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The Iranian nation is a vigilant nation, full of self-confidence, resolute and determined; and this nation will not pay attention to any such threats. The authorities will not pay attention to such threats either. A government which relies on the people and a state which enjoys the people's support, will not be scared of threats. And I say here, and the Americans should know that if they assault the Islamic Iran, the Islamic Iran will harm their interests anywhere in the world that is possible.
We are not the sort of people to sit around and allow someone to deal a blow on us. We are for peace, tranquillity and we won't attack anyone. The reason is clear. They can see for themselves. Which country have we ever attacked? Which country have we ever started a war with? Which country have we ever threatened? We are not the sort of people who do such things. However, if anyone deals a blow on us, our response will be double the intensity.
—Ayatollah ‘Ali Khamene’i, April 26
The Iranian religious leader’s warning that Iran will respond to any attack with “double the intensity” underscores one of the major obstacles confronted by the US (or Israel or other powers) in dealing with the Iranian nuclear program: Iran’s ability to respond asymmetrically. Any attempt to use military force to take out Iran’s nuclear facilities faces several challenges. Given its commitments in Iraq and Afghanistan, the US is highly unlikely to consider a commitment of ground forces in Iran. That leaves a bombing campaign, either a short, sharp one (which would risk failing to locate and destroy all the facilities) or a longer, more sustained campaign (which would provoke international pressures to stop). But Iran could respond to either of these in multiple ways: by using its influence with Iraqi Shi‘ite groups to undermine the US position in Iraq; by disrupting tanker traffic in the Gulf and driving oil prices up at a time they are already rising rapidly; by supporting terrorist attacks elsewhere against American or Israeli interests.
How Iran might respond to a bombing campaign is of course a matter for speculation. Following up on our earlier Dossier, “Iran’s Nuclear Program: Are there Any Good Options?” in The Estimate for January 30, 2006, this Dossier examines some of the options Iran might use.
No one seriously doubts that the United States possesses the military power to strike at Iran using airpower; and despite acquiring some new air defense systems and seeking to acquire more from Russia, the Iranians have at best a limited ability to deter or stop a US bombing campaign.
But as the quotations from Religious Leader Khamene’i above note, Iran is convinced it has other, asymmetric means of striking back against the US or any other attacker. Three areas in particular seem to worry analysts of the military balance: Iran’s ability to disrupt oil and gas shipments through the Strait of Hormuz and thus exacerbate an already problematic rise in oil prices; Iran’s ability to create havoc in Iraq for US policies there; and Iran’s ability to support terrorist activities abroad, an area in which it was once active but has been relatively reticent in recent years (except for continuing support for Hizbullah in Lebanon and some of its client groups in Iraq).
The Sea Denial Factor
Iran’s Navy has never been its strongest military arm, and the toll inflicted during clashes with the United States in 1988 (to be discussed below) further reduced its capabilities. The division between the regular Navy and the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps Navy also is a factor in its naval weakess.
In recent years, however, Iran has emphasized strengthening its naval capabilities, and recently held highly-publicized maneuvers in the Gulf which clearly were intended to send one message in particular: Iran’s capabilities to deny access to the sealanes to the Gulf, through which a substantial part of the world’s oil and natural gas exports flow. A strategy of sea denial is a traditional means of exercising naval power without sufficient strength to maintain actual sea control.
During the recent maneuvers, Iran announced that it had tested several new anti-shipping missiles, two new torpedos (one, called the Hut or whale, described with characteristics — extreme high speed — suggesting that it is the Russian Shkval, a high speed supercavitating torpedo) and other new equipment. Such Iranian claims are often accompanied with unverifiable claims of local development when in fact they describe equipment acquired from Russia, China, North Korea or elsewhere.
The emphasis on these new weapons suggests the same pattern seen in Iranian naval acquisitions in recent years: Kilo class submarines from Russia, a range of land-based and sea-based anti-shipping missiles from China, patrol boats and reportedly midget submarines from North Korea. This is not the sort of materiel designed for conquest or for amphibious operations against hostile coasts; rather it is a force designed both to defend Iran’s coastlines and to maintain sea denial. Iran clearly intends to maintain a capability of disrupting oil traffic through the Strait of Hormuz.
