January 10, 2020
by Warren L. Nelson
Where does the US-Iran conflict go next? Many around the world expect a full-fledged war is likely. But both Donald Trump and Ali Khamenehi want to avoid war, so something else is much more likely.
One possibility is nothing but rhetoric. Both Trump and Khamenehi excel at tough-sounding rhetoric that just floats in the ether but comes to nothing. However, the assassination of Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleymani was a major challenge to the Islamic Republic and it is difficult to believe that Tehran will be able to stop at words.
One possibility is some kind of cyber attack that avoids any military action and would thus be less likely to prompt a US military response. Iran has been making cyber attacks on American banks and businesses for years, so this would be an easy thing for Iran to do. Though it might not be enough to satisfy the multitude of hardliners.
And just one day after the Soleymani assassination, hackers claiming to be Iranian struck the website of the Federal Depository Library Program, defacing its home page with threats of vengeance. But this minor attack on a minor agency was more likely the act of some individual, not a state response.
On January 6, in the first state action since the assassination, the Islamic Republic announced that it would no longer abide by any of the restrictions placed on it by the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). But Iran had already dropped out of most of the restrictions. Furthermore, and most importantly, it did not say it would take any specific actions to violate the JCPOA and it said it would still allow the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to monitor its nuclear program, so the world would soon know if Iran were taking any threatening action.
Probably the most likely state response to the assassination is some kind of stealthy covert action. It might not even be against the United States. After all, just a few months ago, Iran attacked Saudi Arabian oil installations and got away without any retaliation.
The Islamic Republic historically feels safer attacking US allies like Saudi Arabia and Israel. Mohsen Rezai, former commander of the Pasdaran who is now secretary of the Expediency Council, suggested targeting Israel for vengeance. He said, “If America takes any measures after our military response, we will turn Tel Aviv and Haifa to dust.” He avoided saying whether he wanted that attack to come from Iran or the Lebanese Hezbollah.
Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrollah, meanwhile, urged attacks on US troops—but very specifically said US civilians “should not be touched.”
The one near-certainty is that no action drawing blood will be launched inside the United States. The Islamic Republic saw what the US did after the Al-Qaeda attacks on the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in Washington, DC. Those attacks simply mobilized the American people for war. The same thing was true after the 1941 Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and the 1861 Confederate shelling of Fort Sumter. In all three cases, the American public shifted overnight to support for full-scale war.
The Islamic Republic seems to understand that.
Another possible reaction is military action against the US Navy. The regime has been preparing for decades for a naval clash, more likely with anti-ship missiles than with any direct face-off. It launched such a direct face-off in 1988 and emerged very much the worst. The problem is that if Iran, say, sinks a US destroyer, the US Navy has more than enough firepower to respond by sinking every warship in the Iranian Navy and Pasdar maritime arm.
No one yet knows how the Islamic Republic will react since the Islamic Republic is itself still trying to answer that question. But it is likely that the Islamic Republic is phrasing the question this way: How can we act so as to impress the Islamic world with Iranian might while at the same time not provoking the Americans into a real war? Some in the establishment are almost certainly asking how they can do the most damage to the United States without provoking a war. But the more sophisticated planners recognize that the issue at hand is not military, but political—the status of the Islamic Republic.
Still, there is significant part of the regime that thinks only of revenge. And that part of the regime is likely to be very vocal in decision-making circles now.
It is useful to recall what happened several years ago after Israel was presumed to have killed four of Iran’s nuclear scientists. The Islamic Republic then launched a series of covert bombing operations designed to kill Israeli diplomats. They did not take action in Israel. Instead they plotted attacks in Georgia, India and Thailand. In Georgia, the bomb was discovered under a diplomat’s car and removed. In Thailand, one of several bombs exploded in the house used by the Iranian plotters and some of them were captured. In India, one plotter attached a bomb to a moving Israeli diplomatic vehicle, which exploded, injuring the wife of an Israeli military officer. The overall scheme failed miserably, with three Iranians now in prison in Thailand—and further blackened the name of the Islamic Republic.
But the concept of using covert operations—mainly bombs—to murder officials of hated governments or organizations has been the dominant feature of the Islamic Republic’s operations abroad for decades.
The regime has not gone after American officials. That has been forbidden for fear of provoking a more violent reaction. In the light of the Soleymani assassination, that restraint is almost certainly under review right now. Iran is known to have followed and charted the movements of US diplomats. The reason is believed to be three-fold—to train Iranian covert operators; to scare American diplomats; and to prepare for real attacks in the event that the United States actually invades Iran.
But the bottom line is that the ultimate decision-makers in Iran rate the survival of the regime as the highest of all priorities and will not take any action they fear may be the last action the Islamic Republic will ever take.
And the decision will be made by Supreme Leader Ali Khamenehi. It is worthy of note that Tehran news reports said that, for the very first time, Khamenehi chaired a meeting of the Supreme National Security Council when it was convened after Soleymani’s death.
As he makes his decision, Khamenehi will also be looking over his shoulder. There are massive anti-Iranian demonstrations going on in Iraq since October 1—demonstrations far larger than the anti-American demonstration mounted at the US embassy in Baghdad on New Year’s Eve. The ongoing protests in Lebanon also have an anti-Iranian aspect to the. And the Houthis in Yemen have been making noises about making peace with Saudi Arabia. The assassination of Soleymani also prompted anti-Iranian demonstrations by Sunnis in scattered parts of the Arab world.
The empire that Soleymani was building in the Arab world is under severe strain. It isn’t by any means broken. But Khamenehi may well conclude that preserving what Soleymani built is far more important than revenge acts against the Americans.
