New Year, Old Story on Iran
Mini Teaser: A year after their assessment of Iranian nuclear ambitions, the authors look back. There are still no good options for dealing with Iran.
What are the viable military options for dealing with Iran? These are unchanged from our estimate of last year.[1]A ground military invasion is out of the question. The war in Iraq has fully committed our ground military capability and stretched it to its maximum-the manpower needs for an invasion of Iran could only be met by bringing back the draft.
The United States lacks the assets for a successful commando operation-we do not have anything like the number of area-, language- and culturally-trained Special Forces soldiers or CIA operatives needed to successfully operate behind Iranian lines among a hostile population. And the combat effectiveness of some of these units is rated as low as 55 percent because of losses suffered during the Iraq campaign.
Air strikes could set back the Iranian program enough to be worth considering, but would require at least 1,000 strike sorties-and there is no guarantee of achieving a desired degree of destruction. We need only to look at the bombing campaigns during the Perisan Gulf War and their failure to take out any Iraqi SCUD missile launchers.
On balance, it can be seen that while potential threats presented by ongoing Iranian programs have not lessened-the capacity of the United States to strike Iran and cope with indirect aftereffects of a military campaign has not improved either.
But there are some interesting developments in Iran's domestic political arena that give hope for a diplomatic avenue of approach. Ahmadinejad is having trouble holding his political base together. His party was largely rejected in recent municipal elections. Although he is certain to try to rally domestic support by portraying Iran as a victim of persecution by the United States and Israel, he will have trouble achieving that outcome if the United States and Israel refuse to cooperate in responding to his belligerence "in kind."
If Washington persists in threatening Iran with military action then America itself will help Ahmadinejad persuade the Iranian people that they are at risk and will rally support to attack domestic opponents as agents of the "Great Satan" and Zionists.
It is not in anyone's interests to make war a self-fulfilling prophecy.
W. Patrick Lang is president of Global Resources Group, Inc., a consulting firm, and former head of Middle East Intelligence at the Defense Intelligence Agency. Larry C. Johnson is managing director of berg Associates, an international consulting firm specializing in money laundering investigations and counter-terrorism. He served in the Central Intelligence Agency and the State Department.
[1] W. Patrick Lang and Larry C. Johnson, "Contemplating the Ifs", The National Interest, No. 83 (Spring 2006).