June 28, 2019
by Warren L. Nelson
The Islamic Republic has dominated news head-lines around the world by shooting down a US drone. President Trump then stunned the world far more by canceling a plan to retaliate by bombing military sites in Iran. So far, the United States has done nothing to retaliate.
A few argued that Iran was trying to portray itself as a tough regime standing up to the bullying United States. Or, as The New York Times quoted four Iranian Pasdaran as telling it, they took out the drone to prove that they could do it.
Others said Iran was trying to goad Washington into taking some of its usual, rather mild, retaliatory actions, so that the Islamic Republic could play the victim and draw more support from the Third World, where its level of support, as indicated by the annual votes on the UN resolution on Iranian human rights violations, has been declining in recent years.
All of that may be true.
But still others saw a far more sophisticated goal at the top of Iran’s agenda. They said Iran was trying to frighten Europe into finally doing something to help boost Iran’s economy, which is suffering badly from US sanctions. Iran’s oil sales are believed now to be only 10 to 15 percent what they routinely were before Trump re-imposed sanctions—and only a third of what they were under the Obama sanctions.
Britain, France and Germany announced in September 2018 that they would start a special trade mechanism that would allow trade between Iran and Europe to resume outside US sanctions. Over nine months, they have announced increasing steps in developing that plan—but not even a solitary financial transaction has been carried out.
In recent weeks, officials of the Islamic Republic have been saying openly that they no longer trust Europe. Many in Iran suspect Europe has just been diddling Iran all this time and are secretly helping the United States to throttle Iran.
So, Iran has now increased its rhetoric, demanding that Europe come to its aid. In recent weeks, besides the shooting down of the US drone, Iran has attacked six foreign tankers (though Iran officially denies doing that), said it will violate the nuclear agreement by producing more heavy water and enriched uranium than the tonnage permitted, and threatened to enrich uranium above the 3.67 percent ceiling in the agreement. It says it will roll back that threat only if Europe acts to support Iran by July 7.
Iran points out that the nuclear agreement promised Iran extensive economic benefits in exchange for its agreeing to limit its nuclear program. And it says it has been denied those benefits not only by Trump’s re-imposition of sanctions but also by Europe’s inaction.
Iran’s tactic of trying to scare Europe could backfire, however. Dutch Foreign Minister Stef Blok said European support for the Iran deal depends on Iran’s continued adherence to the agreement’s terms. In other words, Iran could find Europe’s limited support for Iran transformed into opposition if it doesn’t stick strictly to the pact.
The shooting down of the US drone appears to be just one more effort on Iran’s part to make the Persian Gulf region more insecure and thus to make Europe worry that its oil supply could be in imminent danger.
Oddly, Trump may see things that way too. On June 24, he asked why the United States was even in the Persian Gulf protecting the oil supply routes. He pointed out that the United States is a huge oil producer now and doesn’t need Middle East oil. He told the Europeans they should do more to protect their own oil supplies.
That was in keeping with his own long-time suspicion, common among many in the United States, that Europe has been playing the Americans for “saps,” getting Washington to pay for security programs that primarily benefit Europe rather than the United States.
The problem is that Trump’s threats to abandon Europe could make Europe even more susceptible to Iran’s pressures. If Trump isn’t going to protect the oil shipping corridors, Europe had better fold its cards and do what the Islamic Republic wants because Europe doesn’t have the military might to control the Persian Gulf.
The shooting down of the US drone at 4:05 a.m. Iranian time on June 20 off Jask in Hormuzgan province on the Arabian Sea has been portrayed by the media in Iran as a marvelously skilled action by talented military professionals. There has been much crowing and constant claims to have “humiliated” the Americans, as if that were a logical goal of military action.
The Islamic Republic said it has a right to shoot down any aircraft that enters its airspace. Iran’s ambassador to the UN, Majid Takht-Ravanchi, said it has that right under Article 51 of the UN Charter. That article states: “Nothing in the present Charter shall impair the inherent right of individual or collective self-defense if an armed attack occurs against a Member of the United Nations.” But the US drone is not armed.
The Pasdaran said the American drone flew over Iranian territorial waters, which extend 12 nautical miles out from the Iranian coast. It said the drone was eight nautical miles out when it was hit. The United States said it was 21 nautical miles out.
The US says Iran claims more territorial waters than it is allowed under international law. But at this particular spot there is no dispute between the two countries on where the line is dawn.
The dispute is over where the drone was flying. The Pasdaran and the Foreign Ministry have each published maps showing the drone was inside Iranian airspace when it was hit. The problem is that the two maps show the drone flying a vastly different route early in its flight when it left Ad-Dhafra Air Base near Dubai. The Pasdar map shows the drone flying a big loop over the UAE before turning out over the Persian Gulf. The Foreign Ministry map shows the drone flying immediately over the Persian Gulf and then flying the big loop over water. The Foreign Ministry map shows the drone roughly 20 miles farther north than the Pasdar map.
One might ask, if the two Iranian agencies can disagree by 20 miles on where the drone was, why isn’t it logical to question it when its say the drone was 13 miles from where the US put it.
But The New York Times said it was told there was some doubt among US skywatchers whether the drone might have crossed inadvertently into Iranian airspace.
