The New Route to an American War with Iran

Seymour M. Hersh's recent article in 'The New Yorker' outlines his belief that the Bush administration's plan for war with Iran is changing. Hersh believes a massive attack on Iran's nuclear facilities is now to give place to a series of surgical strikes on the bases of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) to end that force's supposed operations within Iraq. However, these two plans are far from mutually exclusive and the new strategy may easily lead on to attacks aimed at Iranian nuclear sites.

Although American attempts to convince US and world opinion of active Iranian involvement in attacks on American forces in Iraq have scarcely been more successful than the Bush administration's constant refrain about Iran's nuclear threat, some incident, real or contrived, may occur which will be used by Bush and Cheney to justify air strikes on Iran.

Initially, limited air attacks on Iranian military targets may not prove to be unpopular in the United States. Outsiders rarely grasp that hostility to Iran's revolutionary Islamic government is almost as deep-seated in many parts of the United States as hatred of the American 'Great Satan' is among much of the Iranian people. This is hardly surprising given that the Islamic Republic of Iran is the only country in the world which has humiliated not one but two US presidents: Jimmy Carter over the Tehran hostages crisis in 1979-81 and Ronald Reagan in the Iran-Contra affair of 1986-7.

Even many Congressional Democrats would no doubt be ready to support limited air strikes on Iran if the Iranians could be plausibly linked to incidents in Iraq in which American personnel had been killed. Whatever their reservations about the Iraq war, both Democratic presidential contenders, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, have been noticeably bellicose in their comments about Iran.

Once air attacks on Iranian military targets have begun, they would no doubt become a regular occurrence. American and world opinion would quickly become used to them, familiarity soon blunting initial outrage in most quarters. Like the intermittent Anglo-American air campaign against Saddam Hussein's Iraq during the 1990s, the air strikes on Iran would eventually seem unremarkable. Even Operation Desert Fox in December 1998, a series of major air attacks on Iraq in retaliation for Saddam Hussein's expulsion of UN weapons inspectors, excited only limited international indignation.

Not only would people become used to air attacks on Iran, lessening likely hostile reaction to a shift to nuclear targets, but the attacks themselves would prepare the way for later strikes on nuclear sites by steadily destroying Iranian defences. Anti-aircraft batteries, radar systems, and command and control facilities would have to be destroyed to ensure the safety of US aircraft hitting IRGC 'terrorist bases' however 'limited' the initial air strikes were said to be.

Once Iranian defences have been sufficiently degraded and diplomatic attempts to curb Iran's nuclear ambitions have failed, as they probably will, the Bush administration can easily switch to attacking Iranian nuclear sites in the knowledge that such attacks will provoke a much reduced level of international outrage.

Although most scenarios see the excuse for US air attacks on Iran as being an incident in Iraq involving the deaths of US ground personnel caused by Iranian weapons and/or forces, a maritime incident might have advantages for the United States. The most feared Iranian retaliation in the event of an American attack on the country is an attack on tanker traffic in the Strait of Hormuz which would send world oil prices rocketing into the stratosphere.

If a maritime incident set off hostilities between the United States and Iran, American naval forces in the Gulf could immediately seek to repeat their success in Operation Praying Mantis back in April 1988. On that occasion US forces crushed Iranian naval power in less than twenty-four hours.

Most large surface units of Iran's navy are obsolete, but in recent years Iran obtained three Kilo class diesel attack submarines from Russia. US naval commanders have expressed concern about the threat posed by these vessels to Gulf shipping and they will no doubt welcome the opportunity to destroy them as soon as possible.

Of course the Iranians have so far done their best to avoid provoking the Americans. The arrest of the British naval boarding party in March was a local IRGC initiative and the incident was soon brought to a close by the Tehran government before the Americans could exploit their ally's difficulty as an excuse for war. If a suitable incident does not arise soon, Bush and Cheney may have to create one to justify their planned attack on Iran. Perhaps US naval vessels will be sent into Iranian territorial waters in the hope of provoking a violent response. This was what was done in the Gulf of Tonkin in 1964 and resulted in the famous 'incident' which led to full American participation in the Vietnam War. Will the American Congress and people fall for the same trick a second time?