No good options
By James M. Dorsey
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The United States bombing of Kharg Island, Iran’s foremost oil export terminal, suggests that President Donald Trump may realise that he has no good options in Iran.
Without the bombing, any Trump declaration of victory would likely have rung hollow with critics comparing it to President George W. Bush’s 2003 Mission Accomplished in Iraq speech, after which the war continued for another nine years.
Even so, Mr. Trump faces unpalatable choices that don’t include the falling silent of the guns at a time of his choosing, despite the death and destruction wrought by the US and Israeli militaries.
Iran’s closure of the strategic Strait of Hormuz and continued attacks on Israel and the Gulf states make it difficult, if not impossible, for Mr. Trump to unilaterally declare victory and an end to the war.
That is all the truer, given that Iran will project any scenario in which its regime survives as a victory against two of the world’s most powerful, nuclear-armed militaries.
As a result, Mr. Trump is left with two options: an all-out attempt to topple the Iranian regime with no guarantee of success, even if he were to decide to put boots on the ground or bomb Iran back into the Stone Age, making it almost prohibitively costly to rebuild the country as a nation-state.
Mr. Trump’s bad options reflect a changing world order in which civlisationalist leaders like the US president, Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, and Russian President Vladimir Putin no longer see containment of hostile forces as a viable option, no longer feel restrained in conquering territory they claim should be theirs, and no longer are constrained in acting on the might-makes-right principle.
It’s a world in which Iran scholar Sina Toossi warned that “if a more zero-sum logic of deterrence takes hold across the region, replacing dialogue as the organising principle of security, the Middle East may enter a far more dangerous era in which nuclear weapons are viewed as the ultimate form of deterrence and nuclear proliferation can no longer be stopped.”
More immediately, the risk of an all-out Iran war effort aimed at regime change is that rather than toppling Iran’s leaders, it leaves in place an angry, vengeful regime that lashes out like a wounded animal or fuels Iran’s descent into civil war, chaos, and anarchy.
Ironically, Iran may welcome US boots on the ground in the belief that it stands more of a fighting chance on its own territory as it seeks to compensate for its inability to defend itself against air strikes by taking the war to its neighbours in the Gulf, as well as Israel, Turkey, and Azerbaijan.
Iranian leaders have demonstrated their willingness to risk devastating destruction in the belief that they can inflict a degree of primarily economic and psychological pain on Israel, Gulf states, global energy markets, and international commerce that makes continuation of the war by the United States and Israel and future attacks too costly.
Iran sees the pain it can inflict as the main lever that could force Mr. Trump to end the war, particularly in a US election year. It believes its advantage is its ability to absorb pain, which is significantly higher than that of the United States.
The Iranian “calculus is…that in coming days the US and Israel will run out of interceptors and they will be able to inflict much more harm on every one of the US allies in the region, and then Trump will be coming to beg for some kind of cease-fire, for which they could dictate the terms,” said International Crisis Group Iran analyst Ali Vaez.
“It is to a degree wishful thinking because even if US defensive capabilities suffer, it is still well-stocked on the offensive side and can inflict way more damage to Iran,” Mr. Vaez added.
Even if Iran’s strategy is to whatever degree based on wishful thinking, it will remain capable of inflicting pain by ensuring high oil prices and sustaining an environment that threatens business as long as it can fire missiles and launch drones at targets in the Gulf states.
Reaffirming Iran’s strategy, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian laid out three conditions for an end to the war that are unacceptable to either the United States or Israel.
The conditions include recognition of its legitimate rights, a reference to enrichment of uranium, ballistic missile development, and support for non-state allies; payment of reparations for damage Iran suffered in the war; and firm international guarantees that it will not be the target of further aggression.
Similarly, Iran’s newly appointed Supreme Leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, in his first public statement, asserted that Iran wanted good relations with its Gulf neighbours, but on Iran’s terms.
Mr. Khamenei insisted that Iran would continue its attacks on Gulf states and keep the Strait of Hormuz closed as long as they host US military facilities. In doing so, Mr. Khamenei was attempting to drive a wedge between the United States and its Gulf allies.
On X, top national security official Ali Larijani tweeted, “While starting a war is easy, it cannot be won with a few tweets. We will not relent until making you sorry for this grave miscalculation.” Mr. Larijani signed off with the hashtag #TrumpMustPay
“They really are not going to negotiate. It’s all about forcing the other side to stop,” noted Iran analyst Hamidreza Azizi.
Mr. Azizi argued that the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), the backbone of Iran’s military forces and a significant economic player, believes that Iranian security is vested in asymmetrically changing the Middle East’s military and strategic equation.
