Closing the gaps around Iranian expansion

OPINION

Three seemingly disparate events over the past week peel back the covers of a raging cold war in the Middle East.

The United States has bolstered its minesweeping capabilities in the Persian Gulf.

The US Navy bought dozens of the German-made vehicles, known as Sea Fox, in February after a request by Marine General James Mattis, the Middle East commander.

The Pentagon also added four MH-53 minesweeping helicopters and four minesweeping ships – bringing its total to eight.

Further north in Syria, as the conflict is entering its end-game, an explosion in the national security building delivered a strategic hit to President Bashar al-Assad's regime.

Three of Assad’s top military men were killed in an impressive assassination. They were in the perfect position to stage a palace coup.

So whether their deaths are a strategic, pre-emptive manoeuvre orchestrated by Assad or whether the rebels have taken a dramatic leap forward in capability, the indications suggest the al-Assad regime is struggling.

Even further north, Bulgaria was the victim of a bus bombing that targeted Israeli tourists, killing six.

The Israeli Foreign Ministry condemned the attack, tentatively confirmed as a suicide bombing.

Iran has been involved in attacks against Israel in multiple countries in the past, leading Israeli officials to immediately blame Tehran.

These events are not without context. The US and its allies have been ramping up pressure against Iran for many years.

The completion of the Iraq war removed thousands of Western troops and created somewhat of a vacuum in the region. Iran has viewed this as an opportunity to re-establish its influence throughout the Middle East and Levant.

It has had some success so far. The Iranian strategic imperative of controlling its western front in Iraq was effectively attained when a strong Iraqi Shiite government came to power in 2010.

However, there is still much it needs to accomplish to achieve hegemony over the region.

Its nuclear programme is a calculated method to deter larger countries, especially the US, from interferring in Iranian expansionist plans. Whether or not Tehran eventually develops a bomb is beside the point.

Right now the threat of developing a nuclear weapon is enough to deter the US from becoming too arrogant.

How this will play out is uncertain. Western and Arab diplomats sit at endless meetings across from increasingly competent Iranian negotiators, and neither party appears to break ground.

The deadlock has resuled in sanctions being stepped up, with the goal of strangling Tehran into reversing its regional trajectory and ending its nuclear ambition. Some countries are participating in these sanctions but there are inevitably ways to bend or circumvent them.

Iran is not without its countermeasures against Western containment. About 20% of world oil supplies pass through the 21 nautical mile bottleneck of the Strait of Hormuz, although much of this energy is destined for Asian markets, not European or American.

Iran has threatened the strait in the past so the international community has taken measures to protect it.

Western military posturing in the Persian Gulf, which is not calming fidgety economic markets, has outweighed similar Iranian naval projection this year. More than 20 nations will participate from September 16-27 in a defensive exercise in the international waterways of the Middle East.

The exercise would focus on a possible threat by an extremist organisation to mine the international strategic waterways of the Middle East, including the Red Sea, the Gulf of Aden, the Gulf of Oman and the Persian Gulf.

Considering the intense public relations campaign of a few months ago, it would be difficult to believe these manoeuvres are not intended to address Iranian expansion.

Further afield, covert Western efforts in Syria are a tactical measure to limit Iran in the Levant. Iran needs the al-Assad regime to remain in power to foment a crescent of influence stretching from western Afghanistan through to the eastern Mediterranean.

A broken Syria in control of Sunni power would also potentially destabilise Iraq, a critical consideration for Tehran.

It does Iran no favours that president Assad is struggling in Syria. Some reports indicate he may no longer even be in the capital Damascus.

High-profile members of his security council have defected recently and some elite troops are putting down their weapons and escaping to Turkey. Things are rapidly changing.

This is why the bombings in Bulgaria are also important. Iran understands what is going on and is not ready to roll over just yet.

If the rumours are true and Iranian proxies did plan the bombings, Tehran is playing some of its most potent cards. Creating a threat for Israel and baiting it into a military response would distract Western powers and collapse their efforts to constrict Iran.

As for the extra naval assets in the Persian Gulf, deploying more minesweepers there will ensure the strait is quickly reopened if Tehran gives the word to scatter shipping mines. But this is an ambulance-at-the-bottom-of-the-cliff measure.

Tehran knows perfectly well that the international community cannot stop it from closing the strait initially and can force it back open. Nevertheless, significant damage to the global market would occur and oil prices, although quickly dropping away from their high, would remain stratospheric and potentially stay there for some time.

This is Iran’s most powerful counter-measure, an eventual nuclear umbrella aside.

However the international community forces Iran to negotiate, Tehran is having trouble consolidating influential territory in the region. P 5+1 countries (those participating in the negotiations with Iran) ensure any Iranian leverage in the Persian Gulf is limited, while Western intelligence agencies are undermining an Iranian strategic ally in Syria.

At the same time, Iran is continuing its efforts to strike out at Israel to goad it into a military reaction.

The containment measures slowly encapsulating Iran seem to be tightening. A military buildup and a degradation of the Syrian regime are the United States way of influencing negotiations with Iran.

In the same way, proxy attacks and protection of al-Assad’s regime are Iran’s way of gaining the upper hand in any future talks. 

Nathan Smith has studied international relations and conflict at Massey University. He blogs at INTEL and Analysis