When I was at a conference on US – Arab relations last fall in Washington, DC, one of the panel members reminded me that when thinking about the Middle East, one should wake up every morning and question everything that you think you know. For several years, when people have asked me whether I thought that the US/Israel would attack Iran, I always answered “No”. My rational was that the Iranian strategy of “asymmetrical deterrence” by arming Hezbollah and Hamas as a deterrent to an Israeli attack had worked pretty well and at a minimum we would have advance warning as Israel would have to attack Lebanon in order to neutralize Hezbollah before attacking Iran.
I woke up this week to news that the US was installing Ballistic Missile Defense (BMD) systems in Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait and the UAE, upgrading the current systems in Israel and Saudi Arabia and deploying BMD equipped warships in the Persian Gulf. If effectively deployed, these systems change the balance of power landscape in the region and free up Israel to attack Iran. While spun by the US as defensive deployment, when combined with Obama’s “axis of evil lite” State of the Union speech (Iran and North Korea face “severe consequences” if they fail to meet western demands) and Hilary Clinton’s threat that China faces “diplomatic isolation” if it fails to support sanctions on Iran (How this would be accomplished is unclear. Perhaps we could refuse to sell them our trillions of dollars of debt.), the deployments must have the Iranian regime rethinking their strategic posture.
The initial Iranian reaction has been muted, calling the US missile shield a “puppet show”. (There may be truth in this conjecture as this week’s test of the upgraded BMD system failed.) On the other hand the Iranian leadership, controlled by hardliners associated with the Revolutionary Guard, must be asking themselves, is war with the US/Israel inevitable and if so how do we respond.
We will get a clue to their thinking on February 11, the anniversary of the Iranian Revolution. The opposition (green) movement is planning further demonstrations against the regime and how the regime reacts may tell us whether they think war is inevitable. Up until now the regime has intimidated demonstrators with beatings, arrests, torture and executions. If the regime fears outside aggression, they will move to crush the opposition and that will mean tanks in the street.
If the Iranian regime concludes that war is inevitable, they may also conclude that the most viable strategy is a preemptive strike before the systems are operational. In any war, if you going to throw the first stone, it had better be a big one.
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