The Economist: Despite its sabre-rattling in the Gulf, Iran’s options are limited
Jan 7, 2012
AS IRAN’S ten days of muscle-flexing naval exercises in the Gulf drew to a close on January 2nd, the price of Brent crude rose by 4% to $112.13, the highest since mid-November. The increase reflected nerves over the bellicose tone of Iran’s pronouncements that accompanied its show of strength, amid fears that tension with America was becoming dangerous.
On December 28th Admiral Habibollah Sayyari, the commander of Iran’s navy, boasted that closing the Strait of Hormuz, through which tankers carry a fifth of all oil traded worldwide (nearly 17m barrels a day), would “be easier than drinking a glass of water”. This was swiftly followed by a warning from Washington that any attempt to close the 35-mile-wide strait would “not be tolerated”.
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A few days later, Iran’s army chief, General Ataollah Salehi, raised the temperature another notch. After an American aircraft-carrier, the USS John C Stennis from the Bahrain-based Fifth Fleet, passed through the strait, General Salehi said: “Iran will not repeat its warning…the enemy’s carrier has been moved to the Sea of Oman because of our drill. I recommend and emphasise to the American carrier not to return to the Persian Gulf…we are not in the habit of warning more than once.”
There is little doubt that the naval exercises, known as Velayat 90, were intended as a response to the tightening of Western sanctions triggered by the November report of the International Atomic Energy Agency, the UN watchdog, which pointed to “strong indicators of possible weapon development” by Iran.
A new round of sanctions may be having an effect even before they come into force. On December 31st Barack Obama signed into law measures passed with large majorities in Congress that included barring foreign firms dealing with the Central Bank of Iran, the agency for half the country’s oil-related transactions, from access to America’s financial system. The value of the Iranian rial against the dollar promptly fell by 12%, though it has since recovered after the heavy intervention of Iran’s central bank.
The intended effect of this new sanction, which allows the president some discretion over its implementation, is to force countries such as Japan and China that are big purchasers of Iranian oil to choose between continuing to buy it and keeping access to the American market for their exports. In practice, Mr Obama is likely to allow big trading partners at least a temporary waiver to give them and the world oil market time to adjust. But Iran, which gets 80% of its revenues from oil exports, will be hard hit. If the European Union goes ahead with its own sanctions against Iranian oil exports, which is likely, the sense of being under siege will grow.
Judging how Iran will react in such circumstances is difficult. For all its sabre-rattling, it lacks the military clout to close the Strait of Hormuz for more than a few days. Nor would it be in its interests to do so unless oil exports had been cut to a trickle by sanctions. However, although the regional dominance of the Fifth Fleet is not in question, not to mention the other military assets America can deploy from local bases, Iran has invested shrewdly in a formidable capability for asymmetric warfare specifically designed to counter American technological superiority.
To that end, it has emphasised the procurement of numerous types of guided missile, many of them placed on light, highly mobile and relatively cheap platforms on land, in the air and at sea. These range from the mass-produced Seraj-1 missile and the Zolfaqar speedboat, which can travel at 80mph (130kph) and carries the Nasr anti-ship cruise missile, to a growing fleet of Ghadir midget submarines, the Karrar armed drone and mobile shore-based missile batteries. The Iranians believe that with “swarming” tactics in confined waters they may be able to overwhelm even the sophisticated defences of an American carrier group.
Iran could also strike at American economic interests in the Gulf, such as oil facilities and tankers, and block ships by laying mines, as it did during its war with Iraq in the 1980s. And it might deploy its paramilitary allies elsewhere in the region, such as Hizbullah in Lebanon, Hamas in Gaza and insurgent groups in Afghanistan, to create as much mayhem as possible.
Even so, Iran’s options are limited. The plight of the embattled Assad government in Syria has weakened its links to Hizbullah and Hamas. And although the government in Tehran knows it cannot risk an all-out confrontation with America, nor can it be easily confident of stopping just short of such a cataclysm if it continues to raise the stakes. Despite Iran’s recent bluster, caution will probably prevail. But the chances of miscalculation are already quite high—and getting higher.
