Tag Archives: War with Iran

The War with Iran 10 January 2020.

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The American invasion of Iraq in 2003 created both opportunities and dangers for Iran.  On the one hand, it toppled an enemy leader (Saddam Hussein) and liberated the fellow Shi’ites of Iraq to dominate a “democratic” government.  On the other hand, it put the powerful military of Iran’s American enemy right on the country’s door-step.[1]

An important role in developing the opportunities and confronting the dangers fell to General Qassim Suleimani.  Suleimani occupied a powerful position in Iran’s government.  The New York Times has described him as “an American vice president, chairman of the Joint Chiefs, and C.I.A. director rolled into one.”[2]  Suleimani worked to increase the power of Iraq’s Shi’ite majority, extend Iranian influence over Iraq and into Syria, and push the Americans to pull out.  Some Americans and a good many Iraqis died in the ensuing violence.  Both the Bush II and Obama administrations had thought about killing him.  Both seem to have decided that killing Suleimani would not advance American strategic interests at those particular times.  Clearly, President Trump and his closest advisors made a different decision.  On 3 January 2020, an American drone fired two missiles that killed Suleimani and some of his myrmidons.

It is impossible at this early date to foresee the long-term consequences.  Still, it is possible to suggest some factors that will influence events.  First, the killing of Suleimani is unlikely to deepen the existing abyssal hostility between the two nations.[3]

Second, domestic factors will push Iran to retaliate for the assassination.  General Suleimani in the front rank of Iran’s leaders.  Trying to deter the United States from weeding-out other leaders could push Iran’s hardliners toward action.  The same is true of maintaining the regime’s legitimacy in the eyes of the public.  You can’t get out big crowds every year to chant “Death to America!” in the streets and then go “Never mind” when you get slapped in public.

Third, there is a huge imbalance of power between the United States and Iran.  American superiority in conventional weapons would probably preclude a real Iranian conventional attack on American forces.  The recent missile strike in Iraq both hit a remote facility with few Americans present and was telegraphed hours in advance to allow the Americans to take cover.  At the same time, President Trump claims to want to end the “endless wars” launched by the Bush II Administration.  That desire should bar any attack on Iran by American ground forces.

This reality could shape the behavior of both sides.  Iran can pursue an “asymmetrical” response.  Iran could use allies like Lebanon’s Hezbollah or Iraqi Shi’ites to attack American forces or American interests.  Those would not have to be limited to the Persian Gulf or even to the Middle East.  One key factor might be how robust are American defense and intelligence resources for dealing with such “asymmetrical” threats.

On the other hand, American air power is there and ready to be used.  For example, Iran firing missiles at American ships in or around the Persian Gulf would trigger air strikes.  Those strikes might not be very restricted.  They would inflict still greater public humiliation on the regime.

So, future headlines may be full of car bombs and “smart” bombs.

[1] At the same time, the Americans were occupying Afghanistan on Iran’s eastern border.  You can see how Iranian leaders might get a little skittish.

[2] Max Fisher, “Is There a Chance Of a Wider War?” New York Times, 4 January 2020; Amanda Taub, “Will Strike Deter Attacks, Or Lead to Even More?” NYT, 5 January 2020.

[3] It is now impossible to know if the policy pursued by the Obama administration would have led to an actual improvement of Iranian-American relations or merely postponed the current confrontation.

Iran Amuck 26 June 2019.

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Like his predecessors and a great many other people, President Donald Trump opposes the acquisition of nuclear weapons by Iran.[1]  A host of countries had imposed severe economic sanctions on Iran to coerce the country into an agreement.  President Barack Obama negotiated a multi-national[2] agreement that would delay Iran’s progress toward a weapon in exchange for relief from international economic sanctions.  The goal was to stop Iran’s nuclear program at a line one year away from constructing a nuclear weapon.  The alternative course would be war with Iran.  American public opinion at the time opposed a new war, so a deal made sense.

The nuts-and-bolts of the issue are that: a) it takes a lot of effort to get uranium from 3.67 percent purity to 20 percent purity; it takes much less time and effort to get uranium from 20 percent purity to 90 percent, the level required for a nuclear weapon.

