SerpApi.Org
The US has been carrying out strikes in Iran for nine days, including a number of attacks on bridges and tunnels near the Iranian port city of Bandar Abbas. What comes next in the American conflict with Iran?
This is an important issue because both the US and Iran have goals in this conflict, but those goals are not entirely clear, and they are definitely not the same.
Iran wants to preserve its ability to terrorize the region and carry out attacks across thousands of miles of front line stretching from Iraq and Jordan to Bahrain and Oman in the Gulf.
The US, on the other hand, wants the Strait of Hormuz to be open to shipping. It is worth recalling that prior to the recent round of attacks, there was a Memorandum of Understanding between the US and Iran that was supposed to move toward some kind of deal.
However, the Iranians continued to attack ships trying to transit the Strait of Hormuz. The Iranian attacks on ships culminated in several attacks on July 6 and 7. It was those Iranian attacks on shipping that led to the recent US strikes. The strikes have gone on for around nine days, but they basically began in the wake of the July 7 incidents.
US focuses on logistics targets near Gulf
What matters for our purposes is what exactly the US tactic or strategy is. So far, US Central Command has been carrying out strikes on a number of logistics sites, such as a terminal at a port in southern Iran, as well as bridges and some tunnels, and obviously a long list of other Iranian capabilities.
These targets are mostly close to the Gulf and include air defense systems, radars, command-and-control systems, and other assets that would help the Iranians to terrorize vessels in the Strait of Hormuz.
The big question mark is whether Iran takes these strikes seriously, whether its capabilities are being degraded, and whether it feels that it should return to the negotiating table.
Iran may hint that it is willing to hold talks again and continue to play the “good cop, bad cop” game it has played in the past. In this scenario, the IRGC acts as the bad cop while the Iranian government plays the good cop.
The government pretends that it wants to negotiate, while the IRGC carries out attacks. The government then pretends that it didn’t know about them, or claims it will try to get the IRGC to moderate its behavior.
Iran has played this game repeatedly. This strategy works in Iran’s favor because it allows the regime to remain opaque and get away with attacks.
The US has recently shown that it is not going to let Iran get away with as many of these incidents. However, it is not entirely clear if the US wants a wider and larger war.
US pushed for stronger retaliation
A series of escalations has led to a push for the US to be stronger in its retaliation: The killing of two Americans in Jordan and a missing third American as a result of Iranian attacks; and the killing and wounding of Americans in Iraq
This leads to several questions about what comes next in the last week of July.
Will the US increase the attacks? Does Iran think that it can call what it perceives to be a US bluff? Does Iran think the US will run out of munitions, or that the US is not serious about some sort of ground offensive?
Clearly, the Iranian regime thinks that the sheer size of Iran, being a very large country that is four times the size of Iraq, means that Iran is insulated to some degree from a very costly ground war.
Then the question remains whether the US can get something from the Iranians in terms of opening the Strait of Hormuz, or whether the strait will continue to open and close amid rounds of violence over the coming years. Will this simply mean that countries in the region will move their exports of oil and other goods to other routes?
It is already clear that some of these countries are beginning to focus on Syria and other places as potential alternative routes.
