Iran’s theocrats retain power by projecting America as the devil [Satan usually] determined to kill all Muslims. The Islamist regime cannot survive without branding America as the implacable enemy. The Biden administration—with a top staff carried over from the Obama administration—believes that Iran can be assuaged by diplomacy, good will, moderate sanctions, and a restrained response to attacks upon U.S. forces and other targets in the region.
Since October, Iran’s proxies in Iraq and Syria have launched successive missile and drone strikes at our few small bases in those two countries. After 160 tries, three American soldiers were killed. U.S. retaliation was fairly strong, including a drone strike that killed a terrorist leader in Baghdad. However, the sharply added costs for defense at those bases does raise the prospect that some bases may be closed, since they can now devote less time to the anti-ISIS mission that justifies their presence.
Iran has also provided the Houthis, a 9th-century tribe, with missiles and drones to attack commercial ships in the Red Sea. From January through mid-February, the Houthis have launched more than seventy attempted strikes. This piracy has forced the diversion of $200 billion of trade, sharply increasing costs, and adding to supply chain pressures.
As commander-in-chief, President Biden could strike back fiercely. The British ended the 18th Century Golden Age of Piracy by hangings, a lot of them. In one afternoon, our navy could destroy all Houthi radars, electronics, and especially, its command centers and leadership.
Instead, our navy has been restricted to tit-for-tat retaliatory strikes. These restrictions are determined by a few officials in the West Wing, chaired by Biden’s national security advisor, Jake Sullivan. He has said, “We have to guard against and be vigilant against the possibility that, in fact, rather than heading towards de-escalation, we are in a path of escalation that we have to manage.” That recursive mélange of words is devoid of resolve.
More disturbing is its repetition by the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, General C. Q. Brown. “We don’t want,” he said, “to go down a path of greater escalation that drives to a much broader conflict, within the region.” That fear of an Iranian response has conceded the offensive to Iran and its surrogates.
Biden has also chosen not to enforce oil export sanctions upon Iran, permitting annual sales in excess of $40 billion, or 70% of Iran's revenues. Iran’s present-day ghost fleet of 383 tankers has been expanded from 70 tankers in 2020. As a policy, the administration has chosen to allow the oil sanctions to be mocked. It’s no secret about where these vessels are. Their transits could quickly be foiled, curtailing Iran’s oil exports in accord with existing sanctions. What we have here is a failure of resolve by our policymakers, not a failure in our intelligence and military capabilities.
Iran has seized the strategic geopolitical momentum. As the destruction in Gaza continues, with images posted daily on the global internet, anger in the Middle East and elsewhere about U.S. support for Israel grows. Iran capitalizes on this by encouraging its surrogates to attack U.S. bases. Iran is clear on its goal: drive American forces out of the Middle East by small, violent attacks and by undermining our standing with Arab nations.
The odds are high that Iran will deploy nuclear weapons. The time has passed when Israel can successfully bomb Iran’s nuclear sites. Iran is biding the time when it will suggest, without confirming, that it has developed nuclear weapons. That portentous ambiguity will present Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Turkey with Hobson’s choice: acquire their own nuclear weapons—despite U.S. opposition—or accept that the balance of power in the Middle East has tilted sharply in Iran’s favor.
A nuclear-armed Iran still could be contained, as is North Korea. To do so, however, requires determination across both our political parties, and a firm stance by not one, but a succession of American presidents. It also requires agreement and conforming behavior by the European Union and faith by Saudi Arabia and a dozen other Middle East nations.
However, believing that such unified determination will materialize requires a leap of faith. The strikes against our bases are, to borrow from William Blake, “To see a World in a Grain of Sand.” In themselves, the attacks are small. But they illustrate our failure to stand up to Iran’s aggression. That augurs ill for the future. It is discomfiting in 2024 that Iran with impunity directs strikes against our bases. It will be a severe defeat for our global credibility and for regional stability when Iran leaks that it has nuclear weapons. We can only hope for the caprice of the fates to smite Iran, since we won’t do so. What an epitaph.
