Humiliated, desperate and under siege, Iran has few options to retaliate

Australia Broadcast Center

3 hours ago

Instead of launching righteous retribution, Iran's leaders are now in survival mode.
Iran is supposed to be a regional power, the leader of the Shia Muslim world, and the "resistance" to US and Western imperialism in the Middle East.
Now its leaders are hiding from ongoing Israeli strikes and downplaying the damage from a major US attack.
Israel began by attacking nuclear and ballistic missile sites and assassinating nuclear scientists and military commanders.
After Israel broadened its attacks, the US has now obliged an Israeli request for its B-2 bombers to use Massive Ordnance Penetrators and submarine-launched Tomahawk missiles to hit a fortified uranium enrichment facility and two other nuclear sites.
Previously, when attacked or pressured by enemies like Israel and the US, Iran has often adopted a policy of "strategic patience".
This means waiting, calibrating a response and judging the best moment to unleash it.
But at times it has seemed to critics more like "strategic impotence", showcasing how few options Iran's leaders have to really threaten adversaries.
Now, Iran is again promising a mighty punishment for US strikes on its nuclear sites.
The Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), the parallel military, commercial and political organisation that protects Iran's clerical regime, said in a statement: "Today's aggression by the terrorist American regime has pushed the Islamic Republic of Iran — within its legitimate right to self-defence — to activate options beyond the understanding and calculations of the delusional aggressor front. The invaders of this land must now expect regrettable responses."
Iran has protested the illegality of the strikes, pointed out that it was already engaging in negotiations when the assault began and highlighted the absurdity of being told to de-escalate and "make peace" when it was the party attacked.
But it has few options for actual retaliation, none of them good.
The most likely appears to be withdrawing from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
This would mean the end of international inspections of Iran's nuclear facilities and the chance for Iran to take whatever stockpile of enriched uranium remains and race covertly for a bomb.
This scenario is the worst outcome for nuclear control advocates, who supported the previous 2015 deal (the Joint Comprehensive Plan Of Action) between the US, European nations and Iran that limited Iran's nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief, before it was unilaterally torn up by President Donald Trump in his first term, at the urging of Israel.
In terms of direct retaliation, Iran could do three things.
The first option would be to attack US bases, jets and ships in the Gulf.
This would immediately trigger further US attacks, and not just on military sites.
The killing of US personnel could prompt the Trump administration to directly strike the Islamic regime, something it says it is not (yet) trying to do.
The second option would be for Iranian proxy groups, particularly the Shia militias in Iraq, to attack US bases there and in Syria.
These bases are far smaller, have seen significant troop withdrawals recently and have weathered previous rounds of "tit-for-tat" strikes from the militias in retaliation for things like the US assassination of Iranian general Qassem Soleimani.
This is a less-escalatory approach and may still occur. But the US is preparing to vacate those bases anyway, something Iran wants, and striking them could still trigger the kind of direct retribution it seeks to avoid.
The Houthi rebels in Yemen have, however, said they will resume attacks on US shipping in the Red Sea, something they had foregone recently as part of a de-escalation agreement with Washington.
These groups could be part of a longer-term plan for asymmetric warfare that could also involve terrorist attacks in the West, as Hezbollah has been accused of carrying out in the past.
Iran's third option, striking oil and gas infrastructure in the Gulf states, would create more enemies for Iran and strengthen the argument that it is a destabilising influence in the region.
It would also set back the warming relations Iran has been enjoying with major rivals like Saudi Arabia.
Iran may choose to selectively disrupt shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, blocking oil tankers bound for Europe, for example, which avoids angering its ally China while inflicting some economic pain on the West.
Iran's parliament has already approved a naval blockade of the strait.
No matter what, Iran's regime sits on the precipice of collapse — its leaders are dead, have fled or are in hiding.
The extent of the damage to nuclear sites is unknown but Iran's investments of hundreds of billions of dollars and decades of work have been set back and look to be far from paying off.
It would be a great irony if the project that was intended to protect the Islamic Republic becomes the catalyst for its collapse.
The best-case scenario for Iran's leadership is to weather Israel's campaign, re-assert domestic control and start prosecuting the case internationally that Israel and the US are dangerous, unrestrained threats to the region.
There will be receptive ears — many countries are unnerved to see Israel deciding it can unleash massive force against whomever it chooses, and that the US will rush to join it.
The risks for Iran's opponents rise the longer the campaign goes.
The US should be wary of mission creep and further entanglement in another costly, messy Middle Eastern "forever war", after the embarrassment of Afghanistan, the sectarian nightmare of Iraq, the scandals of Libya and the horrors of Syria.
The big question now is whether Israel's ongoing campaign — now starting to target the IRGC as well — will lead to regime collapse.
Iranians have now seen how weak their unpopular and repressive government is.
They haven't broadly welcomed Israeli strikes and a popular uprising would still come with enormous risks from the elements of the IRGC that have brutally crushed previous protest movements.
In past crises, the clerical regime has prioritised its survival above all else.
We don't know what it will do inside Iran if its grip starts to slip.