The agreement required Iran to hold a maximum of about 600 pounds of “low-enriched” (3.67 percent purity) uranium until 2030 and no high-enriched uranium.  Iran already had more than 600 pounds of low-enriched uranium, so Iran exported the surplus.  The agreement also required Iran to submit to inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

As a presidential candidate and as an elected president, Trump disparaged the Iran agreement as “the worst deal in the world.”  In the view of President Trump and other critics of the agreement, one problem is that the agreement isn’t a permanent solution.  It ends in 2030.  After that, Iran will be free to pursue its nuclear ambitions once more.[3]  Furthermore, the agreement did not constrain Iran’s actions in other areas like Iraq, Yemen, and Syria, or in the development of ballistic missiles.  For American allies like Israel and Saudi Arabia, the agreement stank to high heaven.[4]  Another .problem is ballistic missiles.  Iran possesses missiles that can hit most Middle Eastern countries (e.g. Israel, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan).

In May 2018, President Trump withdrew the United States from the multi-lateral agreement with Iran.  Since then, the United States has imposed increasingly severe economic sanctions.  Both Iran and the other parties to the agreement continued to abide by the terms.

In June 2019, Iran announced that it, too, would withdraw from the agreement.  Iran would begin stockpiling nuclear fuel above the threshold set by the agreement.  It might also begin enriching that fuel above the level needed for nuclear power plants and toward the level needed for a nuclear weapon.  Among the current unknowns are whether Iran has the technical capacity to make a bomb, and whether Iran had the technical capacity to miniaturize a bomb to fit on a ballistic missile.  The answers are not readily apparent.

IF Iran sprints toward completion of one nuclear weapon, THEN how will the United States respond?  IF Iran is just bluffing, THEN the ayatollahs may hope that other countries will push the United States into accommodation.  IF not, THEN can Iran survive a hi-tech war?

Both Iran and the Obama policy are about to be tested.

[1] Michael Crowley, “How the Nuclear Deal Splintered into a Crisis,” NYT, 18 June 2019.

[2] Iran, the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Russia, and China.

[3] President Obama seems to have believed that the Iranians would get fed-up with the clowns running the country before 2030.  Then a new Iranian government would pack in guns for butter.  I hope so.  However, President Obama also bet on the “Arab Spring.”  Some places actually play politics more hard ball even than in Chicago.  So,…

[4] Could they persuade someone in a position of authority to see it their way?  If so, how?

Iran–and we all should run.

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Iranian-American relations haven’t been good since the revolution of 1979 overthrew Shah Reza Pahlevi.[1]  Sometimes they are less-bad.  Right at the moment, they are more-bad.  During the Obama administration, Iran pushed on many fronts that menaced not the United States, but its allies and clients.  All of this put both Israel and Saudi Arabia on edge.  They saw—and still see—Iran as determined to make itself the dominant state in a re-ordered Middle East.  The twin pillars of this dominance would be a series of client states in Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon; and nuclear weapons with the ballistic missiles to deliver them.  The re-ordering might include the annihilation of Israel and the limitation of America’s role in the region.  In the wake of the disastrous Iraq war, the American people clearly didn’t want another big war in the Middle East.  Sensibly, the Obama administration’s diplomacy focused on a successful effort to constrain Iran’s nuclear program.

That left many other issues unresolved.  In May 2018, President Trump chose to leave the nuclear agreement.  He has re-imposed economic sanctions and has sought to coerce other countries to impose an effective embargo on Iranian oil.

On the left, there is a suspicion that the president believes that regime-change in Iran offers the only reasonable solution.[2]  President Trump’s rhetoric both attacks the Iranian ruling elite as corrupt and illegitimate, and celebrates Iranians who protest against that government.  However, the Iranian regime wields powerful tools against dissent.

On the right, there is a hope that confrontation will force the Iranians to make concessions in other areas as well.  Many experts doubt that Iran’s leaders will bend.

Will Iran’s leaders do something stupid?  For its part, Iran has raised the possibility of closing the Straits of Hormuz at the outer end of the Persian Gulf in retaliation for American actions.  Some 40 percent of the world’s oil passes through the Straits in tankers.  They tried this during the long Iran-Iraq War in the Eighties.  The US Navy began convoying tankers.  On 22 July 2018, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said that President Trump was running the risk of “the mother of all wars.”[3]  Trump responded in kind.  If Iran actually did try to close the Straits of Hormuz, then the possibility of military conflict would become very real.  It seems unlikely that American air and naval forces operating from Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, and the Arabian Sea would stop at suppressing Iranian forces around the Straits.  Very heavy air attacks could follow on Iran’s nuclear facilities and key regime assets like the Revolutionary Guard.  So, Iran probably will not close the Straits.