AS IRAN’S ten days of muscle-flexing naval exercises in the Gulf drew to a close on January 2nd, the price of Brent crude rose by 4% to $112.13, the highest since mid-November. The increase reflected nerves over the bellicose tone of Iran’s pronouncements that accompanied its show of strength, amid fears that tension with America was becoming dangerous.
On December 28th Admiral Habibollah Sayyari, the commander of Iran’s navy, boasted that closing the Strait of Hormuz, through which tankers carry a fifth of all oil traded worldwide (nearly 17m barrels a day), would “be easier than drinking a glass of water”. This was swiftly followed by a warning from Washington that any attempt to close the 35-mile-wide strait would “not be tolerated”.
In this section
A few days later, Iran’s army chief, General Ataollah Salehi, raised the temperature another notch. After an American aircraft-carrier, the USS John C Stennis from the Bahrain-based Fifth Fleet, passed through the strait, General Salehi said: “Iran will not repeat its warning…the enemy’s carrier has been moved to the Sea of Oman because of our drill. I recommend and emphasise to the American carrier not to return to the Persian Gulf…we are not in the habit of warning more than once.”
There is little doubt that the naval exercises, known as Velayat 90, were intended as a response to the tightening of Western sanctions triggered by the November report of the International Atomic Energy Agency, the UN watchdog, which pointed to “strong indicators of possible weapon development” by Iran.
A new round of sanctions may be having an effect even before they come into force. On December 31st Barack Obama signed into law measures passed with large majorities in Congress that included barring foreign firms dealing with the Central Bank of Iran, the agency for half the country’s oil-related transactions, from access to America’s financial system. The value of the Iranian rial against the dollar promptly fell by 12%, though it has since recovered after the heavy intervention of Iran’s central bank.
The intended effect of this new sanction, which allows the president some discretion over its implementation, is to force countries such as Japan and China that are big purchasers of Iranian oil to choose between continuing to buy it and keeping access to the American market for their exports. In practice, Mr Obama is likely to allow big trading partners at least a temporary waiver to give them and the world oil market time to adjust. But Iran, which gets 80% of its revenues from oil exports, will be hard hit. If the European Union goes ahead with its own sanctions against Iranian oil exports, which is likely, the sense of being under siege will grow.
Judging how Iran will react in such circumstances is difficult. For all its sabre-rattling, it lacks the military clout to close the Strait of Hormuz for more than a few days. Nor would it be in its interests to do so unless oil exports had been cut to a trickle by sanctions. However, although the regional dominance of the Fifth Fleet is not in question, not to mention the other military assets America can deploy from local bases, Iran has invested shrewdly in a formidable capability for asymmetric warfare specifically designed to counter American technological superiority.
To that end, it has emphasised the procurement of numerous types of guided missile, many of them placed on light, highly mobile and relatively cheap platforms on land, in the air and at sea. These range from the mass-produced Seraj-1 missile and the Zolfaqar speedboat, which can travel at 80mph (130kph) and carries the Nasr anti-ship cruise missile, to a growing fleet of Ghadir midget submarines, the Karrar armed drone and mobile shore-based missile batteries. The Iranians believe that with “swarming” tactics in confined waters they may be able to overwhelm even the sophisticated defences of an American carrier group.
Iran could also strike at American economic interests in the Gulf, such as oil facilities and tankers, and block ships by laying mines, as it did during its war with Iraq in the 1980s. And it might deploy its paramilitary allies elsewhere in the region, such as Hizbullah in Lebanon, Hamas in Gaza and insurgent groups in Afghanistan, to create as much mayhem as possible.
Even so, Iran’s options are limited. The plight of the embattled Assad government in Syria has weakened its links to Hizbullah and Hamas. And although the government in Tehran knows it cannot risk an all-out confrontation with America, nor can it be easily confident of stopping just short of such a cataclysm if it continues to raise the stakes. Despite Iran’s recent bluster, caution will probably prevail. But the chances of miscalculation are already quite high—and getting higher.
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