Yesterday I
wrote about how a desperate administration may try to rig a
casus belli to go to war against Iran.
For a greater perspective, it's worth a second look at the last time the United States engaged in military hostilities with Iran - during the Iraq-Iran War from 1980-1988.
In short, the United States was quite eager to overthrow or minimize the new fundamentalist government of Iran which began with Ayatollah Khomeini's return from exile in February 1979. On November 1979, the American Embassy in Tehran was stormed and 66 people were kept hostage for 444 days (released January 20, 1981).
As a result of this, the United States began an open alliance with Iraq, reversing a previous diplomatic break which had been in place since the 1967 "Six Day" War. There were many factors motivating the outbreak of war, but it was this desire for retribution against the Khomeini government that led to the United States giving its support to Iraq, led at that time by the brutal dictator Saddam Hussein.
The 8 year war was extremely vicious and between 1 and 2 million people lost their lives. It featured the deliberate bombing of civilian targets and the use of chemical weapons, the latter done only by Iraq. Indeed the United Nations' report on the war declared that Iraq had instigated and begun the war.
By 1981, Iraq had begun using the technique of sinking oil tankers and commercial (civilian) shipping in the Persian Gulf as a way of cuting off income to Iran. By 1984, Iran responded in kind and blew up a Kuwaiti and Saudi oil tanker. This became known as the Tanker War. Approximately 546 civilian vessels were either damaged or sunk by the two sides during the war.
As "neutral" nations' vessels like Kuwait's and Saudi Arabia's were being targeted, the United States decided to intervene. While they were military neutral, it's worth noting here that all the Gulf Arab states gave immense sums to prop up Saddam Hussein's war on Iran. The United States made a decision in 1987 to "re-flag" commercial tankers of friendly nations (esp. Kuwait), meaning any attack on a vessel flying the American flag would be treated as an attack on the United States.
There were two phases to this "re-flagging" decision. The first was called Operation Earnest Will. On its very first mission, a Kuwaiti tanker named the Bridgeton hit an Iranian sea mine, which damaged the ship.
There was a parallel operation called Operation Prime Chance, which unlike "Earnest Will", was conducted in secret. Essentially it consisted of helicopters flying at night and small mobile sea bases used to prevent Iranian forces from further mining the Gulf or attacking commercial vehicles. An Iranian minelaying vehicle called the Ajr was attacked in September 1987 one night by U.S. aircraft during this operation. A Navy SEAL team was inserted aboard and the ship was destroyed. Both "Earnest Will" and "Prime Chance" continued after the end of the war, "Prime Chance" nearly one year afterwards.
There were however two more major engagements in this brief but vicious war between the United States and Iran. The first began on April 14, 1988 when the naval vessel USS Samuel B. Roberts hit an Iranian mine. It sustained severe damage but did not sink. The U.S. then prepared a retaliatory strike called Operation Praying Mantis. While this battle is not well-known, it is considered one of the 5 most significant in America's naval history and was the largest battle between surface vessels since World War 2.
In short, a large group of American naval vessels attacked and destroyed two Iranian oil platforms, key for that country's economy. Iran responded by sending out a number of smaller boats and a frigate, all of which were sunk by the U.S. Navy. Only two American naval members lost their life when a helicopter crashed off the Iranian coast, possibly during a maneuver to evade Iranian fire.
On May 17, 1987 an American naval vessel, the USS Stark was sunk by two Exocet missiles fired from an Iraqi fighter plane by accident. This is key as will be discussed later.
The second engagement is more well-known - the shooting down of an Iranian passenger jet by the USS Vincennes on July 3, 1988. In the American press it was labeled, pure and simple, as a "tragic mistake". However several facts have come out since the event:
- The Vincennes was illegally inside Iranian territorial waters at the time while the official report says it was in international waters
- The U.S. government has never officially apologized for the incident. In fact, VP George H.W. Bush said, ""I will never apologize for the United States of America, ever. I don't care what the facts are."
- Furthermore the U.S. government has never admited any wrongdoing or even claimed responsibility for the event, and in fact awarded MEDALS to the crew for this incident
- The U.S. Navy's final report on the incident has never been released in its entirety
- While still not admitting wrongdoing of any kind, the U.S. government paid Iran 61,800,000 dollars in compensation at the International Court of Justice, despite President Reagan's vow never to do so
The Iranians also took the Americans to the ICJ (and were counter-sued ala "People's Court") over "Operation Praying Mantis" but neither side's claim was given satisfaction. You can read the summary here.
The "Tanker War" was relatively short and came at the end of a much longer, mostly land-based war. It only involved a few actual clashes but there were several posturing and counter-posturing events. In contrast to the war between Iran and Iraq, the skirmishes between the U.S. and Iran seem extremely minor.
It is however the incident with the Iraqi plane firing two Exocet missiles that deserves a second look in the light of possible future hostilities between Iran and the United States.
