Published on August 11th, 2010 | by Ali Gharib
23More on Potential Iranian Reax To Military Strike
Via Mondoweiss, Juan Cole’s excellent Informed Comment site is currently carrying an analysis by Middle East and terror expert Mahan Abedin that explores Iran’s likely options and fallout should the United States use bombers to attack the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program. Eli addressed this scenario last week using Patrick Disney’s analysis, and this latest attempt at gazing into the crystal ball is no less sobering.
Abedin writes:
A top priority for the IRGC high command is to respond so harshly and decisively so as to deter the Americans from a second set of strikes at a future point. The idea here is to avoid what happened to Iraq in the period , when the former Baathist regime was so weakened by sanctions and repeated small-scale military attacks that it quickly collapsed in the face of American and British invading armies.
The range of predictable responses available to the IRGC high command include dramatic hit ad run attacks against military and commercial shipping in the Persian Gulf, the use of mid-range ballistic missiles against American bases in the region and Israel and a direct assault on American forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. All these options are likely to be used within 48 hours of the start of hostilities.
What is less predictable is the response of the IRGC Qods Force, which is likely to be at the forefront of the Pasdaran’s counter-attack. One possible response by the Qods force is spectacular terrorist-style attacks against American intelligence bases and assets throughout the region. The IRGC Qods Force is believed to have identified every key component of the American intelligence apparatus in the Middle East, Afghanistan and Pakistan. They are likely to put this information to good use, especially since the Qods Force suspects that the CIA had a hand in last October’s Jundullah-organised suicide bombing targeting IRGC commanders in Iran’s volatile Sistan va Baluchistan province.
The IRGC navy will also play a key asymmetrical role in the conflict by organising maritime suicide bombings on an industrial scale. By manning its fleet of speedboats with suicide bombers and ramming them into American warships and even neutral commercial shipping, the Pasdaran will hope to close the Strait of Hormuz, through which nearly 40 percent of world crude oil supplies pass.
The combination of these asymmetrical forms of warfare with more conventional style missile and even ground force attacks on American bases in the region will likely result in thousands of American military casualties in the space of a few weeks. The IRGC has both the will and wherewithal to inflict a level of casualties on American armed forces not seen since the Second World War.
Even if the United States manages to destroy Iran’s nuclear infrastructure and much of the country’s military assets, the IRGC can still claim victory by claiming to have given the Americans a bloody nose and producing an outcome not dissimilar from the Israeli-Hezbollah military engagement in the summer of 2006.
The political effect of this will likely be even more explosive than the actual fighting. Not only will it awaken the sleeping giant of Iranian nationalism, thus aligning the broad mass of the people with the regime, it will also shore up Iran’s image in the region and prove once and for all that the Islamic Republic is prepared to fight to the death to uphold its principles. Suddenly Iran’s allies in the region – particularly non-state actors like Hezbollah and Hamas – would stand ten feet tall.
About the Author
Ali Gharib is a New York-based journalist on U.S. foreign policy with a focus on the Middle East and Central Asia. His work has appeared at Inter Press Service, where he was the Deputy Washington Bureau Chief; the Buffalo Beast; Huffington Post; Mondoweiss; Right Web; and Alternet. He holds a Master's degree in Philosophy and Public Policy from the London School of Economics and Political Science. A proud Iranian-American and fluent Farsi speaker, Ali was born in California and raised in D.C.
Related Posts
Little Support in Washington for Kerry’s Mideast Efforts →
Syria Conference Offers Glimmer of Hope, Many Challenges →
Kerry’s Latest Mideast Trip Doomed Before It Starts →
That U.S./Israel would finally get its “comeupance” seems a little optimistic to me, but I suppose there is always hope.
Iran is likely in such an aggressive strike to demonstrate that the U.S.-Israeli missile defense is another Maginot Line. In any case, Iran is not going to allow any attack to go unanswered. It will be the beginning of the American and Israeli recognition that they cannot intimidate the nations of the world.
Again, I think the most telling commentary on this is the US military’s own drills on this. We couldn’t defeat the “red” team without limiting them to Napoleonic warfare. I wish someone would find that retired general. I wish someone would dig up that story. Either you or Glenn Greenwald does it, or it won’t happen. Sadly, neither you nor Greenwald matter. Your message isn’t “ready” for prime time (propaganda)
As an Iranian that has lived in Iran for the past ten years and 30 years prior to that in the United States what is very clear to me is that if there is a military confrontation 70,000,000 million Iranians will become sworn enemies of America and at least two million of them will volunteer for suicide missions. Does the American empire really want to create such a situation?
Even if Iran is flattened Iranians will fight on for not years but for decades.
As for Israel; they simply need to stop being so scared and paranoid and face the reality that those that are constantly barking nonsense are a very small minority and 95% of Iranians don’t care less for Hezbollah and Hamas and consider the whole thing a problem between Arabs and Jews.
War is not option. The only option is peace. Let’s work for that, which may be harder to do but the results would benefit our grandchildren.
