Beefing up against Iran

The Bush administration has just made the decision to provide $20 billion worth of arms aid to Saudi Arabia and other neighboring Gulf states in a bid to strengthen their defenses against Iran. Iran, on the other hand, is adamant to continue its coveted nuclear program. The defiant Islamic republic is also spending more money to locally produce a vast array of armaments. Local production is necessitated by threat of US led sanctions. The Bush administration wants to rein in Iran's growing military power and its ambition to become a strong regional player. Washington is also concerned over Iran's influence among wartorn Iraq's Shias, with whom Iran shares cultural and religious ties.

The US and Iran are locked into a mini-Cold War. Both countries are trying to woo other regional states into their respective camps. Iran has great influence over Lebanon's powerful Shia group, the Hezbollah. Hezbollah is vociferously anti-Israel, having fought a bitter summer war with the Jewish state in 2006. It still is engaged in a deadly cat-and-mouse game with Israel on the latter's northern border with Lebanon – lobbing rockets at outlying civilian settlements there. The 2006 Israel-Hezbollah war showed that Israel's vaunted military power could not break the back of Hezbollah, which conducts lightning artillery and guerilla raids, pinpricking Israel. Iran has supplied anti-tank missiles, artillery rockets and manportable surface-to-air missiles to its pet client Hezbollah. Although Hezbollah is not directly targeting US interests, it remains on America's watch list of active terrorist groups.

Washington's principal ally among the Arab states, oil rich Saudi Arabia, is the world's leading producer and exporter of the "black gold". Ruled by the House of Sauds, a royal family, since its founding in 1911, the Saudi kingdom has been a key US client state since the end of World War II. The US established Arab American Oil Company (Aramco) in the 1930s to exploit the country's vast oil reserves. Aramco is now wholely Saudi owned. To beef up its airpower, the US supplied F-15 fighter aircraft and AWACS airborne command and control platform to the Saudis in the 1980s, despite vehement opposition from Israel, which feared growing Arab menace. Washington ostensibly wanted to secure Saudi airspace from spillover effects of the Iran-Iraq war, which raged from 1980-1988.

Iran with a population of over 65 million has a much greater military potential than Saudi Arabia or even if all the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states combined against it. Moreover, Iran is trying hard to be self-sufficient in production of weapon systems. It has also purchased MiG-29 fighter aircraft, Kilo class submarines, and T-72 tanks from Russia to boost its military power. It is thought to be co-producing many of these weapon systems under license. Saudi Arabia, on the other hand, has no industrial capacity to produce major weapon platforms. It is solely dependent on imports from the US and the UK. Saudi air force has recently ordered Eurofighter Typhoon, a European designed fifth generation combat aircraft, to replace its ageing fleet of Tornado fighters and bombers. Saudi Tornados were no match for Iran's MiG-29s, according to assessments made as early as in the 1991 Persian Gulf War. In terms of geography, both Saudi Arabia and Iran are evenly matched. Their large land area allows dispersion of military and economic infrastructure, prime targets in a major armed conflict. Iran's ports are located only in the Persian Gulf and Arabian Sea while the Saudis can depend upon their Red Sea ports for resupply if any major war blocks access to the busy lanes of the Persian Gulf.

Saudi military is trained by US advisors and is equipped with latest Western weapons. Although Iranians have poorer quality weapons, they enjoy overwhelming numerical superiority against all the Gulf states combined. Iran has the ability to invade Saudi Arabia with 'human wave' tactics, employed albeit unsuccessfully against Iraq in the 1980s. The Saudis would need massive firepower to stem Iranian infantry onslaught. Iran's huge population allows it to recruit more manpower as it sustains heavy casualties, provided the mullahs and ayatollahs boost Iranian morale with intense religious fervor.

Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states would require overt US military aid to confront Iran. Iran is also busy building its ballistic missile force, a surest means to deliver nuclear warheads. Only Saudi Arabia is thought to possess Chinese supplied intermediate range ballistic missiles to reply in kind to any Iranian first strike. However, the reliability of the Chinese made missiles is an issue compared to other Western weapons in the Saudi arsenal. US naval units including aircraft carrier battle groups routinely patrol the Straits of Hormuz, the choke point leading to the Persian Gulf. Some 90 percent of world's oil supply passes through this route. Any major war or intensive mining of these waters could disrupt the global economy, especially that of Europe and Japan.