If this seems familiar, that may be because it is reminiscent of the confrontation between the United States and Iran in 1988. Throughout the Iran-Iraq war there had been serious concerns about disruption of tanker traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, but in 1988 Iran began mining parts of the Gulf and small Iranian patrol boats began occasional attacks on tanker traffic. As a result the US implemented Operation Earnest Will, under which Kuwaiti-owned tankers were reflagged with US flags and granted escort by US vessels.
In April, the US guided missile frigate Samuel B. Roberts struck a mine and was seriously damaged. On April 18, the United States struck back, seizing and disabling two Iranian oil platforms, Sassan and Sirri. When Iran resisted with small craft, US forces using both surface combatants and aircraft from the carrier Enterprise sank the Iranian fast attack craft Joshan, the frigate Sahand, and severely damaged the frigate Sabalan, later repaired. The only US losses were the crew of a Sea Cobra helicopter.
This operation, known as Operation Praying Mantis, coincided in part with a special operations effort known as Operation Prime Chance, which included efforts to neutralize Iranian mining operations. The fact that Iraq launched a major operation to retake the Faw Peninsula at the same time led to Iranian charges of collusion between the US and Iraq. As confrontations continued, the accidental US downing of an Iranian civilian airliner led to the Iranian decision to seek a ceasefire with Iraq.
Certainly the Iranian Navy’s performance during the 1988 confrontations confirm that it is no match for the US Navy, and that has not changed despite the acquisition of newer anti-shipping missiles, patrol boats, and submarines. But Iran has enhanced its capabilities to interfere with tanker and natural gas carrier traffic in the Straits, and has clearly sent a message (in its recent maneuvers and its overall pat-tern of acquisitions) that it intends to exercise that capability if attacked.
Clearly Iran could not inflict serious damage on the US Fifth Fleet in open combat, and it would find its naval forces under attack quickly. Its submarines would be vulnerable to US antisubmarine warfare, and the Gulf itself is too shallow to be good submarine country. Missile installations would probably come under attack at the outset of any US attempt to attack Iranian facilities. But in the short term Iran could certainly inflict a different kind of pain: it is hard to calculate what the sinking of a tanker or two would do to the price of oil, except to say that it would be significant.
But Iran’s ability to disrupt traffic through the Strait is not its only means of retaliating fro air strikes. Its ability to create havoc in Iraq is perhaps even more pronounced.
Iraq
Many of the senior figures in the United Iraqi Alliance, the Shi‘ite bloc which is the largest in the Iraqi Parliament, spent their years of exile in Tehran. Though Iran does not by any means control them directly, and some have done much to distance themselves from Iran, many in the present Iraqi government do not share the hostility towards Iran common in US circles. More to the point, some of the Shi‘ite militias, increasingly the focus of concern by the coalition forces, received training either in Iran or from Iranian Revolutionary Guards elsewhere. The Badr Organization, the militia of the Supreme Council of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), the largest bloc in the United Iraqi Alliance, was mostly trained by the Revolutionary Guards Corps, and through the current Interior Minister, Bayan Jabr of SCIRI, the Badr Organization has links within the Iraqi Security Forces (particularly the police, which are under the Interior Ministry). In some parts of southern Iraq, the police and the Badr Organization memberships appear to overlap considerably.
Another element close to Iran is the Mahdi Army of Muqtada al-Sadr. Though the Mahdi Army gave up its open confrontation with the coalition forces and is currently playing a role in the political process, Sadr himself has publicly said that he would order the Mahdi Army to avenge any Western attack on Iran.
Given the security situation in Iraq, the last thing the US wants to see is the Shi‘ite militias suddenly turning on the coalition. That could lead to such awkward situations as open clashes between the coalition forces and Iraqi police or security forces, or even to the Iraqi government demanding that US forces leave the country.
