President Donald Trump successfully leveraged a short, sharp burst of highly targeted military force against Iran’s nuclear program.
The United States’s airstrikes have caused significant damage to three key Iranian nuclear facilities. Alongside broader Israeli military action, the Iranian nuclear program has likely been set back by a period of at least 18 months. Notably, Iran’s overt retaliation consisted only of a limited and deliberately casualty-avoidant ballistic missile attack on a U.S. military base in Qatar. Trump then agreed to a ceasefire with Iran and pressured Israel into a similar ceasefire with Tehran. At least for now, that ceasefire is holding. I wrongly believed this conflict would escalate before it cooled to a quick, peaceful conclusion.
Nevertheless, the phrase “at least for now” should be forefront in our minds here.
For two reasons, a resumption of hostilities at more extreme levels remains likely to some point over the remainder of the year. The first precipitating factor would center on an Iranian attempt to reconstitute its nuclear program or rush toward deploying a nuclear warhead. The second factor is the circumstance in which Iran launches a successful terrorist attack on U.S. interests. Neither of these points should be underestimated.
Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, views his nuclear program as a core marker of the Iranian Islamic Republic’s destiny to dominate the Middle East. He also prizes the ability to rush toward developing a nuclear weapon at short notice, if circumstances are deemed to require it. That nuclear weapon, Khamenei and the politically powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps believe, would assure that Iran can blackmail its enemies and regional rivals, and deter foreign military action that threatens the regime’s survival.
Considering these calculations, Khamenei arguably now has good reason to expedite his covert nuclear weapons research. But if Israel/the U.S. believe Iran is moving toward the credible deployment of an Iranian nuclear weapon, they are almost certain to recommence military action against Iran. Indeed, it bears pondering here that the reason Khamenei has endured such major damage to his nuclear infrastructure and associated political prestige is not simply a result of his fear of an escalation spiral he would lose, but rather that he believes Iran can covertly build a nuclear weapon tomorrow by avoiding a major showdown today.
Regardless, any Iranian nuclear breakout effort would almost certainly lead to highly aggressive U.S. or Israeli military action. In that scenario, recognizing yet another blow to his regime’s power and prestige (the importance of Iran’s nuclear program to the regime’s sense of theological purpose and political project is immense), Khamenei might well order far more intense retaliation against U.S. interests. Even though Khamenei has appeared weak in his response to the most recent strikes, he will have noticed that Trump’s MAGA base has little interest in entering another drawn-out Middle Eastern conflict. In turn, he may gamble that with a little patience, he can again test U.S. resolve in a way that discourages Trump from responding in a way that risks broaching a deeper conflict.
Nor is it true that Khamenei’s regime has had all its sharpest teeth knocked out.
While the Iranian air force is largely defunct as a combat force, Iran’s ballistic missile forces are depleted but remain operational. Iran will reconstitute those weapons to enable their future employment in saturation strikes against U.S. bases in Qatar, Bahrain, Iraq, and Syria. At the same time, Iran retains warships and anti-ship capabilities that could cause short-term chaos in the critical Strait of Hormuz trade chokepoint linking the Indian Ocean to the Mediterranean Sea. Although a U.S. Navy effort to reopen the Strait would ultimately be successful, it would require the deployment of warships and munitions that are in short supply vis-à-vis a potential conflict with China over Taiwan. Naval engagements in or surrounding Iranian waters would also entail far greater risk to U.S. Navy crews than in the recent U.S. military engagements with the Houthi rebels in Yemen.
There’s another complicating factor.
China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) has many thousands of ballistic and cruise missiles of far greater capability and range than those employed by Iran. Most U.S. military analysts believe China is likely to conduct an invasion or blockade of Taiwan by the year 2030. A fall of Taiwan to China would be catastrophic for U.S. interests. But suppose the U.S. lacks the air defense munitions to defend its warships and bases on Guam, Okinawa, and other targets from PLA attacks. In that case, China will have a far greater likelihood of defeating the U.S. military. This means that the risks associated with the next major showdown with Iran will be greater than those associated with this just-completed showdown.