In addition to the threat posed by Iran, Saudi Arabia has other enemies linked to its homegrown opposition. The Al Qaida is trying to topple the ruling House of Saud family from power, seeking to establish a Sunni Islamic state in the country which houses Islam's two holiest sites, Mecca and Medina. This is thought to be a major objective of the transnational terror network led by the mysterious Osama bin Laden, a Saudi national. Although the Saudis, backed by American intelligence, have had recent spate of successes against homegrown Al Qaida affiliates, its threat cannot be discounted easily.

The greatest possible threat comes from a scenario when Al Qaida and Iran, somehow, patch up their differences and establish a working relationship. Both parties share common interest to mitigate US influence in the region. Therefore an alliance between these two parties is probable despite the Sunni-Shia schism apparently observed in Iraq. US commanders in Afghanistan have already pointed their fingers at Iran of aiding the Taliban, which is fighting to oust the Americans and their other foreign allies.

Iran's release of captured UK sailors some months back was a gesture of goodwill backed by force. Although Iranian leaders cannot pursue a hostile course against the West, they made a point by asserting their sovereignty over disputed waters of the Persian Gulf. But Iran cannot risk a major war. Its perceived quest for nuclear weapons can be seen as its interest to maintain regional hegemony and to counter US strategic interests.

Israel's traditional rival, Syria, can also count on Iran's support. The two nations are close allies since Iran-Iraq war and have shared interests in both Iraq and Lebanon. Syria, lacking extensive oil wealth, is much weaker than Iran. Syria lost its traditional backing after the breakup of the former Soviet Union. Its military aid pipeline was cut drastically and it had to pay cash to Moscow to order new weapons. Israel, on the other hand, enjoys continued military aid from Washington. The new scenario has increased Syria's dependence on Iran.

Once Iran acquires nuclear weapons, it will be much difficult for Washington to put pressure on it. Any US led military operations against Iran would backfire as Europe would be held hostage to Iran's nuclear strike. Iran may eventually acquire intercontinental ballistic missile capability, allowing it to directly threaten the continental United States. Such a scenario has alarmed Washington, which has pushed plans to deploy radars and anti-ballistic missile sites in Eastern Europe. But, Russia, Iran's patron is not happy over this. The Russians say the US plan is aimed against it, which Washington denies. Ultimately, Iran is gaining from this dispute. Iran also wants to acquire additional weaponry from Russia, which it can easily pay with its fat oil revenue. Iran knows it cannot prevail against the US in a frontal attack. But it acutely perceives US vulnerabilities. For example, the impact of US casualties on American public opinion is not lost in Iranian minds. Thus, in any major showdown with the US, Iran would seek to cause maximum US casualties. If a US carrier or another type of capital ship is hit hard or at best sunk, it would immediately force a humiliating withdrawal of the Americans. Such would be a great victory for Iranians as they perceive it.

However, Iran's growing young population is not as anti-US as Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad would like to see. The theocratic political leadership realizes this. The US, too, wants moderates like past Iranian president Mohammad Khatami to come back and take the yoke of Iranian leadership. Also, the pragmatist Hashemi Rafsanjani has been elected to the post of chairman of the Assembly of Experts, a most crucial Iranian political institution responsible among other things for dismissing and electing the Supreme Leader, the highest ranking political and religious authority of the Islamic state. The new development brings a ray of hope in possible warming up of ties with the West.

Real détente with the Iranians is, however, only possible through direct dialogue and success in persuading them to give up their nuclear weapons program in exchange of firm security guarantee.

THE END

Pritam S Rana worked as a sub-editor for The Kathmandu Post national daily in Kathmandu, Nepal from 2004 to 2007. He is working to complete his master’s degree in political science from Tribhuvan University, Nepal. He is seeking a new writing career as he moves to the US in 2007. He has been published previously in various leading newspapers and online portals in Nepal.

prittwitz@hotmail.com
Pritz Inc. (2007)