The Exocet is an anti-ship missile that was first used with devastating effect in the "Falklands War" between Argentina and Great Britain. A single Exocet sunk the destroyer HMS Sheffield, marking the beginning of the "hot" war between the two countries. Exocets also sunk a second vessel and damaged a third.
The Exocet is a French-made missile (its American counterpart is the Harpoon, which ironically was used by the Iranians in the 1980's) and was considered so deadly that the British spent a great deal of effort to keep Argentina from acquiring more during the war. Furthermore, French intelligence agencies infiltrated Argentina to sabotage its remaining Exocets.
There is now an even deadlier anti-ship missile with the NATO codename SS-N-22 Sunburn. They are manufactured by Russia and their designation is "Moskit" or "Mosquito" for the missile. It is roughly triple the speed of a Harpoon or Exocet, giving targeted vessels even less time to try and respond. Furthermore the Sunburn was specifically designed to beat the U.S. Navy's Aegis radar defense system, the same system which failed to stop the Iraqi Exocet missiles.
It is unknown whether Iran actually has any Sunburn missiles but they do have a wide variety of other anti-ship missiles, including those designated "Styx", "Sunburst" and "C-701" missiles. Many of these are designed to be launched from aboard a small, extremely swift speedboat which can be extremely difficult to detect as it approaches a larger vessel.
Should the United States provoke hostilities with Iran, perhaps by bombing their nuclear facilities, Iran could resort to similar tactics from the 1980's. A look at a map of Iran shows that its coastline lies along the critical Straits of Hormuz. The Straits are extremely narrow (56km or 35 miles wide) and serve as the entrance to the Persian Gulf. The nations of the UAE, Oman, Bahrain, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Iraq are entirely dependent on the Persian Gulf to ship out their products, mostly petroleum.
The Straits of Hormuz are the world's second businest strait. Nearly 25% of the world's oil supply flows through the Straits of Hormuz every single day. More significantly, two-fifths (40%) of all the world's traded oil flows through these critical straits. So what would happen if Iran was attacked? I refer you to this:
The Iranians have repeatedly threatened to close the Strait of Hormuz if the rest of the world does not do what Iran wishes it to do in a variety of ways. There was such a threat in May 1997, with the Iranians saying that if the Americans were to try to take any kind of retaliatory action against Iranian terrorism, they would close this Strait of Hormuz. During a 18 December 1997 press conference, Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Maleki stated that Iran supports "the free flow of oil" through the Strait of Hormuz, but reserved the option of closing off the shipping route if it is threatened. Iran ad recently has admitted to deploying anti- aircraft and anti- ship missiles on Abu Musa, an island strategically located near the Strait of Hormuz's shipping lanes. Some say it would be foolish for Iran to seek to disrupt oil traffic in the Gulf because all of its oil flows through the Gulf.
But that's assuming that the straits were entirely closed. A second option is to mine the Straits and use anti-ship missiles to destroy any American naval vessels attempting to conduct mine-clearing operations. Here's more:
The US intelligence community judges that Iran can briefly close the Strait of Hormuz, relying on a layered strategy using predominately naval, air, and some ground forces. During 2004 it purchased North Korean torpedo and missile-armed fast attack craft and midget submarines, making marginal improvements to this capability. Tehran's ability to interdict the Strait of Hormuz with air, surface and sub-surface naval units, as well as mines and missiles remains a concern. Additionally, Iran's asymmetrical capabilities are becoming more robust. These capabilities include high-speed attack patrol ships, anti-ship missiles, unmanned aerial vehicles, and hardened facilities for surface-to-surface missiles and command and control.
In other words - they could do it. And with devastating price hikes in oil over such unstoppable events as hurricanes, imagine of a quarter of the world's oil supply was interrupted even for a single day. Warfare today is much more than tanks and airplanes clashing, it is also who can disrupt the other's economy as well.
Furthermore, while Iran would definitely suffer if it could not use the Persian Gulf to ship out its oil, it has another option - the Caspian Sea. Unlike Iraq, Kuwait, the UAE, Saudi Arabia etc., Iran has oil shipping facilities on the Caspian Sea. Indeed you may be surprised to learn that there is a functioning oil pipeline between Iraq and Iran. Although this is in the south, the Iranian oil is pumped to Basra (from Persian Gulf refineries) and is swapped for Iraqi oil from the north, going to Iran's Caspian Sea ports.
And on top of that, Iran is busy building a pipeline to Pakistan and India as well as considering one to Kazakhstan. Within a year, Iran will have a significant increase in ability to deliver its products without relying on the Persian Gulf. This is yet another factor that has to be in the minds of those bent on forcing Iran to heel.
Will there be a war with Iran? I sure hope not. It would be absolutely devastating and costly, both in terms of lives lost as well as money spent. But something being utterly foolish has never been an impediment to those fanatic to implement their will on the planet.
Peace