Scott has it right. The US spent 250 million dollars in 2002 war gaming an attack on Iran. ‘That general’ and his red team destroyed the American fleet in 48 hours. Most of it in 24 hours. Destroyed. Time out was called, the ships ‘refloated’, thousands of dead sailors resurrected, and the red team limited to such and extent that the general in charge of it withdrew from the games. A scandal really.
One assumes something was learned from this. But when Hezbollah can with two anti-ship missiles disable an Israeli frigate, narrowly miss another but sink a passing merchant ship behind it on cue during a speech by Nasrallah one wonders. Hezbollah?
In all the commentary on Iran and war and its consequences the only reference I have seen to the Millenium Challenge war games was Scott’s. He is absolutely right. Someone needs to find Van Ripper and cover – extensively cover – what happened in 2002, and how that should inform our thinking now.
http://www.globalsecurity.org/org/news/2002/020906-iraq1.htm
If ever the US or Israel launch nuclear weapons at Iran, then violence against US or Israeli interests all over the world will be so huge as to overwhelm the mothers.
The Americans will be taught a spanking good lesson. They are merely one of several hundred countries on this earth, they are NOT special.
This is so true but it is sad that the people hellbent on starting a Middle East war live thousand of miles from the area of conflict and hope that the war will not touch them. They are so mistaken but will realise to late that such a war will impact on EVERYONE.
To the neocon crazies, Armagedonites, Lebensraum Zionists and oil company executives the “bloody nose” Iran might inflict are acceptable losses.
It may be speculative, but not entirely improbable to conclude that an Israeli or American strike on Iran may result in WW-III. If the Iranians manage to sink several U.S. ships, including an aircraft carrier or two, the U.S. response might go nuclear…radiation drifting towards Russia…who knows? It’s an extremely dangerous wild card. And I don’t put it past Israel to play it (and suck us in).
Israel has already drawn the US into the Iraq’s quagmire at a cost of $3-3.5 trillion. They know that they control Washington and they won’t hesitate to drag corrupt politicians into another confrontation in the Middle East. It costs them no blood and no money and I don’t see why they should not use AIPAC to do just that.
The truth is that they may end up being in a more unsafe position after the attack than before because even if only one of Iran’s missile penetrates their bunker in the Negev desert and sets off a nuclear device, that’s the end of Israel – a territory of less than 22,000 square miles!!!
I think most here have a hidden (or not so hidden) desire to see the US and Israel get a bloody nose. That’s understandable considering the damage they’ve done and continue to do, their insidious war mongering, their insulting attitudes toward the rest of the world, blatant hypocrisy and bullying of weaker nations and peoples, etc. I hear you. But know this, Iran is in no position to punish the likes of these two vastly superior military powers. US and Israeli interests will barely be touched, regardless of what the wargames show. Iran will suffer huge losses, both civilian and military, it will set them back decades. It will illustrate the hideous, bullying and evil nature of the US/Israeli war machines and the cruelty of the respective cultures which condone this murderous behaviour, but it will be Iran and Iranian men, women and children that will do ALL the suffering. If you care about regular folks just struggling to live a decent life, you will expunge the wish for this confontation from your consciousness. Peace.
I think Russia and Turkey should both get involved. Putin must warn Israeli zionists that if it attacks Iran, Israel will turn into ashy desert land.
It is so sad that there is so much talk about a possible war that is so unnecessary.
One would think that the leaders in US and Israel are well aware of where Iran stands, what is it capable of and what not, and most of this rhetoric is just for propaganda and domestic consumption.
One would believe they attacked Iraq because it was a sitting duck and they wouldn’t attack Iran because the cost is way too high. But again these are criminals sitting on their comfortable chairs and playing god with ordinary people’s life.
I personally think there will be no attack because Israel is just fine with the current situation, which is to demonize and isolate Iran and continue to occupy without a resolution in sight.
As Fidel Castro said: “Obama has it in his power to stop this madness”. Will he do it?. Will he relinquish Israeli-AIPAC protection against his enemies on the right in order to win a second term and to become the Wall Street lawyer and banker he has always wanted to be? Only time will tell!
I recall watching a news program just before the first Gulf War. I am not sure but I think it was the PBS Newshour or whatever Jim Lehrer’s one-hour news program was called then. Anthony H. Cordesman was the military ‘expert’ holding forth on how the Iraqi army that was in Kuwait would fight the Allied forces. He had gone into details of how tiny groups of Iraqi soldiers, sitting is below ground enclaves would fight; how they would swing out on some sort of equipment, hit the allied forces/aircraft and instantly swing back and disappear in their dugouts. Listening to him the Iraqis appeared to me super-advanced Aliens from outer space, that only a few of whom would be able to frustrate the combined might of the US and its many allies. I was stunned and thought that there was no way any earthly military force could dislodge such a perfectly planned defensive posture by this super-human army.
We all know what happened.
Given that experience, I am extremely skeptical of the purported expertise and capabilities of the Iranian Defense forces as being portrayed here.
Perhaps we should remember that Iran is a developing country under sanctions for many years. It could not produce its own gasoline for lack of expertise in building fractionators and distillation columns (a relatively old and basic technology). It is unable to upgrade its aging refineries due to lack of spare parts which it neither has access to due to the sanctions nor could manufacture itself. Given that refining technology is about hundred years old, that tells one how technologically capable the Iranians really are.
