A Middle East Close to Chaos: Syria; Iran; Israel, the US and the West

Iran is unlikely to attempt actual closure of Hormuz for both commercial and military reasons, unless in retaliation. But in a deteriorating region, the Islamic Republic may set proxies to work or turn loose its Iran Revolutionary Guard Corps-Navy (IRGC-N) to act asymmetrically. The author was domiciled in the Arabian Gulf during the 1980s, working and travelling for his employer, a world-leading contractor in oil and gas pipeline construction, based at Sharjah port, UAE. This exposure fuelled fascination for foreign affairs, geopolitics, and for the wider region.

Any week, even any day, now the Royal Navy and the point of its spear, the Royal Marines, plus world merchant shipping, may be drawn into conflict across the Middle East, threats in the Gulf being prime. Syria’s situation is pivotal and Assad’s fall could cause the region to self-destruct. Since Assad’s Syria is Iran’s main ally, acting as a conduit from Iran to its proxy, Hezbollah, in Lebanon, Iran’s plans will fail if he falls. Worse, this may rebound as loss of face on the Iran Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), who could overreact. Already Iran is hedging its bets in Syria and talking to the rebels. Threats, confrontation and harassment at sea may follow.[1]

The Naval Service is in a parlous position to meet such threats to British LNG imports and to British and world commerce across the region. After decimation in the SDSR, it is left with only 19 destroyers and frigates. No carrier air strike exists; Royal Marines numbers are reduced and LPD Albion is mothballed. Illustrious fights with helicopters. Is the Prime Minister seriously watching this story unfold during the ‘dog days’ of summer, in a region noted for being resource-rich but crisis-prone, without acting to prepare better those naval assets remaining from his policies that told the RN to ‘do more with less’?

Time was when numbers of RN ships would now be ‘proceeding with all despatch’ to the Middle East. This article examines the regional situation in two main areas: Iran’s nuclear ambitions versus the Israel-US-West axis and the unravelling of Syria. The effects on British interests and presence in the Gulf region, with emphasis on the maritime dimension, are obvious. Defence of maritime trade transiting the Strait of Hormuz and in the Gulf may be necessary. Insights are offered on the two main antagonists: Iran and Israel. The author suggests use of the Duke of Wellington’s habit of thinking himself in his enemy’s position. To ‘know your enemy’ is vital. Meanwhile Britain’s Coalition would do well to recall Lord Palmerston’s insight in 1848: “Nations have no permanent friends and no permanent enemies. Only permanent interests which it is our duty to follow.”[2]

Iranian mindset – and the nuclear weapon

Memories are long in the Arab world; Iran’s follows suit. Oil and history fuel Iranian extreme paranoia. Early this year the regime stopped oil exports to Britain, who had anyway taken the strategic decision to halt all Gulf oil imports from 2011. Iran’s move was symbolic and driven by its memory of Britain’s hijack of all Iranian oil production as British property under the Anglo-Persian Agreement of 1919. These ‘proven reserves’ – some 150 bn barrels – are now the world’s fourth largest. Iran was never part of the British Empire but when, after 1919, Britain took control of Iran’s Treasury, military and transport system, the regime rankled at such treatment. No wonder that Britain is now referred to as the ‘Little Satan’ while America remains the ‘Great Satan’. But to many Iranians, Britain is the puppet master, the ‘most treacherous’ of Western nations, who craftily pulled the strings to deny Iran its own birthright.[3]

As the confrontation over Tehran’s nuclear ambitions lurches on, the gap between how the West perceives Iran and how Iran perceives itself grows wider. We see an aggressive militarist state, bent on regional domination, often through evil proxies, driven by a combination of religious fundamentalism and anti-Western rhetoric. Anti-Semitic and medieval in its cruelty, Iran is hell-bent on acquiring nuclear weapons to restore its status as a great Asian power alongside India and China. What the West sees as fully justified efforts to rein in such a nuclear programme, Tehran sees as yet more meddling in its affairs. History matters in Iran and its vision of the future is founded on this concept of the past: a sense of entitlement reaching back to the success of the Persian kings. So diplomatic trust is today very low on both sides.

The West’s interventions in the region did it no favours with Iran. Place yourself, please, in the shoes of any Iranian military officer in this century’s first decade post-9/11. Two invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan suddenly placed US and coalition troops along both your western and eastern frontiers. Now, an upside for Iran was removal of the Ba’athist Iraq and Afghanistan’s Taliban as your main threats. But rumblings out of Washington about opportunities for regime change led your rulers to reassess national security strategy. You were justified in thinking: ‘We’re next for Great Satan’s big and clumsy footprint!’ Iran’s Armed Forces thus began to tailor their strategies specifically to counter the perceived threat of invasion by America.[4] The defeat and rout of the Iraqi nation, meanwhile, gave you a paradoxical push to pole position as regional equal superpower with the hated Sunnis of Saudi Arabia. You smiled! But there is a thread of national characteristic running through all this reflection on Iranian history, paranoia and positioning. It is simply fear, despite your dominant population of 78 million, with over 250,000 under arms, whom the 39 million total of all Gulf Arab states fear even more.