It seems equally unlikely that American leaders will do something stupid.  Americans still don’t want a big war in the Middle East.  Iran’s nuclear program can only be constrained voluntarily.  Nuclear weapons are a matter of science, engineering, and money.  Iran has all three.  An attack would not necessarily do more than postpone the Iranian program.  An attack would sent Iran in pursuit of other, indirect ways of striking back at American interests in the Middle East and elsewhere.

Maybe Vladimir Putin will quietly mediate a settlement.

[1] Rick Gladstone, “A War of Words With Iran Risks Spiraling Beyond Control,” NYT, 24 July 2018.

[2] It worked OK from 1954 to 1979.  We’ve had forty years of hostility in return for twenty-five years of cooperation.

[3] Saddam Hussein used the same phrase when faced with an American invasion in 2003.

Bang for the Buck

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How much defense spending is enough?  Faced with big budget deficits, a reluctance to pay taxes, and a sluggish economy hard put to square the circle by generating wealth, inquiring American minds want to know.  In 2007 the American defense budget was about $470 billion.  In 2012 the defense budget was running about $550 billion a year. That’s a lot of bucks.  What did Americans get for the money?  They got an Army of 569,000 soldiers on active-duty; an Air Force with 1,990 fighter planes; and a Navy with 286 ships.[1]  That’s a lot of bang.

It’s a common-place that the American defense budget is equal to the combined defense spending of the next seventeen countries on the list.[2]  That bald statement argues for cutting spending without sacrificing security.  However, it needs interpretation.  On the one hand, it assumes that the “interests” of the United States and those of the other countries on the list are symmetrical.  They aren’t.  China’s primary interests are in the Far East; India’s in South Asia; Russia’s in the countries bordering it around the huge arc from Eastern Europe to Eastern Siberia; South Korea’s in Northeast Asia; France’s in Western Europe and the Mediterranean.  Decision-makers in Washington have to worry about the Far East, South Asia, the Middle East, Europe, Africa, and Latin America all at the same time.  In terms of possible operations, the American military has to face a range of threats from nuclear war to conventional war to guerrilla warfare to terrorism.

On the other hand, it assumes that fighting power is closely linked to budgets.  It isn’t.  Russia and China pay, house, feed, and care for their troops at a much lower level than does the United States.  Military equipment also is comparatively cheap in low-wage economies.  More importantly, how big is the Taliban’s defense budget?  Drones at a million and a half dollars a pop kill enemies, but the culture of a primitive area causes new ones to spring up like dragon’s teeth.

Perhaps it isn’t how much money a country spends that tells you something about its attitude toward military power or its sense of pressing danger.  Perhaps it is the share of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) a country will devote to military power that is key.[3]  In 2012 the United States devoted 4.7% of GDP to defense, Russia 4.4%, the People’s Republic of China 2.1%, and the European Union countries 1.7%.  China’s neighbors don’t appear to feel deeply threatened–yet.  Japan spends 1.0%, Taiwan 2.3%, Vietnam, 2.5%, South Korea 2.7%.  On the other hand, not all of Russia’s neighbors seem to feel secure.  Georgia spends 5.1% of GDP on defense.

On one SIPRI list Iran devotes a nominal 1.8% to defense.  Other estimates put it at 2.7% and back in 2006 the commander of the US Central Command called the Iranian military the most powerful in the region.  Moreover, the Iranian pursuit of nuclear weapons and willingness to use proxies in Iraq and Syria make them far more menacing to their neighbors than the statistics alone suggest.  As a result, Saudi Arabia spends 8.9% of GDP on defense, Oman 8.4%, and the United Arab Emirates 6.9%.  Perhaps those high figures reflect doubts about an American security umbrella.  They may also hint at an informal alliance with Israel to prevent Iran from finishing its drive for nuclear weapons.  War is coming to the Persian Gulf if the Iranians don’t blink.

[1] “Downsizing the Military,” The Week, 5 October 2012, p. 13.

[2][2] See the rankings by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) presented at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_military_expenditures

[3] Ibid.