Iran retains arrows in its quiver, despite US and Israeli pummelling, and the fact that it is no match for conventional US and Israeli military power.
A next step could be Yemeni Houthi rebel attacks on international shipping that reinforce the closure of the Strait of Hormuz and could expand to the choking off of Bab al-Mandab that links the Suez Canal with the Arabian Sea and the Indian Ocean.
Analysts said the Houthis, although missing in action until now, had prepared for possible action by positioning missile launchers, drones, and military units and building defensive infrastructure on the shores of the Red Sea and close to the border with Saudi Arabia.
Even so, concerns about a US, Israeli, and potentially Saudi response to their entry into the war prompted the Houthis to largely remain on the sidelines of last June’s 12-day Israeli assault on Iran in which the US attacked the Islamic Republic’s nuclear facilities.
Iranian military officials claim they could also escalate the war by firing high-speed underwater torpedoes based on technology that is uniquely Russian and Iranian and has so far been kept in reserve.
Finally, Iran is targeting US and others’ commercial interests, including technology firms, like Google, Microsoft, Palantir, IBM, Nvidia, Amazon, and Oracle, banks, such as Citibank, Standard Chartered, and HSBC, consultancies, including PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) and Deloitte, and Western oil companies operating in the Gulf.
Mr. Trump took a first step towards returning Iran to the Stone Age with the bombing of Kharg Island’s military installations that are close to the northern mouth of the Strait of Hormuz.
The president said the US had “obliterated’ Iranian military facilities on the island but had so far spared oil installations.
“I have chosen NOT to wipe out the Oil Infrastructure on the Island. However, should Iran, or anyone else, do anything to interfere with the Free and Safe Passage of Ships through the Strait of Hormuz, I will immediately reconsider this decision,” Mr. Trump warned.
Rather than destroying Kharg Island, Mr. Trump could decide to occupy Kharg Island, take control of its oil infrastructure, and declare victory.
Iranian media and pundits see the dispatch to the Gulf of the USS Tripoli, an amphibious assault ship and some 2,500 Marines from the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit as a prelude to a US ground operation that could involve the occupation of Kharg and/or three islands, Abu Musa, Greater Tunb, and Lesser Tunb, located at the entrance to the Strait of Hormuz.
In 1971, Iran’s toppled Shah occupied the three islands claimed by the United Arab Emirates.
The Iranian pundits and media argued that US occupation would allow the Islamic Republic to potentially increase the US casualty rate and turn a limited deployment into a costly quagmire.
The US refusal, so far, to attack Iranian oil and gas infrastructure, much like Mr. Trump’s reluctance to back ethnic insurgencies, speaks to Mr. Trump’s vacillation regarding regime change and his sustained belief that he can force Iran to submit.
The question is whether the Kharg Island bombing suggests that Mr. Trump has crossed a Rubicon, with Iran vowing to tighten its closure of the Strait and expand its attacks on Gulf oil facilities.
Mr. Trump said the US Navy would soon start escorting vessels, through the Strait of Hormuz through which an estimated 20 per cent of the world’s oil flows.
The last time US naval vessels escorted oil tankers through Gulf waters was in 1987, when Kuwait reflagged tankers to fly the US flag. The reflagging provided the legal base for US Navy protection of US-flagged vessels during the Tanker War, a facet of the Iran-Iraq war in which both sides attacked shipping in Gulf waters.
I stood on the bridge of the USS Fox, a destroyer, accompanying the first reflagged vessel, the MV Bridgeton, one of the world’s largest tankers, which hit an underwater Iranian sea mine some 135 nautical miles north of the Strait of Hormuz.
The explosion breached the outer hull of the Bridgeton and forward cargo tanks, spilling oily residue into the water.
It handed Iran a significant public relations victory on a silver platter.
“Here’s the thing to remember. When you escort big ships and the threat is mines, the ships that are most vulnerable are your warships, not your tankers. A tanker can hit a mine, and they’ll fill a bump up on the bridge, but it’s not going to sink it,” said retired General Kenneth F. McKenzie, a former US Marine Corps and Centcom commander.
“When a 7,000- or 10,000-foot warship hits a mine, you’re going to have human casualties and you’re going to have flooding, you’re going to have significant problems,” Mr. McKenzie added.
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Dr. James M. Dorsey is an Adjunct Senior Fellow at Nanyang Technological University’s S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Associate Editor of WhoWhatWhy, and the author of the syndicated column and podcast, The Turbulent World with James M. Dorsey.