Iran’s role in Iraq is already considerable, if shadowy. There have been allegations that Iran may have provided explosives to elements of the insurgency, and certainly Iran’s links to the Shi‘ite militias are a cause for concern. But because Iran’s interests and the US’ coincide in some ways in Iraq (as they also did in Afghanistan), the Iranians have not sought to undermine the coalition directly. (Since the coalition has empowered the Shi‘ites, Iran’s natural allies in Iraq, the Iranians have generally been willing to stay out of a direct role, since in the long run a Shi‘ite-dominated Iraq is likelier to maintain friendlier relations with Iran than any previous Iraqi government.
But Iran’s ability to create havoc in Iraq is real, and certainly would be unwelcome to the US. And, as with the case of Iran’s naval abilities in the Gulf, they and their allies have not been afraid to remind the West of that.
Terrorism
On April 23, the Sunday Times of London reported that Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad had held a meeting in Syria earlier this year also attended by ‘Imad Mughniyya. Mughniyya, who has been blamed for/credited with some of the major terrorist operations of the 1980s, in Lebanon and elsewhere, is believed to live in Tehran. The Sunday Times article quoted Western intelligence figures as being concerned that Mughniyya was involved in planning terror operations in retaliation for any Western attack on Iran.
In the 1980s, particularly in the early years after the Islamic Revolution in Iran, Iranian operations abroad, especially in the Arab countries of the Gulf, were a problem for local regimes. As the revolution matured, Iran limited its overseas operations, mostly to its support of Hizbullah in Lebanon and to liquidating Iranian opposition figures in Europe and the Middle East. Although it has been linked to some more recent terrorist operations (notably the Khobar Towers bombing in Saudi Arabia), Iran has not been as big an international troublemaker as it once was.
But Ahmadinejad’s political allies are precisely those elements which were most active in the 1980s: the Revolutionary Guards Corps, the Basij or “mobilization” forces, and the intelligence services. Ahmadinejad’s service with the Guards Corps in the 1980s reportedly included management of operations inside Iraq. Though the President of the republic may not enjoy the authority to order such operations, the Religious Leader does, and Khamene’i has clearly threatened asymmetric responses if the US strikes. And Ahmadinejad certainly knows the people who can carry out such operations.
In these three areas — sea denial, Iraq, terrorism — Iran does have capabilities for causing trouble for the West. (In the event of an Israeli attack, it can act through Hizbullah.)
Is all this enough to deter a Western attack on Iran’s nuclear program? That particular calculation will be made, one presumes, with all of this in mind. Because of the number of facilities involved and the difficulty of attacking hardened, underground facilities, a bombing campaign against Iran’s nuclear capabilities would likely have to be a sustained one, which would both prompt international opposition and would give Iran the opportunity to create problems for the US in the areas outlined here. Given the fact that it is not entirely clear whether all of Iran’s nuclear facilities are even known to the West, there is a question of whether any bombing campaign would adequately ensure that Iran’s nuclear capabilities are indeed destroyed, and given this uncertainty, whether it would be worth the risk of the sort of asymmetric response Iran is capable of mounting.
Of course, if Iran were to resort to the tactics described here, it would be isolated from the West even more than is currently the case; but Ahmadinejad’s inflammatory rhetoric and threats are already casting a shadow over the gradual and limited rapprochement between Iran and the West (particularly Europe) which took place during the Presidency of Muhammad Khatami. Iran appears to be gambling that the geopolitical moment, with the US heavily committed in both Iraq and Afghanistan and with the international community less pro-American than has usually been the case, it may be able to make good its efforts to proceed with its nuclear program and avoid paying a military price.
Obviously, the calculus of military action versus diplomacy is always a difficult and dangerous one, for all the parties. Balancing the threat against the costs of action is always difficult because of the uncertainties of any military plan. Having chosen to go to war in Iraq and then failed to find evidence of weapons of mass destruction, the US may have difficulty persuading the world community (or the US electorate) of the need for action now. Iran’s capabilities for making trouble in response will certainly be part of that calculus.
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