The U.S. Stands to Lose Much More Than a War With Iran
Scott Ritter
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. (Pablo Martinez Monsivais / AP)
After much back-and-forth posturing by the Trump administration, book-ended
by national security adviser John Bolton accelerating the planned
deployments of an aircraft carrier battle group and a B-52 bomber task force
to the Middle East, and President Trump commenting, "I hope not" when asked
whether there would be a war, the American commander in chief threatened to
destroy Iran on Sunday. "If Iran wants to fight," Trump tweeted, "that will
be the official end of Iran. Never threaten the United States again!"
Trying to pinpoint what prompted Trump to communicate what amounts to a
genocidal threat is like reading tea leaves-more art than science. But after
seeing his effort to isolate Iran diplomatically rejected by a united
Europe, and learning from military leaders that a war with Iran would be far
costlier and much more problematic than he originally thought, the president
reverted to character, lashing out with apocalyptic fury against a nation
that has frustrated his administration from its inception.
Trump has backed himself into a corner. The self-imagined dealmaker
sincerely believed that by applying economic pressure on Iran, backed up
with the threat of force, the Iranian government would come to the
negotiation table and agree to a nuclear deal that denied it everything it
had achieved through diplomacy with the Obama administration. Trump believed
he could bully America's allies in Europe to go along with him. And, in the
end, when he asked his military leaders to provide him with options to
forcefully compel Iran to bend to his will, Trump was told that nothing
short of an all-out war, involving more than 500,000 troops, could provide
the outcome he sought, and even then only at great cost. Trump had run on a
platform that promised an end to costly wars of choice in Iraq, Syria and
Afghanistan. If he pulled the trigger on Iran, his chances of reelection in
2020 would be all but eliminated.
The heart of Trump's frustration lies with the military options he has been
presented with, namely "OPLAN 1002." Short for "operations plan," OPLAN 1002
is the U.S. war plan for major military conflict in the Persian Gulf. If the
current state of heightened tension with Iran were to explode into a
military confrontation, it would be OPLAN 1002, or some iteration thereof,
that U.S. military commanders would use to guide their operations, which
could include neutralizing Iran's nuclear infrastructure and securing the
strategic Strait of Hormuz, through which about 18 million barrels of oil,
which is 20% of global production, transits every day.
The issue of Iran's nuclear capability has moved front and center after
Trump's fateful decision to withdraw from the Iranian nuclear deal last year
and reimpose U.S. sanctions, including those on the sale of oil, Iran's
economic lifeblood. As a result, Iran has suspended certain aspects of the
nuclear deal concerning the storage of heavy water and enriched uranium and
is threatening to resume the enrichment of 20% enriched uranium, restart a
heavy-water nuclear reactor and install advanced centrifuges. Moreover, if
the U.S. moves to impede Iran's ability to export oil, Iran has threatened
to close the Strait of Hormuz to all traffic. For its part, the U.S. has
promised to keep the Strait of Hormuz open through military action.
Vice Admiral Jim Malloy, commander of the U.S. Navy's Bahrain-based Fifth
Fleet, embodies the arrogance that infects senior American military
leadership when it comes to the issue of securing the Strait of Hormuz. His
command recently assumed operational control of the USS Abraham Lincoln
carrier battle group, diverted to the Middle East as part of America's
military buildup against Iran. Addressing the question of whether the
carrier battle group would remain in the Arabian Sea, where it currently
operates, or if it would transit the strait and operate in the Persian Gulf,
Malloy told reporters, "If I need to bring it inside the strait, I will do
so. I'm not restricted in any way, I'm not challenged in any way, to operate
her anywhere in the Middle East."