Israeli mindset – and the USA and West

Israel is a state permanently on a war footing. Israel’s tiny seven million population continues to survive by their wits, resourcefulness, creativity and zeal that drew food and water and more from the desert. Surrounded by Arab nations on all sides save the sea to the west, ‘every man’s hand is against them’ save the Great Satan, who bankrolls their state-of-the-art defence industry. But very soon the sea to the west will yield new riches from vast new gas discoveries some 80 miles off Haifa. The Tamar field found 8.4 trillion cubic feet of gas (tcf) in 2009 – to flow in 2013. It has the potential to secure Israel’s energy needs for two decades. In late 2010 Noble Energy of Texas found the Leviathan field, also in Israeli waters, the world’s largest gas find in a decade. This 16 tcf discovery is a game-changer: it will make Israel energy-independent; turn her into a net gas exporter to Europe – keen to reduce dependence on Russia; and reshape Middle East geopolitics.[5]

If one factor shows the dominance of the Israeli-US axis, it is the Israeli-Palestine issue, wherein all Arab states feel powerless to promote the cause they espouse. The status quo continues. Meanwhile Israel’s conclusion, after years of debating military action against Iran, is that the US should do it. This is ironic given that self-reliance – never again putting Jewish destiny in non-Jewish hands – is core to the Zionist ideal. It is also rational: an American strike[6] by their more powerful bombers and weapons would set back Tehran’s nuclear progress more than an Israeli attack. An American strike would not leave Israel so isolated in the world. But President Obama first has an election to fight on 6 November.

The key question for him and America is whether an attack on Iran is in America’s interests. Thus far, Israel’s Prime Minister has been nudging the US closer to war: first during his March visit to Washington; lately in August reporting again that Israel is on the verge of attacking, while pushing for an even blunter pledge that the US will attack, perhaps by mid-2013. Mr Obama has rejected a policy of containing a nuclear Iran, stating publicly that his threat to use military action to prevent Iran from going nuclear is no bluff. The Pentagon reports that the 14 ton bunker-buster Massive Ordnance Penetrator bomb (MOP) is ready for delivery by the B-2 stealth bomber, while tests continue to refine its capabilities. This underwrites US assurances to Israel that it will neutralise Iran’s nuclear facilities if diplomacy and sanctions fail.[7] But back to the debate: is a US strike on Iran in US interests? What investigations have been made into how a nuclear Iran would threaten the USA? Or into how US military action might affect the safety of US troops in Afghanistan and in the Gulf? What degree of anti-American terrorism might be sparked? What impact would a strike exert on key US allies like Turkey, Saudi Arabia or Egypt? What about the influence of military action on global oil prices and the fragile world economy? George W Bush did at least make a public case for the Iraq war but; by contrast, this administration seems to be offering Israel ever more war pledges without public support by arguing the case.

In Britain, MI6 chief Sir John Sawers warned in July that Iran would succeed in acquiring a bomb by 2014.[8] One week later came a report from the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), an Iranian opposition movement, that Iran’s Revolutionary Guards are overseeing a massive expansion of the country’s nuclear weapons programme in an attempt to bring forward the date of the first warhead.[9] So, in sum, it is no wonder that tiny Israel, threatened with annihilation by Tehran, resorts to planning a pre-emptive strike – out of fear? Happily many senior, wise Israeli heads have urged caution on the PM and his hawkish Defence Minister. Fear got them thinking rationally, perhaps, but fear is potent. As FDR observed: “Sometimes we have nothing to fear but fear itself.”

Poor bloody Syria

After 18 months and 20,000 dead, as demonstrations against President Assad turned to rebellion, Syria is now in a sectarian civil war. But, as in most conflicts in this violent region, Syria’s situation grows more complex each week. At the time of writing three conflicts intertwine: the people, riding on the Arab Spring against the Assad autocracy; Sunni majority and rebels against the Shia and Alawite minority (Assad is Alawite); and the biggest threat to peace, regional and world powers already[10] grouped into US-Israel and Sunni Saudi-led coalition against Iran, backed by Russia and Iranian proxies (Iraq, Hezbollah and Hamas). Russia sees Syria as its last friend in the Middle East. It sells up to $1 bn of arms annually and the port of Tartus is Russia’s sole naval base in the Mediterranean.

