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Can the Middle East
escape its ‘1914 moment’?
(Morteza
Akhoondi/AP)
The bubbling tensions
between Iran and the United States have brought the Middle East to a
dangerous precipice, warns a new report.
The International Crisis Group, an international security think tank headquartered
in Brussels, argued that, like in Europe in 1914, a miscalculation or
escalatory act by one side could easily ensnare the whole region in a
ruinous conflict nobody claims to want.
“Then, the assassin’s
bullet that killed Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria put the entire
European continent on fire,” noted the report. “Today,
a single attack by rocket, drone or limpet mine could set off a military
escalation between the U.S. and Iran and their respective regional allies
and proxies that could prove impossible to contain.”
On Sunday, Iranian
state media reported that the naval forces of the Iranian Revolutionary
Guard Corp had seized another oil tanker
carrying what they alleged was “smuggled fuel” in the Persian Gulf. The
capture of what appears to be a relatively small vessel took place
reportedly on Wednesday; neither the nationalities of the vessel nor its
crew were revealed.
It marked at least the third time
Iranian forces have commandeered a tanker in recent months, after the
Revolutionary Guard seized both a Panamanian-flagged and British-flagged
vessel last month. The Iranians suggested the taking of the latter was in
response to British forces boarding and halting an Iranian ship in the
Mediterranean. The United States and European powers are scrambling to
develop a plan for heightened maritime security in the Persian Gulf, one of
the global economy’s most strategic waterways.
There’s plenty of other
tinder that could catch a spark. In Iraq, Iranian-linked militias and
political parties jostle for influence within a fractious central
government. Yemen’s Houthi rebels, backed to an extent by Iran, have launched
rocket attacks into Saudi Arabia and on Red Sea shipping. Beyond all its
other miseries, Syria is also the site of what the Crisis Group’s Ali Vaez
calls a “cat-and-mouse game” between Israel and Iran; the former has
targeted the latter’s assets in the country with repeated airstrikes in the
past half decade. Those animosities could easily flare in neighboring
Lebanon, home to the influential Iranian proxy organization Hezbollah.
Both the United States
and Iran insist they don’t want war.
The Trump administration’s “maximum pressure” campaign has succeeded in
hurting the Iranian economy, but not in curbing Iran’s regional behavior —
indeed, it has only heightened
animosities. The Iranian regime first exercised a degree of patience,
attempting to wait out President Trump’s pressure tactics by complying with
the terms of the nuclear deal that Trump unilaterally broke.
As the noose tightened
around Iran’s economy, the regime decided to up the
ante, breaching uranium enrichment limits set under the deal while
urging European partners to offset the huge financial blow of its lost oil
exports. A European initiative to help conduct business with Iran without
falling afoul of U.S. sanctions has yet to adequately deliver. And so, the
Iranians are testing the waters, showing the United States and its allies
that they, too, can inflict pain.
“I’m afraid that the
leadership in Tehran might have come to the conclusion that noncompliance
and pushback have become more fruitful for them than compliance and
restraint,” Vaez said in a briefing call with reporters last week.
Iranian officials
believe that Trump, unlike some of his close advisers, will do as much as
he can to prevent a major conflict from breaking out. The president
routinely complains about the United States’ entanglements in the Middle
East, and his administration has urged European and Arab governments to
help shoulder the responsibility of maritime security in the region.
That confidence, Vaez
warned, “could lead the Iranian regime to miscalculate if they believe that
further escalation and provocation will hold little military and diplomatic
costs.”
Earlier this summer,
Trump boasted of calling off a deadly retaliatory strike on Iranian forces
after a U.S. drone was shot down. Trump’s messaging unsettled longtime
foreign-policy watchers.
“No one should discount
the power of ego and appearances in dictating Trump’s moves,” wrote Steven Simon and
Jonathan Stevenson, two former members of the Obama administration’s
National Security Council. “It remains impossible to tell whether the
administration actually intends to go to war, is merely engaging in
coercive diplomacy, or is adrift in a sea of miscues. It may not matter. In
a maelstrom of probes and provocations, strategic intention may give way to
heedless reaction.”
Hawkish Republican
politicians have openly discussed their desire
for airstrikes on Iranian positions, a move security officials warn would
not achieve much, while stoking the flames of a far deadlier conflagration.
“Anyone who believes
that a strike will somehow cower [the Iranians] is just mistaken,” said
William McRaven, a retired U.S. admiral who spoke in the same briefing as
Vaez. “A country like Iran is proud, it has thousands of years of pride as
a nation. When you strike them they will strike back, they will not just
roll over. So we have to be very careful about miscalculations.”
U.S. allies are
explicitly wary of the Trump administration’s approach.
On Wednesday, German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said his nation would “not
take part in the sea mission presented and planned by the United States” to
patrol the Persian Gulf, pointedly adding there was “no military solution”
to the impasse with Iran.
"Other governments
aren’t sure where the U.S. is trying to take them,” Jon Alterman, a Middle
East analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in
Washington, told Politico. “They
think that aligning with the U.S. incurs risk without providing security.”
Even regional powers
that are overtly opposed to the regime in Tehran are keen to de-escalate. The
United Arab Emirates engaged in a round of talks with Iranian counterparts,
while Israeli security officials have been circumspect about identifying
Iran as the source of recent sabotage attacks in the Persian Gulf.
Trump, through Sen.
Rand Paul (R-Ky.), an anti-interventionist libertarian, reportedly extended an invitation to Iranian
Foreign Minister Javad Zarif for face-to-face talks in the Oval Office.
That request was declined; the Trump administration then slapped sanctions
on Zarif himself and turned to Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.), a classic
Republican hawk, to open a parallel track on Iran that will attempt to
further isolate Tehran from Europe.
“The absence of a
meaningful channel between the U.S. and Iran,” wrote the Crisis Group in
its report, as well as “the two sides’ determination not to back down, and
the multiplicity of potential flashpoints means that a clash — whether born
of miscalculation or design — cannot be ruled out. Should it occur, it
would be difficult to contain in duration or scope.”
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