Are the U.S. and Iran on the Verge of War?
Or is a deal on Iran's nuclear enrichment program in the works?
The answer to the question is that the evidence points both ways—and therefore it’s not clear where events are heading.
On the one hand, Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Aragchi, said recently that Iran and the Trump administration have made progress on the “guiding principles” of a deal to curb the Iranian nuclear enrichment program—not an agreement, but a move toward one.
On the other hand, Trump has sent a second aircraft carrier, the Gerald Ford, to the Middle East to join the Abraham Lincoln. Over the last two days, he has also bulked up U.S. forces by dispatching F-22s, F-35s, and F-16s.
A friend, who is a former American military officer, believes that this buildup far exceeds what’s needed to put pressure on Iran to induce concessions during the negotiations.
If Trump does strike Iran, it won’t be some version of his Venezuela gambit—a “one and done.” The Iranian leadership has vowed to strike back and it could do so in a variety of ways, including interrupting shipping passing through the Strait of Hormuz, a passageway used by as many as 100 vessels a day, most of them oil tankers. If Iran does close the Strait, the effect on oil prices will not take long to register.
Moreover, Iran possesses a substantial ballistic missile arsenal. American carriers do have many layered defenses, but that won’t prevent Iran from trying to strike them with a missile barrage. Iran could also use drones from its large, multi-role fleet, torpedo-laden submarines (it has an estimated 30 subs, some with 324mm and 533mm torpedoes), and swarms of high-speed patrol boats armed with anti-ship cruise missiles.
A coordinated Iranian attack could inflict serious damage, says my friend, adding that there’s no such thing as a bulletproof ship in any navy and that our carriers haven’t faced a full-scale, multi-vector attack.
Iran could make other moves. The point is this: If Tehran concludes that Trump’s real objective isn’t an agreement to limit its nuclear enrichment program but “regime change,” it will have no incentive to show restraint—and every reason to go for broke. The July 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) limited enrichment substantially, contrary to Netanyahu’s March 3, 2015 attack on it during his address to a joint session of Congress. In May 2018, Trump tore up the agreement, to Netanyahu’s delight and likely in part at his urging.
Tehran wouldn’t be irrational to suspect that Trump’s real aim isn’t a nuclear enrichment deal. When Trump was asked last week whether regime change was his objective, he said: “Seems like that would be the best thing that could happen”—this as Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, Trump’s envoys for all seasons, were set to open talks with Iran. Netanyahu, for his part, has made no secret of his eagerness to bring down the Islamic Republic. That—not eliminating Iran’s nuclear enrichment infrastructure—remains his primary goal, and he knows it can’t be achieved without American firepower.
Do I know what’s going to happen? Certainly not. But don’t believe anyone who tells you they do; we just don’t have the evidence needed to make even qualified predictions.
That said, I do know where we are—and it’s not a good place.
As the U.S. beefed up its military presence in the Middle East, Iran announced on January 31 that it would conduct a two-day live-fire naval exercise in the Strait of Hormuz, and it did so again yesterday—but this time it added that parts of the Strait would be closed.
On February 3, an F-35 launched from the carrier USS Lincoln downed an Iranian drone that “aggressively approached” the carrier, and on the previous day six armed Iranian patrol boats approached a US-flagged tanker moving through the Strait of Hormuz.
When military forces from opposing sides operate in close quarters in times of crisis, the chances of misperception, hasty decisions, and accidents increase, setting the stage for a conflict spiral—one that neither side wanted to trigger. So, even if Trump has no plans to attack Iran, a single incident in the waters off Iran’s coast could spark an armed confrontation.
Not surprisingly, there’s a lot of apprehension in Iran’s neighborhood about a US-Iran war. That’s why Arab countries that host major US bases have said they won’t allow them, or even their airspace, to be used by the US for attacking Iran.
Could Israel jump into the fray if Trump does attack Iran? That can’t be ruled out: recall that Netanyahu was just in Washington for talks with Trump. But the attitude toward Netanyahu’s government in much of the Arab world is very negative—for two reasons.
The first is Israel’s flattening of Gaza, which has killed some 70,000 people, and quite likely many more given that many bodies remain entombed in the 60 million tons of rubble scattered across that territory.
The second is the surge in Jewish settlement-building in the West Bank and the constant, violent settler attacks on Palestinians there. In these circumstances, an Israeli attack to supplement one launched by the US may work to Iran’s political advantage.
My concern is this: There’s a maxim in military strategy: Don’t take the first step until you’ve decided what your goal is and what your second step will be to advance that goal. I’m not confident that Trump has taken this axiom into account.
Can anyone say what he plans to do after he orders the guns to fire—assuming he does—what he hopes to accomplish once they cease firing, and how he hopes to do so? If someone does know, please enlighten me.
Iran’s regime has repressed its people and mismanaged the economy (yet its economic record can’t be seen entirely apart from the crippling sanctions it has been under for years). Cautioning against stumbling into a war with Iran is not, however, an endorsement of its government.
Still, if Trump does try to bring down the Islamic Republic, he’ll be putting many people’s lives on the line. In fact, he has already put Iranians’ lives at risk by making false promises.
After a nationwide rebellion broke out in Iran in late December amidst an economic crisis, Trump urged the protesters to persist and even to seize their institutions, promising that “help is on the way.” When Iran’s leaders reacted by shutting down the internet, intensifying their brutal crackdown, and killing several thousand demonstrators, Trump did…nothing. Repeating that would be strategically inane and morally indefensible.
So let’s hope my friend is wrong and that what we are seeing is a show of force that ends with a US-Iran agreement and not a prelude to a war.