The Economist - UK (2019-06-29)

20 BriefingAmerica and Iran The EconomistJune 29th 2019

2 ans point to America’s part in the 1953 coup

against their elected prime minister and its

support for Saddam Hussein in the Iran-

Iraq war of the 1980s. Americans recall the

embassy hostage-taking of 1979-81 and pro-

miscuous support for terrorism, some of

which has cost American lives. There is

now the added problem that America broke

their last agreement.

Though Mr Trump would surely prefer

the sort of meeting in front of the world’s

cameras that he had with Mr Kim, the

countries’ long history of bad blood, along

with the fact that Iran’s regime needs to

keep various factions on board, would

probably require normalisation to come

about step by step—through the appoint-

ment of trusted envoys, waivers on some

sanctions, confidence-building talks on

Yemen, and so on. Mr Bolton would be un-

likely to have any of it; he might decamp to

the fields of punditry, criticising any rec-

onciliation (though probably not on Mr

Carlson’s show, where he has been de-

nounced as a “bureaucratic tapeworm”).

What could go wrong?

In the meantime the risks of miscalcula-

tion rise. This does not mean all-out war is

imminent. Iran spends just over $13bn on

its armed forces each year—five times less

than Saudi Arabia and about 50 times less

than America. If the attack of June 20th had

not been called off, Iran could not easily

have escalated matters by means of a direct

military response. But it might have

launched further mine attacks in the Per-

sian Gulf, or intensified the attacks against

Saudi Arabia by rebels in Yemen.

It might also have launched cyber-

attacks of its own. “Incidents involving

Iran have been among the most sophisti-

cated, costly, and consequential attacks in

the history of the internet,” noted Collin

Anderson and Karim Sadjadpour, experts

at the Carnegie Endowment, in a study in

2018. Marcus Willett, a former senior offi-

cial at gchq, Britain’s signals-intelligence

agency, observes that Iranian cyber-opera-

tions have penetrated not only Saudi Ara-

bia’s national oil company but also critical

national infrastructure in Western states.

America could respond in kind. It has

devoted considerable resources to planting

malware throughout Iran’s nuclear sites,

military and communication networks

and power grid as part of a project called

Nitro Zeus. After the air strikes of June 20th

were called off, cyber-attacks on the irgc

and missile forces went ahead. America

also disrupted the communications of

Kata’ib Hizbullah, an Iran-backed militia

group in Iraq, in the days afterwards. Per-

sistent low-level cyber-skirmishing may

be becoming normal.

If Iranian mines, missiles or malware

provoked America to launch a much bigger

strike—Mr Trump has tweeted that “any at-

tack by Iran on anything American will be

met with great and overwhelming force”—

its armed forces would doubtless prevail.

But they might well suffer some losses

along the way. The irgchas honed the art

of asymmetric warfare, for instance oper-

ating small, zippy boats designed to swarm

around and discombobulate big American

warships. Iran has also built up a formida-

ble array of projectiles, including the larg-

est ballistic-missile force in the Middle

East and sea-skimming anti-ship missiles

that can be launched from the shore or

from quiet submarines hidden in the

murky waters of the Persian Gulf.

Nor would American warplanes have a

free run of Iranian skies. Iran’s air force

may be dilapidated—it flies f-14 fighters

from the “Top Gun” era—but since 2017 it

has acquired 32 batteries of Russia’s formi-

dable s-300 air-defence system. Its home-

grown missiles are not bad, either. One of

them took down that sophisticated high-

altitude American drone.

The irgc’s elite Quds Force would also

be likely to draw on its region-wide net-

work of proxy groups and allies to extend

the conflict beyond its borders. Hizbullah

in Lebanon has around 130,000 rockets and

missiles. Predominantly Shia militia

groups in Syria and Iraq could threaten

thousands of American troops with guer-

rilla attacks.

Above the level of punitive strikes and

regional repercussions there is little room

for anything but a campaign to destroy Ira-

nian nuclear sites or overthrow the regime.

Neither is appealing. In 2012 a study by for-

mer diplomats and military officers con-

cluded that air strikes on Iranian nuclear

sites might delay Iran’s programme by just

four years. Only an invasion and occupa-

tion of Iran could durably quash such ef-

forts. That, said the study, would require

about a million troops for an extended per-

iod. Even the most bellicose of Mr Trump’s

advisers would blanch at that, you would

hope. American voters certainly would.

Regime change sounds easier than oc-

cupation; but it has not proved a very pro-

ductive strategy in recent years. And if the

new regime inherits a nuclear programme,

even a degraded one, any relief might prove

short-lived.

Neither side is eager for war; but Iran is

definitely eager to see sanctions relaxed,

and has few ways of achieving that end

which do not look warlike. What is more,

ratcheting down is harder than ratcheting

up. And if North Korea is indeed the tem-

plate, it is not a terribly encouraging one.

Yes, Mr Trump and Mr Kim are again ex-

changing warm letters. But Mr Kim shows

no sign of being willing to denuclearise in

the way America wants him to, and contin-

ues to churn out fissile material for bombs.

There is a deeper difference. With North

Korea Mr Trump appeared to defuse, or at

least defer, a serious crisis that predated

him. With Iran, he faces an unnecessary

crisis of his own making. That sad fact of

authorship may make it harder for him

even to appear to come out ahead. 7

UpsanddownsofUS-Iranrelations

Sources:BP;OPEC;WorldBank;EconomistIntelligenceUnit

Iran’soilproduction,barrelsperday,m Iran’sGDP,$bn,^2010 prices

0

2

4

6

0

200

400

600

USSVincennes

shootsdown

Iraniancivilairliner

Iranbrandedpart

of“axisofevil”

9/11attacks

BarackObama

offersto“extend

a hand”toIran

US/EUoilsanctions

Nucleardealstruck

JCPOAnegotiationsstart

JCPOAimplementation,economicsanctionslifted

IrandownsUSdrone

Ali Khamenei Rafsanjani Khatami Ahmadinejad Rouhani

Rajai

Banisadr

Supremeleaders RuhollahKhomeini AliKhamenei

Presidents

USembassyhostagecrisis

begins,lasting 444 days

Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi

Iranian revolution ends.

Shahoverthrown

Iransignsnuclear

Non-Proliferation

Tre a ty

USandBritainorchestratea

couptopreventnationalisation

ofIran’soilindustry

Shahunveilshis

“Whiterevolution”

toindustrialiseIran

Iran/Iraqwar

(USalignedwithIraq)

USoccupiesIraq

US-ledalliance

liberatesKuwait

DonaldTrumpwithdrawsfromthenucleardeal

USpresident

JimmyCarterpraisesIran

as“anislandofstability ”

*Estimate †Forecast

551953 60 65 70 75 80 85 90 95 2000 05 10 15 19

†

*