Why Trump’s options are limited when it comes to using force against Iran | Iran

Donald Trump may not be afraid to use military force against Iran, according to the White House, but the reality is that the US president has little to no options that could openly assist the country’s protest movement; Leave aside the fact that the United States has a history of intervention in the region that has not been very successful.

Emboldened by the capture of former Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro after a months-long planning operation, Trump spoke of military intervention against the Iranian regime without any military pre-positioning. In fact, there has been a downturn in the last few months where military options have diminished further.

No aircraft carriers have been deployed to the Middle East since October, after the US deployed almost continuously for two years following the Hamas attack on Israel, moving USS Gerald R Ford to the Caribbean in the summer and USS Nimitz to a port on the US west coast in the autumn.

This means that any air or missile strikes against regime targets, and perhaps Iranian leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, would likely have to come from or involve U.S. and allied air bases in the Middle East. An alternative would be similar to the long-range B-2 bombing mission against Iran’s underground nuclear facility Fordow in June; but such an attack on an urban area may seem like a dangerous overreach.

The US will also need to seek permission to use bases in countries such as Qatar, Bahrain, Iraq, the UAE, Oman and Saudi Arabia (perhaps even Britain’s Akrotiri base in Cyprus), and to protect these and host countries against retaliation. Even if such assets are not used by the United States, Iranian leaders have threatened to strike US bases and ships if the country is attacked.

Although Iran’s military capabilities were greatly weakened and its air defenses were easily defeated in the 12-day summer war with Israel, Tehran retained a limited missile capability. Major launch sites are buried in the mountains and are being rebuilt. It is estimated that Iran has 2 thousand heavy ballistic missilesIf launched in large numbers, it is capable of evading US and Israeli air defenses.

A more salient question is: What will the US bomb? It is possible to identify the military and civilian areas used by the Iranian regime, but both the protests and the increasingly bloody oppression of the regime continue throughout the country. Targeting may not always be accurate, areas may be misidentified, and civilian casualties in urban areas may be an obvious risk. And it’s not clear that this will be effective on the ground.

Given the long history of US involvement dating back to the 1953 CIA coup, it would not be difficult for the Iranian leader to try to use any US attack as a rallying point for what remains of his support. And however unpopular the protests of ordinary people may be, the ruling regime, which survived Israel’s sustained onslaught in June, does not appear fragile or weak.

“There is clearly a cohesive government, military and security establishment in Iran,” said Roxane Farmanfarmaian, a senior partner at the Royal United Services Institute think tank. “The government is showing that it has no red lines: it will secure its borders and its streets, and the extraordinary number of body bags demonstrates its determination to do so.”

The US may consider a direct attack on Khamenei. Trying to kill the Iranian leader would be easier militarily than a Maduro-style takeover operation, which would be much more complicated than in Venezuela because Tehran is hundreds of kilometers from the country’s borders. But killing another country’s leader can escalate tensions to a surprising degree, raise many legal concerns, and invite sustained military intervention.

This does not necessarily lead to regime change. During the 12-day war, Khamenei appears to have evaded Israeli detection: “If he had been in front of us, we would have eliminated him,” the country’s defense minister, Israel Katz, later said. Iranian leader also got in line three senior clergy shortlisted He will take his place if he is killed in order to secure a quick passage.

Other experts, such as Farmanfarmaian, argue that the most likely outcome would be a takeover led by Iran’s Revolutionary Guard. But in both cases, the Iranian regime remained intact after Israel killed some 30 military and security leaders in June. A handful of US demonstrations are unlikely to change that, but US allies, Congress and Trump himself will almost certainly not want a long campaign. In fact, the president himself ruled out “the shoes falling on the floor”.

In such an uncertain environment, it is not surprising that alternatives come to the fore. The most notable of these is a targeted cyber attack, raising the question of what is intended. Following Maduro’s capture, Trump claimed that the United States had turned off the electricity in Caracas to facilitate his capture, but that this would only be useful in conjunction with a military operation in Iran.

Ciaran Martin, former head of the UK’s National Cyber ​​Security Centre, argues that “it’s hard to see what will work” and that “disruption of civil and even government services” such as electricity will likely impact civilians more. One theoretical possibility would be for the United States to try to restore the internet, which has been largely shut down since last Thursday, but Martin added that doing so would be “difficult to intervene through cyber.”

A simpler possibility would be to try to “stuff Starlink”, Elon Musk’s satellite internet service, by bypassing signal jammers in Iran and making the service available for free. But Martin said it was “not actually a cyber operation” and that sharing more information about the crackdown might not stop the killings on the streets. What can be achieved through US military intervention may not coincide with Trump’s promise that “help is on the way.”