War with Iran

Despite the Bush administration’s sabre rattling, it is far from certain that the United States will go to war with Iran; in fact, there is every indication that it will not be able to do so during George W. Bush’s presidency. For it is important to recognise that for this current U.S. administration, diplomacy is war by other means. Their belligerence is not incidental, it is intentional; this administration is fundamentally Zionist and hegemonic, and have repeatedly demonstrated a disinclination for diplomacy where they believe strategic or ideological objectives could be realised through force of arms alone. Furthermore this administration is committed to the overthrow of the legitimate and democractically elected Iranian government (Iran Freedom and Support Act of 2005). From the Bush administration’s perspective, they are already at war with Iran; in fact, George W. Bush used his State of the Union Speech to emphasis that point, broadening the enemy to Shia Islam. Thus, this begs the question: why has this U.S. administration not already launched an attack against Iran?

If one sees the United States as already at war with Iran, as this administration does, then it is clear that they are losing. U.S. diplomacy and economic warfare has failed to prevent Iran from enriching uranium and will not stop Iran from continuing its nuclear fuel programme, as both the Bush administration and European Union have already conceded; in fact economic warfare has shown that Iran does not need European investment or European custom. Conversely, the European Union and Turkey are very venerable to an Iranian oil and gas embargo. Hence the avoidance of military action to date is very telling. It would be extraordinarily naïve to think that Bush has thus far been prevented from trying to emulate Alexander the Macedonian by the niceties of international law, which he ignored when he waged war on both Afghanistan and Iraq.

In fact, whilst the Bush administration has been able to manipulate a series of confrontations and fabricated confrontations with Iran to its advantage in the English speaking media – hence they have been able to present an image of Iran (and thus Islam) as inherently evil - there is still little domestic support in the United States for military action against Iran - U.S. public opinion is very much opposed to military action against Iran. Moreover, the speaker of the House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi has stipulated, George W. Bush categorically does not have the legal authority to launch a military attack on Iran, without the House’s approval. Thus the likelihood of war with Iran during George W. Bush’s presidency is not a measure of his intent; it is a measure of the willingness of the House of Representatives to authorise such a course. The Iranian government does not believe that they would and with good cause: any attack would run contrary to the U.S. national interest unless it brought about regime change in Iran and regional stability to the Middle East, which even the most optimistic of Pentagon military strategists do not envisage.

The U.S. military is currently hampered by its occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan; even were this not so, any U.S. force invading Iran would be heavily outnumbered. Moreover, whilst 52% of the U.S. military consists of badly trained and poorly motivated reservists and National Guard (46% of the US army in Iraq in 2005), Iran conversely has a highly motivated and well trained army, Pasdaran (IRGC), and Basij (volunteers), as well as an armed civilian population, with nearly every man having served two years in the military. The recent Israeli invasion of Lebanon saw the Iranian trained Hezbullah guerrilla force, outnumbered 20 to 1, yet they defeated the U.S. armed Israeli army in the battlefield within 34 days. That is a good indicator of the utter infeasibility of a U.S. invasion and occupation of Iran - the United States simply does not have the military capability.

Moreover, not only would the United States need exponentially more men under arms to occupy Iran than it presently has to commit, the likely reduction in Iranian oil and gas production on its own would send the energy markets spiralling out of control, however the consequences of an invasion are likely to lead to anarchy and insurgency throughout the Middle East. There are 200M Shia in the World over 100M situated in the Middle East, as the map indicates Shia are sitting on the majority of the World’s oil and natural gas reserves. Even most Saudi oil is situated is the predominately Shia Eastern Province, in the Qatif and Abu Sa'fah oil fields. A Shia uprising would certainly disrupt Middle Eastern oil and natural gas exports - most the World’s natural gas reserves are held by Russia, Iran and Azerbaijan – and both the U.S. and European economies are utterly dependent on Middle Eastern oil. For this reason, any U.S. military attack on Iran that threatens Middle Eastern oil exports would be economic suicide.

Therefore the most likely scenario for a U.S. military attack would be an aerial assault against the nuclear facilities in Bushehr, Arak, and Natanz in the aim of destroying them. However, it is hard to see what strategic benefit this would be: at the most this would only set Iran’s nuclear energy programme back, although the Israeli attack on the Iraq nuclear facilities in Osirak in June of 1981 failed to set back Iraq’s nuclear programme. Iran would still have the technology and would be able to resume its nuclear energy programme unabated outside of the auspicious of the IAEA.

Moreover, Iran would almost certainly respond militarily. Iran has already demonstrated this week the ability to sink U.S. warships in the Persian Gulf at will and thus block off the passage of oil through the Strait of Hormuz. The situation in Iraq is precarious enough for the U.S. military, were the United States at war with Iran, the Shia population would rise up and the situation would be unmanageable. Furthermore, Iranian forces can easily cross the border into Iraq, should they so desire and U.S. military bases in Iraq, Afghanistan and Azerbaijan are venerable to Iranian missile attacks. Even were Iran only initially to target the U.S. military in Iraq, the potential for escalation is obvious. Thus once again raising the prospect of a conflict that would destabilise the entire Middle East, which the United States cannot afford. Hence it is more likely that the Bush administration will to continue to support terrorist attacks in Iran by groups like Monafiqeen-e-Khalq and Jundullah under the guise of the Iran Freedom and Support Act of 2005, since these are deniable and unlikely to provoke a severe response.

Recalling the Bush administration’s view that diplomacy is war by other means - whilst attacking Iran would require an even greater degree of folly than the occupation of Iraq – the more unlikely it is, the keener they will be to inflate the possibility. This strategy is foolhardy and risks the law of unintended consequence. This said it is still hard to envisage the House of Representatives disregarding all reason and authorising a military attack on Iran during Bush’s presidency.