Iran and the US used nautical miles, which is the standard international measure at sea. Here are conversions for the differing claims on how far the drone was from the Iranian coast:
Naut. Statute Kms
miles miles
Iran claim 8 9.2 14.8
Terr. water 12 13.8 22.2
US claim 21 24.2 38.9
Difference 13 15.0 24.0
The drone that was destroyed was a Broad Area Maritime Surveillance (BAMS) aircraft operated by the US Navy, and not an Air Force RQ-4 Global Hawk as many news reports said. But the two planes are alike on the outside. BAMS is designed to watch broad swaths of the ocean. It was presumably looking for commercial ships and any Iranian military vessels operating in the area.
The drone is a large and sophisticated reconnaissance aircraft, not one of the many cheap drones, some launched by literally throwing them into the air. The BAMS costs more than $100 million each.
The Pasdaran said the drone was a stealth aircraft, but it is not. The Pasdaran presumably wanted to make their ability to hit the plane seem more dramatic.
The Pasdaran said they sent four radio warnings to the plane before launching the missile. But the drone is unmanned and has no way to receive radio messages.
The drone cruises normally at 60,000-to-65,000 feet or about double the altitude of commercial aircraft (30,000-to-35,000 feet). It has no defenses and cannot evade a missile coming at it. It is built to fly relatively slowly and to cruise for as long as 30 hours, watching the ocean surface. There really wouldn’t be much point for it to fly intentionally into Iranian air space since the drone at high altitude can easily see all of Iran’s territorial waters from international airspace.
The Pasdaran said they shot it down with a Khordad 3 missile, which is an Iranian-built missile, not one of its Chinese or Russian imports. Iran made a major point of that. The United States has not said anything about the type of Iranian missile used.
Trump waxed exceedingly aggressive toward Iran in his initial remarks after the shootdown. But he promised in his 2016 campaign to get the United States out of the Middle East—and he appeared to worry as time went on that retaliatory action for the drone shootdown would be dragging the United States into another war, which his voter base would not like.
The day after the attack, Trump assembled his staff to discuss retaliation. News reports said that every single person in the room advocated a firm retaliatory strike. Trump tentatively approved such a strike. Later, as the military was about to put planes in the air, it telephoned the White House for final approval. Trump said he asked how many civilians would likely be killed in the attack. When told of 150 possible civilian deaths, Trump said he found that was not “proportional” to the shooting down of an unmanned aircraft and he canceled the attack.
Military planners asked why the estimate of civilian deaths was brought up at the last moment, when that is normally one of the first things discussed in such planning sessions.
Meanwhile, a US Navy investigator said a magnet was retrieved from the side of the tanker from which Pasdaran were seen removing what was believed to be a limpet mine after the June 13 twin tanker attacks. He told reporters, “We recovered biometric information, which can be used to build a criminal case to hold the individual responsible.” That biometric information including a handprint and fingerprints and possibly DNA samples taken from the tanker’s side.
After Trump canceled the retaliation, he played down the attacks on tankers and the shooting down of the drone. “So far, it’s been very minor,” he said.
In an interview with Time magazine, he said he would “certainly” go to war to keep Iran from getting a nuclear weapon. But as for taking military action to protect the sea lanes, “I would keep … a question mark” over that. That was a stunning policy pronouncement; the chief mission of the US Navy for more than two centuries has been protecting sea lanes. In one brief interview, Trump just changed American policy dating back to George Washington’s Administration.
Many analysts saw Trump’s cancellation of retaliation as a sign of weakness that would encourage Iran to be more aggressive. But not all. Amos Yadlin, a former head of Israeli military intelligence, said, “Israel understands that the US is not eager to go for another war in the Middle East. If Trump wants to have a bit more legitimacy and show that he is not rushing to war, I don’t see it [the cancellation] as a negative.”
But he said the real test will be in Iran’s response. “My concern is that the Iranians will interpret it as much more reluctance from the Americans to act—and they may cross more red lines as a result.” Others took that one step further and said if the cancellation gives Trump more legitimacy, it means a harsh response to Iran’s next action will have more support around the world.
As the Iran Times reported in the last issue, German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas challenged the US statements that Iran attacked the tankers. He said the video of a Pasdar boat removing a presumed mine from the side of a tanker “is not enough” evidence. A few days later, however, Chancellor Angela Merkel disagreed with him and said the evidence against Iran was real.
They key question now is what Iran will do in the coming weeks. Karim Sadjadpour of the Washington-based Carnegie Endowment for International Peace told The Washington Post Iran will likely “continue to resist and carefully escalate and test Trump’s resolve,” possibly with untraceable actions like the recent attacks on tankers.
Sadjadpour said sanctions may provoke Iran to lash out, rather than curbing its behavior or forcing Iranian officials to start talks, as Washington keeps insisting. “Iran believes coming to the negotiating table will validate the ‘maximum pressure’ approach and invite even more pressure,” he said.
The Pentagon, meanwhile, announced it was sending another 1,000 troops to the Central Command region on top of 900 announced a few weeks ago. They are not combat troops but will mainly handle air defense units being posted in the region. The total number of US military personnel remains only a small portion of what has been there through most of the 21st Century.
Reuters carried a story June 21 saying sources in Tehran told it the United States had sent a message to Tehran through Oman with a proposal for negotiations. In succeeding days, the Iranian government, the Omani government and Trump himself all said there was no such message sent. But that doesn’t matter; US officials have been making almost daily statements saying Washington wants to enter talks with Iran to write a new and stronger agreement to replace the Obama nuclear deal.
Prior to this drone shootdown, Iran had captured five US military drones, three of them very small types. But one was a larger, super-secret stealth drone, the RQ-170, which apparently lost its radio link to its base, wandered into Iran and crash-landed when it ran out of fuel.