends the Taliban small amounts of weapons and trains a handful of their fighters in the craft of improvised explosive devices, a reminder to the US that it can escalate the fighting and casualties, thereby making Afghanistan what Iraq was four years ago.
The Straits of Hormuz would make another arena for a vengeful Tehran. The narrow entrance to the Persian Gulf sees a great deal of US traffic, both merchant and naval. “Swarming” tactics – sending large numbers of planes and missiles toward a few ships in the hope of overwhelming their defenses – could sink several US vessels, perhaps even a carrier.
More likely, Iran would make only a token effort in the straits, one that signaled the potential for more serious responses. This could be done by firing a missile or artillery round across the bow of a US ship or an oil tanker. In a matter of an hour of word reaching world trading desks, the price of oil would spike. The oil shock would hit the world at a time of economic weakness and fiscal crisis. The price rise would bring increased revenue into Iran.
Responses against Israel would be more difficult. Hezbollah, Iran’s ally in Lebanon, would be a likely agent of retaliation, but Israel’s devastating airstrikes on Lebanon in 2006 reduced Hezbollah’s willingness to absorb more punishment. Hamas, Iran’s Palestinian partner, has little military capability, despite Iranian training and arms. Its militias showed little effectiveness in the recent Israeli incursion into Gaza, and the ease with which Israel has targeted Hamas leaders suggests numerous inside informers.
The difficulty of making direct retaliation in Israel will not lead to Iranian quiescence, and could lead to retaliation against Jewish targets outside the country, including American ones. Palestinian groups, seeing a de facto annexation of the West Bank taking place, might rejoin the deadly effort they began 40 years ago.
Containment and diplomatic opening
Barriers to airstrikes, the uncertainty of results and the array of Iranian retaliatory options make military action problematic, though not out of the question. Perhaps these difficulties will make containment or even a diplomatic opening more attractive – one that may make Iran see less danger and keep its nuclear research program short of weapons production.
The term “containment” naturally recalls the US foreign policy toward the Soviet Union after Word War II, which built alliances to ring the Soviet empire. The Cold War was long, expensive and marked by proxy wars around the world, but a catastrophic war between the two superpowers was avoided, and in time the Soviet Union imploded.
Iran is already partially surrounded by Sunni Arab states that are often hostile but dexterous in balancing power in the Gulf region. They would be helpful in preventing a new containment policy from leading to the aggressiveness and lack of caution that occasionally pushed containment close to conflict.
The US would do well to consider a diplomatic opening with Iran, as president Richard Nixon (1969-1974) did with Moscow and Beijing. Nixon, as anti-communist as any American leader, recognized dangers and also diplomatic and commercial opportunities. The results of his policies were mixed, but tensions in many parts of the world eased.
United States and Iranian goals in Iraq and Afghanistan overlap considerably. Both want a stable Iraq. Renewed civil war there could escalate into a regional conflict involving Sunni and Shi’ite powers in the Gulf and beyond. Internal sectarian strife could involve the sizable Shi’ite populations of Saudi Arabia, Oman, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait. It is worth noting that these Shi’ite minorities are often located in oil-producing areas.
Iranian support to the Taliban, as noted, is light – and aimed at deterring US attacks and preventing a lengthy presence in an adjacent country. Iran’s ties with the Tajiks of northern Afghanistan, who comprise about 15% of the population, could be useful in bringing about a negotiated settlement – an outcome that parties, including the US, are working toward.
An opening would naturally lead to objections from Israel and its supporters in the US, but easing tensions would not mean abandoning Israel or weakening its security. Quite the opposite. A diplomatic opening between the US and Iran would make Tehran more mindful of relations with America’s partners.
In the 1980s, Israel recognized the intent of the rhetoric and maintained cordial relations with Iran, including the sale of military equipment to the Khomeini government, even while it was holding the American Embassy hostages. Israeli support continued during the Iran-Iraq war (1980-1988), and Iran provided intelligence for Israel’s strike on Iraq’s Osirak nuclear facility in 1980. Despite staggering differences, the two countries have had long-standing ties, based mainly on common opposition to Arab powers. Diplomatic history has known stranger rapprochements.
Containment and diplomacy, despite uncertainties, offer attractions over tension and attack. Easing tensions would lead to greater cooperation in Iraq and Afghanistan and aid reformist momentum inside Iran.
Brian M Downing is a national security analyst who has written for outlets across the political spectrum. He studied at Georgetown University and the University of Chicago, and did post-graduate work at Harvard’s Center for International Affairs.