Why a United States-Iran War Isn't Going To Happen soon?

The fear, honor, interest and the war III

 

US Navy Power In the Persian Gulf

It’s doubtful Tehran would get down to conventional operations, stepping onto the ground it knows the US dominates. To launch full-scale military reprisals would justify full-scale United States military reprisals that, in all likelihood, would outstrip Iran’s in firepower and ferocity. The ayatollahs who oversee the Islamic Republic fret about coming up on the losing end of such a clash. As well they might, considering hard experience.

So the outlook is for more of an equivalent. That’s a far cry from the more fevered prophecies of war III aired since Soleimani visited his reward. To fathom Tehran’s dilemma, let’s ask a fellow who knew a thing or two about Persian ambitions. (The pre-Islamic Persia, which bestrode the center East and menaced Europe, remains the lodestone of geopolitical success—even for Islamic Iran.)

A fifth-century-B.C. the maelstrom that engulfed the Greek world. Persia was a serious player therein contest. In fact, it helped decide the endgame when the good King supplied Athens’ antagonist, Sparta, with the resources to create itself into a naval power capable of defeating the vaunted Athenian navy stumped.

But Thucydides also meditates on attribute at many junctures in his history, that three of the prime movers impelling human actions are "honor, fear, and interest"

Honor, fear, and interest. How does Thucydides’ hypothesis apply to post-Soleimani antagonism between the United States and Iran? Well, the slaying of the Quds Force chieftain puts the ball squarely within the Islamic Republic’s court. The mullahs must reply to the strike in some fashion. to stay idle would be to form themselves look weak and ineffectual within the eyes of the region and of ordinary Iranians.

In fecklessness lies the danger. Doubly so now, after protests convulsed parts of Iran last November. The following crackdown cost many Iranians their lives-and revealed how deeply resentments against the religious regime run. No autocrat relishes weakness, least of all an autocrat whose rule has come under duress from within. A show of power and steadfastness is important to cow domestic opponents.

But fear is an omnidirectional, multiple-domain thing for Iranian potentates. External threats abound. Iranians are keenly attuned to geographic encirclement, for instance. They view their country as the Middle East’s rightful heavyweight. Yet U.S. forces or their allies surround and constrain the Islamic Republic from all points of the compass with the partial exception of the northeastern quadrant, which encompasses the ‘stans of Central Asia, and beyond them Russia.

Look at your map. The U.S. Navy commands the westerly maritime flank, protected by the U.S. Air Force. America’s Gulf Arab allies ring the western shores of the Persian Gulf. U.S. forces remain in Iraq to the northwest, where Suleimani fell, and in Afghanistan to the east. Even Pakistan, to the southeast, is an American treaty ally, albeit an uneasy one. These are forbidding surroundings. Tendrils of U.S. influence curl all around the Islamic Republic’s borders. Breaking out looks like a natural impulse for Iranian diplomacy and military strategy.

And yet. However fervent about its geopolitical ambitions, the Iranian leadership is going to be loath to undertake measures beyond the intermittent bombings, support to militants elsewhere within the region. Iranian leaders comprehend the forces arrayed against them. A serious effort at a breakout will remain premature unless and until they consummate their bid for atomic weaponry. the power to threaten nuclear devastation may embolden them to try—but that is still for the longer term.

Next, the honor. Irregular warfare is indecisive in itself, but it can provide splashy returns on a modest investment of resources and energy. Having staked their political legitimacy on sticking it to the good Satan and his Middle Eastern toadies, the ayatollahs must deliver regular incremental results. Direct attacks on U.S. forces make good clickbait; so do pictures showing IRGC light surface combatants tailing U.S. Navy task forces; so do attacks on vital economic infrastructure in United States allies like Saudi Arabia. And headlines convey the image of a virile power on the move.

The honor motive, then, merges with fear. Iranians fear being denied the honor they consider their due as the natural hegemon of the Gulf region and the Islamic world.

And lastly, the interest. Mischief-making must suffice for Iran until it can amass the material wherewithal to form itself a hegemon. It’s fascinating that Thucydides lists material gain last among forces that animate citizenry. After all, foreign-policy specialists list it first. Interest is quantifiable, and it seems to feed straight into calculations of cost, benefit, and risk. It makes statecraft seem rational!

There are no thanks to knowing for sure after two millennia, but it seems likely the sage old Greek meant to deflate such excesses of rationalism. Namely, he regarded attribute as being about quite things we will count, like economic output or an outsized field army. For Thucydides cost/benefit arithmetic takes a back seat to not-strictly-rational passions—some of them dark, like rage and spite, and others bright—that drives us all.

And indeed, for Iranians, material interest constitutes the way to rejuvenate national honor while holding fear cornered. Breaking the economic blockade manifest in, say, the Trump administration’s “maximum pressure” strategy would permit Tehran to revitalize the country’s moribund oil and gas sector. Renewed export trade would furnish wealth. Some could enter accoutrements of world power like a high-tech navy and air force.

In turn Iranian leaders could back a more ambitious diplomacy with steel. they might enjoy the choice of departing from their purely irregular, troublemaking ways and competing through more conventional methods. Or more likely, they might harness irregular means as an adjunct to traditional strategic competition. Material gain, in short, not just satisfies economic needs and needs but amplifies martial might. In so doing it satisfies non-material cravings for renown and geopolitical say-so.

And the American side? Repeat this process. Refract U.S. policy and strategy through Thucydides’ prism of fear, honor, and interest, consider how Iranian and American motives may intersect and interact, and see what light that appraisal shines into the future. My take: perhaps war III will come one day—but today isn't that day.