Next up, there’s the terrorism problem.
The Islamic Republic of Iran is the world’s preeminent sponsor of terrorism. Hundreds of U.S. soldiers were killed during the 2005-2009 period in Iraq, targeted by explosively formed penetrator (EFP) weapons, which were provided to Iranian-led militias to transform U.S. armored vehicles into shrapnel centrifuges. In his book The Good Soldiers, David Finkel recalls one soldier who fell to the EFP attacks: “He wasn’t breathing, his eyes weren’t moving, his left foot was gone, his backside was ripped open, his stomach was filling with blood…” In another 2007 IRGC attack, U.S. soldiers were ambushed by an IRGC attack cell as they met with officials in the city of Karbala. A number were killed and two others kidnapped, then shortly thereafter executed.
Iran’s anti-American terrorist agenda extends even in periods of relative détente. In 2011, for example, while the Obama administration was openly extending its hand to Khamenei in pursuit of a new relationship (going so far as to deliberately ignore Iranian political protesters as they were brutally crushed), the late IRGC Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani orchestrated a plot to blow up Washington, DC’s Café Milano restaurant. A haunt of diplomats, politicians, and other DC power brokers/wannabe power brokers, the IRGC targeted the restaurant because of its frequent patronage of then-Saudi ambassador Adel al-Jubeir. Iran detested Jubeir for his robust U.S. friendship and leadership of Saudi efforts to counter Iranian malfeasance in the Middle East. When the IRGC handler accidentally hired a U.S. agent to carry out the attack, the agent warned him that many innocent diners would be killed with Jubeir. The IRGC agent responded, “f*** em.” Put simply, from Khamenei on down, very few in the Iranian regime have qualms about killing innocent Americans if they believe it necessary, and if they can cover themselves with the thinnest veil of plausible deniability.
This record strongly suggests that Khamenei will seek vengeance for Trump’s air strikes on a patient but persistent basis. We know this based on how he has responded to the first Trump administration’s Jan. 2020 killing of Soleimani.
As first reported by the Washington Examiner, Iran has systematically sought to assassinate first-term Trump administration officials such as former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, former national security advisers John Bolton and Robert O’Brien, and others to avenge Soleimani. Khamenei sees this campaign as a theological requirement of justice as much as a show of political resolve. Iranian agents have even sought to assassinate President Donald Trump himself. The ensuing concern should be obvious: if Khamenei was determined to exact this war-risking revenge for just one man, consider what he’s likely to authorize in relation to the “Great Satan’s” desecration of his prized nuclear program?
Indeed, Iran’s terrorist threat abroad was growing even before the U.S. and Israeli strikes. The United Kingdom, whose MI5 domestic intelligence recently interdicted two separate Iranian terrorist plots that threatened to cause significant bloodshed on U.K. soil. Similarly, the Washington Examiner understands that recent arrests by ICE of Iranian citizens on U.S. soil were precipitated by FBI-led counterterrorism operations, indicating those individuals may have been so-called “sleeper agents” awaiting orders to attack.
WHAT HAPPENS WHEN THE JALISCO NEW GENERATION CARTEL KILLS AMERICANS?
Again, it bears emphasizing that Iran has shown an extremely high tolerance for attacks that would risk very heavy U.S. retaliation and profound political fallout. But if Khamenei’s regime believes a target must be eliminated and/or a message of strategic intent sent, it will do so. Major Iranian terrorist plots in Albania, Bulgaria, France, Germany, India, Jordan, Thailand, and numerous other locales have also been interdicted in recent years. The IRGC and Hezbollah also operate impressive logistics networks in Europe, while maintaining close links with various drug trafficking cartels in Latin America. They have credible means of effecting atrocities against Americans on American soil or American government, military personnel, or tourists abroad. The question follows: What will Trump do if Iran pulls off a successful terrorist attack targeting Americans?
Considering Trump’s strongman nationalist political narrative, it is hard to see how the president would not authorize extremely robust military retaliation in the event of an Iranian/proxy terrorist attack against Americans. Or, indeed, in response to an Iranian rush to produce a nuclear weapon.