The Pirates of Tehran
If Iran
won’t change its behavior, we should sink its navy.
June 14, 2019
On
April 14, 1988, the U.S.S. Samuel B. Roberts, a frigate, hit an Iranian naval
mine while sailing in the Persian Gulf. The explosion injured 10 of her crew
and nearly sank the ship. Four days later, the U.S. Navy destroyed half the
Iranian fleet in a matter of hours. Iran did not molest the Navy or
international shipping for many years thereafter.
Now
that’s changed. Iran’s piratical regime is back yet again to its piratical
ways.
Or
so it seems, based on a detailed timeline of
Thursday’s attackson two tankers in the Gulf of Oman provided by the
U.S. Central Command, including a surveillance video of one of Iran’s
Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps patrol boats removing an
unexploded limpet mine from the hull of one of the damaged tankers.
The
Iranians categorically deny responsibility. And the Trump administration has
credibility issues, to put it mildly, which is one reason why electing a
compulsive prevaricator to the presidency is dangerous to national security.
In
this case, however, the evidence against Iran is compelling. CentCom’s account
notes that “a U.S. aircraft observed an IRGC Hendijan class patrol boat and
multiple IRGC fast attack craft/fast inshore attack craft (FAC/FIAC) in the
vicinity of the M/T Altair,” one of the damaged tankers. The Iranian boats are
familiar to the U.S. Navy after decades of observing them at close range. And
staging deniable attacks that fall just below the threshold of open warfare on
the U.S. is an Iranian specialty.
Trump might be a liar, but the U.S. military isn’t.
There are lingering
questions about the types of munitions that hit the ships, and
time should be given for a thorough investigation. But it would require a large
dose of self-deception (or conspiracy theorizing) to pretend that Iran isn’t
the likely culprit, or that its actions don’t represent a major escalation in
the region.
That
raises two questions, one minor, the other much more consequential.
The
minor question is why the Iranians did it. There has been a pattern of
heightened Iranian aggression for nearly two months, including highly
sophisticated attacks on four oil tankers near the Emirati port of Fujairah on
May 12.
This
might be seen as a response to the resumption of major U.S. sanctions, which
have had a punishing effect on Iran’s economy. Except that Tehran did nothing to moderate its behavior after the
nuclear deal was signed, and most sanctions were lifted, in 2016.
It
might also be seen as an effort by regime hard-liners to sabotage the
possibility of a resumption of nuclear negotiations. It’s hard to believe it
was just a coincidence that the attacks on the ships, one of which was
Japanese, coincided with the visit to Tehran by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of
Japan. Then again, the I.R.G.C. was a major economic beneficiary of
the nuclear deal, so it’s not exactly clear why it would want to stop a new
one.
The
most likely explanation was offered by Mark Dubowitz of the Foundation for
Defense of Democracies, who suggested that Iran’s purpose was “to demonstrate
that Trump is a Twitter Tiger.”
It’s
not a bad guess. The Iranians know that vainglory and timidity often go hand in
hand.
Trump
went from apocalyptic to smitten with Kim Jong-un in a matter of weeks after
concluding that the risks of a confrontation with North Korea just weren’t
worth it. He’s delivered similar mixed messages toward
Tehran. Driving a crisis in the Middle East so that the U.S. president can
“solve” it with a fresh nuclear deal on even easier terms than Obama’s would be
a canny Iranian gambit.
Which
brings us to the consequential question: What’s the proper U.S. response?
It
can’t be the usual Trumpian cycle of bluster and concession. Neither can it be
the liberal counsel of feckless condemnation followed by inaction. Firing on
unarmed ships in international waters is a direct assault on the rules-based
international order in which liberals claim to believe. To allow it to go
unpunished isn’t an option.
What
is appropriate is a new set of rules — with swift consequences if Iran chooses
to break them. The Trump administration ought to declare new rules of
engagement to allow the Navy to engage and destroy Iranian ships or fast boats
that harass or threaten any ship, military or commercial, operating in
international waters. If Tehran fails to comply, the U.S. should threaten to
sink any Iranian naval ship that leaves port.
If
after that Iran still fails to comply, we would be right to sink its navy, in
port or at sea. The world cannot tolerate freelance Somali pirates. Much less
should it tolerate a pirate state seeking to hold the global economy hostage
through multiplying acts of economic terrorism.
Nobody
wants a war with Iran. But not wanting a war does not mean remaining supine in
the face of its outrages. We sank Iran’s navy before. Tehran should be put on
notice that we are prepared and able to do it again.
Bret L. Stephens has
been an Opinion columnist with The Times since April 2017. He won a Pulitzer
Prize for commentary at The Wall Street Journal in 2013 and was previously
editor in chief of The Jerusalem Post. @BretStephensNYT
****
My comment:
I do not think that Trump's terms would be "even easier terms than Obama’s " On the contrary.
Douglas
Murray at his best - Israel & Nuclear Iran
The proposition being put
before you tonight is that you have a choice between war and an Iran with the
bomb. You have a choice as has been said before, between war and dishonor
– you will choose dishonor this evening and you will get war. You have a
choice between a war with a nuclear Iran, or a war at some point, with an Iran
that is not nuclear which you stop from ever being nuclear, and hope that in
stopping that regime in embedding itself, you will give the Iranian
people the best chance of overthrowing that regime. But as I say, thank God
this does not rely on you or any Europeans. Because you’ve made the same
mistake before and nobody should trust you to get it right this time.
