Got a little argument piece over at Danger Room on how the absolute most counterproductive unforced error the Iranians could inflict on themselves would be to close the Strait of Hormuz. Nothing would concentrate the attention of global capitols — particularly those skeptical of the U.S. or mildly tolerant of Iranian adventurism — than $200/barrel oil. Iran could say goodbye to Chinese patronage.
A different Iran irony: it occurs to me Israel has more objective constraints on any hypothetical bombing campaign on Iran with U.S. forces in Iraq than out of it. Washington could have said to Jerusalem (and, my understanding is, did for much of the last decade), “I get where you’re coming from, but you put that shit back in the holster when we’ve got over 100,000 U.S. troops in danger of Iranian sabotage. Iraq is our top priority. That means fall back.” This is a terrible argument for staying in Iraq, of course, so please don’t take me to mean that. I’m just saying: when you think about external constraints on an Israeli offensive, there aren’t many — that is: decisions that the Israelis would know to represent dealbreakers with their big American patron — but Iranian reprisal on U.S. forces would definitely be one of them.
This is one of the reasons I keep writing about the residual presence of U.S. private security contractor forces in Iraq as a big potential liability. Iranians can easily confront them, thereby provoking the mercs into alienating Iraqis; or attempt to kidnap/kill the U.S. diplomats the mercs guard, perhaps to get revenge on what they’ll see as American approval behind any Israeli attack. I wonder if the Israelis view the departure of U.S. forces from Iraq as the removal of a constraint, or if they view the potential downmarket consequences to U.S. diplomats or security contractors as doing the same work.
Meanwhile, even if David Petraeus isn’t the “senior intelligence official” who gave the Washington Post this dumbass quote about sanctions being designed to “collapse” the Iranian regime, he’s probably hearing from the White House tonight to rein in his fucking team.
Update, 7:05 a.m., Dec. 11: And sure enough, the piece now talks about “public anger” being a likely effect of the sanctions, rather than “regime collapse.” (“An earlier version of this article incorrectly reported that a U.S. intelligence official had described regime collapse as a goal of U.S. and other sanctions against Iran. An updated version clarifies the official’s remarks.”)
Photo: U.S. Army
