The assassination, at President Trump’s instruction, of the emblematic Iranian military leader Qassem Sulaimani has almost certainly moved the Iran-US contest into a new phase.
Consideration of their respective goals and objectives suggests both the Iranians and the US will emerge bruised in the forthcoming contest, but with Iran likely to achieve greater success in regard to its objectives than will be possible for the United States.
The US-Iranian rivalry is set to be played out mostly in Iraq. Retaliatory military action by Iranian-backed militias and non-state actors elsewhere is certainly possible. It may be demanded by the Iranian leadership. But as Patrick Cockburn has noted in The Independent the most important objective for Iran at this moment will be to pressure the Iraqi government, parliament and security forces into pushing the United States out of Iraq.
In stark contrast to the Trump Administration, Iran has objectives in the region which are clear and achievable. Its fundamental strategic objective is securing its influence in its key neighbour and, historically speaking, its only genuine potential source of threat, Iraq; in addition to improving its sway over the Assad regime in Syria, and bolstering its capacity to sustain its proxy force in Lebanon.
Its lesser objectives, which speak to an extended history of resentment at external interference, include (a) placing countervailing pressure on the US presence in the region, and (b) maintaining what is, in effect, a second strike conventional capacity against Israel, through Hezbollah, that makes it unlikely Israel would act militarily against Iran itself. (Other rules apply, however, with well-established and adroitly-applied ‘rules of the game’ so far as Israeli interdiction of Iranian missile technology destined for Hezbollah, and other occasional Israeli activity in Syria are concerned).
Strong popular discontent has been evident recently with the sectarian character and inadequate economic performance of the Iraqi government, and the brutal repression by Iranian-sponsored militias of protests. However the assassination of Sulaimani has almost certainly isolated, and probably reversed, the growing pushback within Iraq against the over-extension of Iranian influence.
Trump has replaced an increasingly problematic scenario for the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) with an unparalleled opportunity for Iran to coalesce resentment against US disregard for Iraqi sovereignty with the misplaced but politically-powerful imagery of martyrdom. With ongoing US strikes reported against leaders of other Iranian-sponsored militias that imagery is being extended, not only to the mythology surrounding Sulaimani but also to a cast of other, no less repugnant individuals operating under Iranian protection.
Whatever military benefits the assassination may produce (and those would seem likely to be limited given the depth and sophistication of IRGC capabilities), the political value of Sulaimani’s demise to Iranian hardliners, both in Iraq and within Iran, is immense.
The fact that Trump has shown willingness to use US military power will be taken into account on the Iranian side, but not as a deterrent (as some Americans, seemingly oblivious to Iranian history, culture and nationalist values wish to imagine). It is simply a factor that will encourage the Iranians to avoid a conventional military confrontation where alternatives that match Iranian objectives exist.
The Iranian ambition will be to employ asymmetric warfare, proxies, mine warfare, harassment of shipping, political and diplomatic assets in a series of semi-deniable but determined approaches simultaneously to achieve Iranian strategic objectives, to further isolate the United States among western countries whose economic and other interests will be under threat, and to make the Americans pay.
It is easy to overestimate the capacity of the Iranians to achieve the policy and organizational coherence required for such approaches ultimately to be successful. Indeed there is a real risk of emotions driving escalation on both sides, at the expense of strategic calculations.
But it is even more difficult to identify any coherent or credible objectives for US policy toward the region, especially in the circumstances its latest actions have produced. Nor is it easy to identify what assets other than military force, and its increasingly shaky diplomatic standing in the region, the US has at its disposal to meet the Iranian challenge.
The core US objective for sustaining a military presence in Iraq (and so far as its public statements are concerned, in Syria) is to prosecute the war against Islamic State. But the continuation of a US presence in Iraq depends on endorsement by the Iraqi Prime Minister (the Iraqi Parliament, which meets on Sunday, does not have the final say on such matters). And since it is difficult to imagine any Iraqi PM in present circumstances resisting demands for the US to leave, the low-hanging fruit in Iraq is almost certain to be harvested by the Iranians.
Within a year, the most likely outcome will be the fulfilment of Trump’s longstanding desire to see the withdrawal of US forces from Iraq—whether ignominiously at the behest of the Iraqi government, or simply because the rationale for a continuing US presence no longer exists in the absence of Iraqi partners willing to fight in US company. And without the consent of the Iraqi government, resupply of the US forces in Syria, especially east of the Euphrates, and the continuation of US support to the YPG Kurds through northern Iraq will be highly problematic.
Meanwhile, the US will probably have to provide reassurance to Gulf Arab states torn between uncertainty about Trump’s willingness to use US military power in their defence (not least because of his demonstrated impetuosity and the consistency with which he has argued against becoming involved in another Middle East conflict); and very real concern that Iranian retaliation to further US military actions may be directed against them.
The Iranians (and the Russians) are astute enough to exploit the strategic uncertainties of the present situation facing the Gulf Arabs. The Iranians will blend a willingness to present themselves as the aggrieved party to traditional interlocutors such as Oman, Qatar and Kuwait, and to Dubai within the United Arab Emirates, with blunt warnings to the Saudis and to Abu Dhabi that they need to tread carefully.