A hundred pieces of heavy artillery, say 155 mm stuff, preplaced and sighted-in on the Straits, could close it. Such pieces can fire twenty rounds and scat. Good accuracy is what, perhaps plus-minus fifty meters? Good enough to get hits. Radar aimed counterbattery fire is deadly, but it takes three or four minutes to get on the way. Fake fire can confuse radar counterbattery, too. Many military surface vessels are too thin-skinned on top to resist penetration. Arty…the cheapest and most effective way to put fifty lb of boom on a target.
Basically, most of the big US naval assets wont dare run the gauntlet, the real losses and the political losses would be too much. So it will be an air war. The counter strikes on large assets will be in various ports, not open-sea.
Russia and China won’t like it. Upsets trade. Upsets their Muslim populations. Likely to cause huge problems in Egypt…adios, Hose-me. Etc.
Hmmm, tell me again how this will be in the US best interest?
JP Straley
I don’t disagree with part of your post, but I wonder how committed we will be. The fact is that we have no business over there. We don’t even import ME oil. It didn’t hurt Britain too much after they left their territories. In fact, it saved Britain.
Robert Fisk’s chapter in The Great War for Civilization on Iranian carpet weaving is instructive.
I think US planners know that it would be total folly, and hopefully this whole thing is a bluff. On the other hand, we can’t forget that our leaders are not necessarily clear-thinking, intelligent individuals, and it’s not them who would be risking the fallout from such an attack, so anything is possible. After all, it’s not their sons and daughters getting blown to bits in Iraq and Afghanistan. When planners themselves are this far disconnected from the realities on the ground, they are liable to order all kinds of absurd actions.
Strange dreams like this can very quickly become reality if we don’t combat the propaganda.
The time spent predicting war scenarios is the time not spent asking and answering the questions that can easily produce the knowledge (already learned) to stop all wars, regardless of attempted opposition that would therefore promptly defeat itself.
Enjoy the show of the human addiction to the former, and fear of the latter.
Respectfully, DougBuchanan.com
If push comes to shove and Iran is forced to retaliate by closing the Hormuz Straits then the United States will be forced to occupy the Iranian side of the Straits so as to open it and protect it.
How many Americans will die for this operation? It will require groundforces and it will require long-term defense.
This is beyond the ability of the United States so it will be forced to threaten a nuclear attack.
Let’s see what the “Bomber Boys” and Goldberg have to say to this situation.
To those who warn that Iran is weak, so was Iraq. Someone said, “look how that went” Indeed, look at it, look at Vietnam, South America, Mexico–we’ve occupied and enjoyed total military dominance, yet, we couldn’t control anything.
No, I believe in the Declaration of Independence, gov’ts get their authority from the consent of the governed. Jefferson says that people are inclined to absorb injustice and usurpations against them, but “when a long train of abuses” results in tyranny, “it is their right, their duty to throw off the ties that bind them.”
Jefferson isn’t writing a justification for American independence as much as he is describing the nature of men and men’s reaction to tyranny. Read the specific grievances listed at the end of the Dec. of Ind. compared to what Egypt, Palestinians, Iraqis, Afghanis have endured under our heel makes the Founding Father’s seem like whiners.
Here’s the bottom line. Bombing Iran is far less risky than letting Iran have a bomb. This whole conflict is hardly noticeable to the vast majority of American people by design.If the Islamic regimes Unite that is a great thing,but trust me America is asleep at the wheel right now and will awaken and then what will the Islamic extremist do.I know what the American people will do.
One problem with the Iraq war was that it was fought on the cheap (the original problem was that we fought the war at all, of course). We should’ve invaded the country with at least 500,000 troops. Every town should have been occupied and the Iraqis disarmed. Then we should have imposed a constitution and a government. Any insurgency should have been suppressed at once by whatever means necessary. (Please remember that I believe we never should have fought the war to begin with, especially since overthrowing Saddham could only benefit Shiite Iran. Here I’m simply outlining how the war should have been fought. But clearly we had no good reason to fight it at all).
If we were to fight a war with Iran (which I don’t think we will) it would have to be done right. We’d need a million-man invasion army (which we can’t field unless we reinstitute the draft, itself a highly unlikely possibility), and an air campaign beyond anything seen since 1945. Civilian casualties would be enormous. I just don’t think it’s going to happen. On the other hand, while I agree the Iranians would not roll over and surrender, I get a little tired of hearing how two million suicide bombers would be headed our way, or how the mighty Iranian armed forces would kick us out of the Gulf. The Iranian military showed its ability to take very heavy casualties in the Iran-Iraq War, but it also showed very little operational skill. In a real war between the U.S. and Iran (and not some namby-pamby aerial campaign) the latter would be crushed. Iran is a great civilization with a great history and the Iranians are a fine people, but Iran is still a developing nation with a second-rate military. People are forgetting the real power of the U.S. military, sinply because we don’t fight total wars anymore. A real war between the two countries could have only one outcome.