Our Own Correspondent
Current regional socio-political environment and the economic decline of Western powers indicates that their Cold War approach towards Iran is constrained by ground realities.
Toronto,
December 30, 2012, 13:40 DST
The ongoing Iranian naval exercises taking place in the Strait of Hormuz, the Sea of Oman, and north of the Indian Ocean, the Gulf of Aden and Bab-el-Mandeb Strait show that the US will think twice embarking on misdaventures against Islamic Iran in the near future.
The six-day military drills code named Velayat-91 are being conducted using war ships, air force planes and submarines. Basic observations of the ongoing military drills through publicly available sources show that any escalation of US conflict with Islamic Iran would carry a heavy cost for Washington and its allies.
Even if Islamic Iran manages to achieve half of its military objectives in the Strait of Hormuz in case of a direct confrontation with the US, the economic, military, political and socio-psychological effect on the US and its allies would be vast. This fact was subtly admitted by a neo-con US think-tank, the Washington Institute for the Near East Policy (WINEP). In September 2012 WINEP admitted that “Iran may not be able to close the strait, but it could employ a range of highly disruptive tactics to dissuade commercial tanker traffic and thus drive up oil prices.”
In 2010, WINEP revealed that war games conducted against Iran in December 2009 by experts from Harvard University, Tel Aviv University and the Brookings Institution showed that “Iran never felt seriously threatened and could win the game easily…Iran won the games at least in part because it had a strong hand, coherent strategy, clear goals, and determined leadership. In contrast, it faced an array of opponents who were divided on objectives and strategies and who exhibited uncertain, if not vacillating, leadership.”
Current political, military and economic facts on the ground show that direct US confrontation with Islamic Iran in the near future is highly unlikely. This automatically means that Israel will also not be able to carry out any attack against Iran as it will be impossible for Israel, fighting alone, to withstand Iran’s retaliatory blows. The recent fiasco in Gaza demonstrated that even with vast US military assistance Israel could not do much against basic Iranian weaponry provided to the Palestinian resistance for self-defence.
Current regional socio-political environment and the economic decline of Western powers also indicate that their Cold War approach towards Iran is constrained by ground realities. This means that they cannot afford to take radical military measures against Iran as this might spark a direct confrontation that they want to avoid. It indicates that the Western power’s proxy war against Syria will also be matched with an adequate response. Despite loud rhetoric, the chances of direct western intervention in Syria in the near future appear low.
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