The success of the attack on the Abqaiq oil facility demonstrated how the military balance in the region is shifting as the Iranians find asymmetric responses through drones and ballistic missiles to US military preponderance. Nor does US military capability preclude the risk of significant damage to the oil facilities and other critical infrastructure of Gulf Arab states—a successful drone strike on Saudi desalination plants would force the evacuation of Riyadh within a fortnight; a single ballistic missile strike on Dubai airport would disrupt global air travel for weeks.
Unless their very existence were perceived to be at stake, giving carte blanche to US activity from bases on their soil is probably not a risk the Gulf states would be willing to take.
Bob Bowker is a former Australian ambassador to Jordan,Egypt and Syria.He is now an Adjunct Professor at the ANU Centre for Arab and Islamic Studies
Bob Bowker is an Honorary Professorial Fellow at the Centre for Arab and Islamic Studies at the Australian National University. He is a former Australian ambassador to several Arab countries.
Comments
5 responses to “BOB BOWKER.-Iran and the United States: Where to from here?”
Sorry. I may be confessing to an early onset of Altzheimers.
But I cannot begin to understand the ideas that this contribution purports to elucidate.
I think that this is an incomprehensible description of …?
Did Donald Trump just achieve his long asserted goal of getting US troops out of Iraq? He has tried before but been stopped. There may be no stopping an exit this time.
Trump plays the goat and seems to invite ridicule. But is he really the fool so many think him? Or could it be that he is one of the shrewdest political operators any of us have ever seen? ( Which is not to say that I “like” the bloke, but how irrelevant is that!)
I am often reminded of a quiet comment made by his daughter Ivanka during an interview given before the 2016 election. Not word perfect and no link, but what I remember is her saying that she had never seen her father fail in anything he had set out to do.
This is not my field, so I will tread lightly. I agree with Michael Lacey’s observations about neoliberalism and globalisation though – an area in which I have some knowledge. But, did I miss something here, or did a most senior military official from Iran just get openly offed/hit/whacked or, to use more acceptable language ‘assassinated’ (along with many sundry others) in a third country, by the US? I assume that he must have been a “bad guy” as President Trump said so, and he wouldn’t fib about something like that if it wasn’t true.
I know I am probably being silly but is the US actually at war with Iran and/or Iraq at present? If not, would it be naive of me in the extreme to even think that such an act might be just a tad illegal, if it was done by any state or non-state actor other than the US of course?
The subtle nuances of strategic short and long game objectives, diplomatic, military and political manoeuvrings and so on are lost on me, but has anyone noticed there is a Presidential election this year in the US? Could there possibly be any connection?
Many thanks to Ambassador Bowker in providing an in-depth analysis of the politics of the Middle East focusing on the influence and strategies of Iran. One commentator on CNN today did mention that the killing of Suleimani would facilitate the withdrawal of US troops from Iraq, a gift to the Iranians.
A recent commentary which appeared in the Sydney Morning Herald (5Jan2020) to a story: PM calls for restraint of US-Iran tensions as embassy ‘locked down’ (https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/pm-calls-for-restraint-of-us-iran-tensions-as-embassy-locked-down-20200104-p53orx.html) said:
In this drone action, the Americans has decided not to trust its Five Eyes allies and unilaterally went ahead to assassinate the Iranian commander – proving might is right and the others Eyes do as they are told. My New Year’s resolution for PM Morrison – bring the troops home because we no longer understand why we are fighting in the Middle East. On this issue, we must not be too harsh on PM Morrison for having guts, as a US Deputy Sheriff, he showed no fear in calling for restrain.
A recent article in Quora “Was the United States of America right to kill Qassem Suleimani?, summarized what the world thinks of the killing of Suleimani..(https://www.quora.com/Was-the-United-States-of-America-right-to-kill-Qassem-Suleimani/answer/Anthony-Pun)
“The US-Iranian rivalry is set to be played out mostly in Iraq.”
Yes that is true !
On December 29 it also killed 31 Iraqi government forces. Five days later it killed Soleimani and the Deputy Commander of the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF/PMU/Hashed al-Shabi) and leader of Kata’ib Hizbollah Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis. There were also four IRGC and four Kata’ib Hizbollah men who were killed while accompanying their leaders. The PMU are under direct command of the Iraqi Prime Minister. They are official Iraqi defense forces who defeated ISIS after a bloody war. Their murder demands that their government acts against the perpetrators.
Several of the Shia PMU groups have already declared that they will do whatever they can to evict the U.S. military from Iraqi soil. Some 5,000 U.S. and other NATO forces are in Iraq to train Iraqi government troops. They live on the same bases as Iraqi army troops and PMU groups who their commander in chief calls Iran supported terrorists while he is killing their leaders.
“Strong popular discontent has been evident recently with the sectarian character and inadequate economic performance of the Iraqi government”
Let us expand that a tad! Yes, as predicted, neoliberalism has fostered inequality; a growing unemployment that has gone hand in hand with poverty and mass migration. Globalisation makes security interdependent; terrorism, gun crime and illegal migration are spill over effects of structural, political and economic insecurity in the developing world. Iraq today shows how globalisation incites rebellion and radicalisation.
The advancement of the neoliberal agenda by industrialised states through globalisation has failed to deliver the economic stability and growth it promised. Instead, globalisation continues to increase the gap between rich and poor, between and within states. Ultimately, inequality is the biggest threat to global security.
American foreign policy is a neocon/neolib construct and it is insane!