Will Trump Strike Iran?

The option is becoming real

Capability

Having heard President Trump threaten Iran on Monday, let’s consider whether a strike on them is now a real possibility. All too often geopolitical analyses skate over the question of capability and indeed it’s because of what’s happening on that front, more than what he said, that for me this question is now coming into focus.

As we know, the US Air Force recently deployed B-2 bombers, around half a dozen of them to the Indian Ocean base of Diego Garcia. Internet sleuths also spotted a stepping up of supply flights and additional aircraft deploying to the region.

Then people have noted that the USS Harry Truman aircraft carrier group is to linger in the region while another, USS Carl Vinson arrives (I took the photo above aboard the Vinson several years ago BTW…) allowing for a surge in American naval airpower.

Now all of this might have been about escalating the pressure on the Yemen-based Houthis, who have been attacking shipping and indeed lobbing missiles at Israel for the past year and a half. Certainly, that’s what the Truman’s air group have been doing lately, striking those Yemeni targets, joined occasionally by the B-2s.

But the most interesting development of recent days has been the shifting of American air defence batteries to the Gulf. Flights have been detected moving two Patriot units and one of THAAD missiles to Qatar, Bahrein, and the UAE. Both systems can be used to shoot down incoming missiles, with THAAD being the more advanced option, particularly against the type of ballistic weapons that the Islamic Republic has spent years building up.

US deployments like these have happened before, for example last autumn. These weapons are scarce so such steps are taken only when the American military thinks Iran might want to strike the Gulf states or Israel. It’s a bolstering of defences in other words, and it relates not to a continuing pounding of Houthi targets in Yemen but to what Iran might do if things were about to escalate. So what’s on the cards?

It might be that frustrated with the slow progress – and large expenditure of munitions – bombing the Houthis, that the White House thinks attacking targets in Iran but identified with supporting that Yemeni movement is a more effective way of shutting down their attacks on Red Sea shipping.

But then consider that in the past 36 hours it appears that deployment of a second THAAD battery, this time to Israel, has also begun. It’s the first such deployment since that country responded in October to Iranian missile attacks with a blitz on the Islamic Republic’s air defences. Combine this with Benjamin Netanyahu’s visit to the White House on Monday and people start to get jumpy.

So, when it comes to the military capability are we actually witnessing the assembly of forces for a strike on Iranian nuclear facilities and the expected retaliation this might bring?

I have seen estimates of the number of aircraft required to hit Iran’s enrichment plants and other key targets in the 2-300 bracket. Since Israel used over 100 jets in its October mission, it’s very easy to see how a US/Israeli coalition could soon have a force of that size ready.

With the Israelis poised to suppress Iranian air defences, as they did very efficiently five months ago, the way could be cleared for B-2’s to attack underground facilities with huge penetrating bombs. That’s a capability only the US has.

As to whether such strikes would really devastate Iran’s subterranean uranium enrichment facilities that’s a harder question to answer. It could disrupt production and buy time in any case, at a moment when the country is racing to produce as much fissile material as possible.

So if we consider all of the military factors plus the fact that Netanyahu has just paid his second visit to the Oval Office – it’s starting to look like the military capability will be in place in a matter of a week or two. It’s now a question of whether Trump wants to use it.

Intent

The president has been talking for some time about giving Iran a deadline to negotiate an end to its nuclear programme or face the consequences. At Monday afternoon’s White House photo spray that became quite explicit again.

“If the talks aren’t successful with Iran, then Iran is going to be in great danger”, he told an Israeli journalist, “because they can’t have a nuclear weapon… if the talks aren’t successful, I actually think it will be a very bad day for Iran”.

Trump’s people were briefing three weeks ago that he had told the Iranians they had two months to reach a deal or face the consequences. Evidently the military deployments we’re now seeing are designed to empower this ultimatum, to underline that the clock is ticking. It’s clear also they’re supposed to be noticing this in Tehran.

Iranian negotiators will likely try to offer enough to soften that deadline. And then Trump will have to figure out if Iran is playing him along or he has to make good on his threat. It will not be possible to keep US forces in the region surged indefinitely.