Syria[11] is the critical geostrategic linchpin linking Hezbollah in Lebanon to its patron, Iran as the conduit for Iranian-supplied weapons and support to this jewel in Iran’s crown of proxy militias. Assad’s fall would threaten Hezbollah’s dominance to the benefit of the Sunnis. It must be understood that Assad’s regime is effectively another Iranian proxy. It receives political, financial and military support from Tehran, who are desperate to retain a stake in Syria. A further player, new to the current field, has just appeared, almost by default. Syria withdrew all its army forces ranged along the northern border to fight the cause in the South. This has prompted the Syrian Kurds[12] to achieve de facto autonomy as did the Iraqi Kurds in 1991. They number some 2.5 million or 10% of Syria’s population. Both Assad and his foe, the rebels, are vying for Kurdish support and have to accept a Kurdish enclave. Kurdish nationalism is one of the great forces in Middle East politics and the position of Kurdish minorities in Iraq and Turkey is crucially important for their stability. Washington, Ankara, Baghdad and elsewhere express alarm that the regional chessboard has suddenly changed in an unexpected way. They fear that the Kurds are uniting.

And finally, remember the elephant in the Middle East room: Iran’s nuclear ambitions hang like a spectre behind the action. This is the West’s target, not President Assad. Rightly so, since in mid-August the Supreme Leader himself gave the order to the elite IRGC to intensify attacks against the West and its allies worldwide for supporting the overthrow of the Assad regime.[13]

The Strait of Hormuz

A 15^th-century traveller described the old island stronghold of Hormuz, at the entrance to the Persian Gulf, as “a port which has no equal on the face of the earth.” Today the 21nm Strait of Hormuz is the world’s most crucial waterway, with around 35% of all seaborne oil trade passing through the chokepoint every year. Around 50 tankers transit the Strait daily, carrying some 17 million bpd of crude from Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait and Iraq, and LNG from Qatar to Far Eastern and Western markets.

The Strait’s most critical part angles round the north of Oman’s Musandam peninsula. This elbow-jointed 25nm long traffic separation scheme (TSS) is deep and wide enough for the largest crude oil tankers, 65% of which are of over 150,000 dwt. The TSS has twin two-mile-wide lanes entirely within Omani territorial waters and separated by a two-milewide buffer zone. The western TSS lies entirely within Iranian waters. It is 50 miles long and consists of two three-mile-wide lanes separated by an eight-mile-wide zone taking ships to the north and south of the two Tunb islands. The TSS is just 15 miles north of Abu Musa and Sirri islands, which, like the two Tunbs, are Iranian military bases. Iran may use these islands from which to deploy ‘swarm’ and ‘confusion tactics’. Legally, the Strait of Hormuz is a minefield, where any action to impede passage would lead to impassioned, protracted and partisan argument.[14]

Gulf tensions escalate from 1 July 2012

Tension in the Persian Gulf has been running high for many months and intensified in July when Iran stepped up its threat to close the Strait to tankers carrying oil to countries that have supported sanctions against Tehran. The sanctions – imposed by the UN, the US and the EU – came into force on 1 July after three rounds of negotiations between Iran and the US, Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany on halting Iran’s alleged nuclear weapons programme ended in deadlock. The measures included an EU ban on the import, purchase and transportation of Iranian crude oil and a prohibition on insurance cover for ships carrying Iranian oil. Classification services for Iranian shipping have also been restricted by the US, while US economic sanctions have had a massive effect on Iran’s ability to process payments for its oil. As OPEC’s second biggest oil producer and with the world’s fourth biggest oil reserves, Iran’s economy is heavily reliant on its oil revenues – and it is facing the loss of up to 1 million bpd of oil from its average exports of 2.4 million bpd as a result of the sanctions. Estimates show some $10 bn of 2012 revenues lost to sanctions.

Consequently, the lot of the long-suffering Iranian population is deteriorating. Subsidies on basic commodities were cut in late 2010, while food prices are soaring with rises from 50-100% for some essential foodstuffs. Workers are being laid off as sanctions halt import of materials for industrial production. Unemployment is 35% and inflation above 25%. The Irani rial lost 30% this year.[15]

Threat to close the Strait of Hormuz

In the face of diplomatic and economic pressures, Iran has reacted with rhetoric and bellicose action. Whilst broadcasting threats to close the Strait of Hormuz in July, the IRGC test-fired its Shabab missiles to ranges of up to 2,000km. Tehran also announced that warships would be fitted with radar-evading missiles with ranges of 200 and 300km. A Pentagon study in April 2012 warned that Iran had made gains in the ‘lethality and effectiveness’ of its arsenal.[16] Meanwhile, the US has built up its naval forces in the region, deploying eight minesweepers and four more MH-53E Sea Dragon minesweeping helicopters. The RN now bases four MCMVs permanently at Bahrain, which have earned the sobriquet ‘the jewel in the crown’ from the US Navy. Further US assets are a squadron of stealth fighters and the USS Ponce, an afloat forward staging base to support special forces, maritime security operations, minesweeping and repair services. US and allied naval forces at Bahrain are under US command and a RN deputy.

