Putting Iran in a desperate situation without viable alternatives is likely to result in desperate responses.
Two oil tankers carrying Japanese-related cargo were attacked in the Gulf of Oman last week. Shortly after the incident, Secretary of State Pompeo announced that Washington assessed Tehran was behind the attacks. Beyond the usual warnings, however, he had nothing to offer to reduce the likelihood of future Iranian response to Washington’s “maximum pressure” campaign. He doubled-down on his assertions on the subsequent Sunday talk shows.
In laying the blame on Tehran the secretary cited intelligence reporting, the expertise needed to execute the operation, and the fact that no Iranian proxy group had the resources and proficiency to conduct such sophisticated attacks. He linked the attacks to earlier incidents that Iran or its allies were judged to have carried out, including the mining of four ships near the Strait of Hormuz in mid-May and, more recently, a Houthi missile attack against a Saudi airport terminal that injured 26 people on the day before the tanker attacks. Secretary Pompeo concluded his remarks by charging that “Iran is lashing out because the regime wants our successful maximum pressure campaign lifted.”
Washington, however, has been trying to deter Iran from “lashing out” with pointed warnings and the deployment of a U.S. Navy aircraft carrier, Air Force bombers, and other military forces to the region. The ship attacks represented a U.S. failure to dissuade Iran from probing American red lines. The problem for the United States now is how to restore deterrence as its own proudly proclaimed economic warfare generates additional consequences affecting Iran’s economic security and political stability. Secretary Pompeo can offer negotiations as a way out of the impasse, but Iran’s leaders are giving no credence to President Trump and the secretary’s sincerity. Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei reportedly told Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who on the day of the attacks was visiting Iran to try to ease regional tensions, that “We have no doubt about your good will and seriousness, but ... I don’t regard Trump as deserving any exchange of messages.”
From an Iranian perspective, there are few signs that the United States and its regional allies are actually interested in anything other than Tehran’s submission. As of now, Iran’s leaders probably see the administration’s message as one that offers Tehran virtually no viable options—and viable means acceptable within Iran’s nationalist and ideological values. At the same time, in the absence of viable alternatives, Tehran probably is looking through a very cloudy lens as it tries to read U.S. signals and determine where the U.S. red lines are. Secretary Pompeo’s comment that the United States will defend its forces, interests, and allies and safeguard global commerce and regional stability does not provide much clarity.
U.S. policy makers must be careful not to conflate the goal of restoring deterrence with yet more efforts to compel or coerce changes in Iranian behavior. The administration’s coercive diplomacy is working thus far because the United States is so much stronger than Iran and can easily afford to trade an unequal amount of costs, especially while the Iranians appear unwilling to make direct challenges to U.S. forces and interests. Unfortunately, the uncertainty about U.S. reactions in Tehran makes it difficult for the leadership to calculate the costs and benefits of its own retaliatory and coercive actions.
Iran historically has exercised caution when uncertain, which is a positive for the time being. U.S. policymakers, however, should allow for the possibility that, as Iran’s situation worsens, Tehran will make judgments based on assumptions reflecting the hard-line conservatives’ worst fears about U.S. intentions and their worst prejudices about U.S. resolve. U.S. policymakers and warfighters also should be concerned that this situation could put a premium on dramatic Iranian actions that go beyond ship and missile attacks to upset and turn international opinion against the United States.
If Tehran sees only a choice between backing down and escalating pressure against commerce and the security of U.S. regional allies, the latter choice is the more likely course of action. For Iran’s leaders, negotiating after Iranian compromises to achieve the nuclear deal were deemed insufficient by the Trump Administration risks showing a weakness that could invite more pressure rather than provide relief.
Meanwhile, the multitude of personal and domestic political considerations that influence Iran’s leaders will make it very difficult to gauge when caution gives way to desperation. Posturing for a post-Rouhani presidency and potentially a post-Khamenei Iran could have as much influence on Iranian responses as any signals from Washington or U.S. military forces in the region.
As a result, the room for an escalation in lashing out, mistakes, and unintended consequences is growing. Worse, Iran and the United States are hostage to other groups who may want to see a conflict that Washington and Tehran prefer to avoid. Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif was quick to point out regarding the recent tanker attacks that “Suspicious doesn’t begin to describe what likely transpired this morning.” Iran’s proxies may lack the sophistication but there are other countries with the requisite skills and motivations to torpedo Japanese mediation efforts and use a false-flag operation to provoke a crisis between Washington and Tehran.
Deterrence is a complex issue that does not lend itself to easy solutions. Moreover, the link between rationality and deterrence is not a direct one. Plus, even clearly rational governments do not always act in predictable ways. If the next suspicious incident claims American lives, intentionally or not, is Washington prepared to respond in a way that avoids a series of escalatory responses? Has it thought through potential best-case and worst-case scenarios for the second and third-order consequences of a U.S. punitive retaliation to compel Iran to restore deterrence?
Tehran might accept a minor retaliation as the cost of determining where the red lines are. After all, it has not responded to numerous Israeli attacks on Iranian facilities in Syria over the past year.
But, if Iran is taking actions where U.S. lives might be at risk, the regime may have already decided its circumstances warrant such confrontational actions. This in itself could be an indication that the regime prefers risking significant retaliation and honorable defeat to surrendering shamefully and potentially inviting even more pressure and worse outcomes for the nation. If deterrence ultimately is about avoiding conflict, a U.S. approach that provides Iran some viable alternatives rather than piles on more pressure would be a powerful step in that direction. The U.S. administration seems poised to fall into the trap of its own seeming fanaticism, which George Santayana correctly noted, consists of redoubling your efforts when you have forgotten your aim.
Read also Limited Options for Dealing with Iran in The Cipher Brief and more from the former National Intelligence Manager on Iran at ODNI Norm Roule, and Vice Admiral Kevin Donegan, USN (ret.) in The Politics at Play in Iran.
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