Iran is continuing its "war of nerves"
against the United States and Israel in the form
of war games. The timing of the games, which
include testing "precision and intelligent
weapons", is perfect from Iran's perspective -
soon after the cessation of the war in Lebanon.
Israel is licking its wounds from the
embarrassment, if not humiliation, of not being
able to "eradicate" Hezbollah, as its leaders
declared at the beginning of hostilities.
Consequently, the US had to start its own
propaganda war, with President George W Bush
initiated a campaign for the global community
insisting that Israel was the real victor.
Further, as regards timing, Iran was due
to give its decision regarding its
uranium-enrichment program on Tuesday. By
conducting the war games, and
by forewarning the global community that it might
not stop that program as a precondition for
negotiating with the permanent five members of the
United Nations Security Council plus one (the
United States, the United Kingdom, France, Russia
and China plus Germany), Iran wants its
adversaries to know that a potential military
action against it may be a non-starter.
The timing of the war games can be viewed
as a signal that the Islamic Republic is prepared
for any eventuality. They started on Saturday and
are expected to last several weeks in 14 of Iran's
30 provinces.
The government made sure
that its mass media fully reported that it had
test-fired several short-range missiles (Saegheh
or "lightning", with a range of 80-250 kilometers)
during the exercises.
Iran knows the
United States both as a friend and as a foe. It
dealt with the US for a good part of the 20th
century. After the Islamic Revolution of 1979,
Iran fell out with the US, but it never stopped
learning what the "Great Satan" was up to. Being
oblivious to the US and its intentions always
carried dangerous potential repercussions for
Iran.
Iran is thus fully aware of the
thinking of Bush and his coterie of
neo-conservatives. It knows that they are only
biding time, even when they talk of
"multilateralism" or the use of diplomacy to
persuade Iran to abandon its uranium-enrichment
program. It is against Iran that Bush has
cavalierly and often stated that "all options are
on the table".
Thus it seems that Iran has
decided that, while its enemy is regularly
thinking of war, why not present a limited picture
of what Iran can do if attacked by demonstrating
its own military capabilities?
Even the
name given to the war games carries enormous
symbolic meaning, for both the US and the world of
Islam. They are depicted as "Blow of Zulfiqar".
Zulfiqar was the name of the sword of Imam Ali,
who was the first imam of the Shi'ite sect and the
son-in-law and first cousin of the Prophet
Mohammed.
Zulfiqar is a highly revered
phrase among the entire Muslim community as a
symbol used for the protection and promulgation of
Islam. The message to the US is quite unambiguous:
if threatened by military action, the Islamic
Republic is ready to strike a blow against the
lone superpower and its client, Israel.
Iran has seen what US military power
accomplished in Iraq and Afghanistan. It has no
doubt about those capabilities. It only wants to
signal Washington that an invasion of Iran would
not be a cakewalk. There would be no showering of
rose petals and rice, and no welcoming crowds. Nor
would there be any toppling of the statue of a
dictator (as with Saddam Hussein's) as a moment
dramatizing the change of regime. What awaits
potential American invaders is a lot more of what
they are experiencing in Iraq. That is the essence
of the message the war games are expected to
communicate to Washington.
Iran's message
to Israel was conveyed during the Lebanon war,
through the military performance of Hezbollah
fighters, some of whom were trained and armed by
the Iranian Revolutionary Guard. The most
overlooked aspect of their performance was their
zeal for a fight. That also reminded the Israelis
and the Americans what to expect in Lebanon if
that country were to be occupied.
After
all, the suicide bombers of Palestine are only the
latest manifestations of a phenomenon that the
Shi'ites of Lebanon established. Lebanese Shi'ites
were the original suicide bombers of the early
1980s. That might be one reason the Israeli army
did not show much enthusiasm about occupying much
of Lebanese territory. That might also be why
France has decided against sending a large
peacekeeping force to Lebanon.
Iran is
aware that the Lebanese conflict is far from over.
The government of Israeli Prime Minister Ehud
Olmert is desperately looking for victory of some
sort. That is why Israel violated the ceasefire
over the weekend by sending its paratroopers into
Lebanon. The apparent purpose was to capture or
kill Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah,
who has emerged as the new hero of the Arab world,
a hero who might have acquired greater respect and
attention than the late Gamal Abdel Nasser of
Egypt did in 1956 when he challenged the combined
forces of Britain, France and Israel during the
Suez crisis.
Israel's quest for victory
may be one reason it is also claiming that Iran
has restarted supplying weapons to Hezbollah.
Those reports have not been proved by other
sources. However, in all likelihood they are not
entirely baseless. Iran has every intention of
keeping alive what it perceives as the "tide of
victory" stemming from the respectable military
performance of Hezbollah during the Lebanon war.
Iran's use of missiles in its war games is
probably the most important signal that it wants
to convey to the US, in a number of ways.
First, it reminds Washington of the
missiles that Iran supplied to Hezbollah. Even
though they were less than precise, still they
caused an enormous amount of terror inside Israel.
Second, Iran wants the US to know that it
has a considerably more sophisticated inventory of
missiles, which it would use in the event of
invasion of its territory.
Third, Iran
wishes to remind the US that in a repeat of the
fighting techniques used by Hezbollah against
Israel, the strategy of a weak power is very much
alive, if it were to face the overwhelming
military prowess of the superpower. That strategy
entails creating chaos, mayhem and destruction.
Finally, and most important, Iran knows
the significance of the Persian Gulf as a source
of energy to Japan, Europe and China. The
uppermost question US military planners must be
asking, as they watch Iran's war games from
neighboring areas, is how far Iran will go in
terms of blocking the passage of energy supplies
in the Persian Gulf - and if this happens, what
countermeasures they must take to minimize a
disastrous outcome. That variable alone might be
sobering enough to put a damper on the ostensibly
uncompromising wish of the neo-conservatives to
take military action against Iran.
There
is little doubt that Iran made its point, through
the war games, about how it would defend itself if
attacked. What is not clear is whether the Bush
administration understands that message and will
take necessary action to avoid a military
conflict, without getting the wrong sense that
avoidance of war is a sign of weakness.
Ehsan Ahrari is the CEO of
Strategic Paradigms, an Alexandria, Virginia-based
defense consultancy. He can be reached at
eahrari@cox.net or
stratparadigms@yahoo.com. His columns appear
regularly in Asia Times Online. His website:
www.ehsanahrari.com.
(Copyright 2006
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