Iran must keep pumping oil, as once oilfields stop restart costs spike. This means storing vast unsold quantities ashore and in tankers circling the Gulf. Tehran is also doing all it can to evade oil sanctions by repainting, renaming and reflagging its biggest tankers; disabling AIS devices; and creating false front companies. The US response to these ruses is new sanctions on those shipping companies secretly handling Iranian crude and stern warnings to flag states such as Tuvalu and Tanzania who took Iranian tankers onto their registers until being found out. World oil prices ticked up to $117 per barrel in August on speculation that Israel might launch a unilateral attack on Iran, a move that could shut down oil flows through the Strait.

Lawmakers in Tehran are preparing a bill ordering the state’s military to halt tankers bound for countries imposing sanctions on Iranian oil. Iran may execute this by ‘stop-and-search’ of all tankers, congesting both TSSs, while allowing its own to pass freely. Tankers may stand on to call the bluff: they are big, strong and hard to damage or sink. Iran could sow mines, a cheap and easy tactic, learned during the 1984-88 Tanker War. Whereas the world’s foot is starting to throttle Iran’s economy, it remains to be seen if Iran will place its own foot upon the throat of world energy supplies. That situation approaches as sanctions and stalemate strengthen.

Lessons from the Tanker War 1984-88: part of the Iran-Iraq war 1980-88

Despite Lloyd’s List’s report of total war damage to 546 merchant vessels and some 430 seafarers killed, Iraq and Iran gained little by attacking the other’s oil tankers, those of Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and vessels of neutral Gulf states. Both sides strove to undermine the other’s economy by air and missile attacks on maritime trade, primarily oil. Both failed to close the Strait and only briefly disrupted free passage in the Gulf and the Strait. Neither side persisted sufficiently to achieve these aims: a lesson to both. Even Iraq’s air superiority, with French Super-Etendards firing Exocet missiles at Iran’s main Kharg island oil terminal, did not deliver the strategic goods without a killer instinct.[17]

The Tanker War demonstrated the gap between rhetoric and reality in threats to shut the Strait to shipping. Water is deep, the Strait is wide and vast numbers of well-equipped warships would be needed, which the Islamic Republic of Iran Navy (IRIN) lacks. The prime lesson is not to confront a superior foe with force on force. Rather, the war forced Iran to embrace asymmetric military doctrine playing to its strengths of geography, adaptability and national acceptance of casualties. This catalyst drove the decision to split responsibilities between the IRIN and the IRGC-Navy. The former, with its mix of larger conventional ships and three Russian Kilo-class submarines, guards the Caspian and the seas outside the Persian Gulf, while the IRGC-N now has total charge of ‘access denial’ to the Strait of Hormuz and the entire Gulf. The 20,000-man force and its 1,500 craft of all types and sizes, including Fast Attack Craft (FAC) missile and torpedo boats, 5,000 marines, midget submarines, helicopters, minelaying assets and coastal missile batteries, enjoys primacy with the Supreme Leader when allocating funds and resources.[18]

Neither force will forget defeat in April 1988 by the US Navy’s Operation PRAYING MANTIS. This retaliation by US ships and naval aircraft for mining and almost sinking the frigate USS Samuel B. Roberts while escorting convoys, left Iran with two inoperable oil platforms, three armed speedboats, one FAC and one frigate sunk. Another frigate was badly damaged. The message was clear: any attempt to block the Strait or attack merchant shipping will be tantamount to confronting the US Navy and her allies, whose vastly superior force defending world maritime trade is based upon two carrier groups and overwhelming assets, training and technology. More US aircraft fly from Gulf bases. History may repeat itself, for the US Navy’s 1988 victory pressed Iran to agree to peace with Iraq. Navies’ presence provide deterrence to avoid conflict. They may soon do so again in Gulf waters.

For what should the world and the mariner prepare in this volatile region?

Harassment, brinkmanship, ‘hit and run’ and surprise are well-known Iranian tactics. In January 2008 five FACs raced to within one cable of a US task group transiting the Strait, then transmitted a clear threat by radio. These may have been Chinese Hudong-class missile boats or Swedish Boghammar patrol boats capable of over 40 kts. Recently, Iran reverse-engineered 12 Zolfaqhar missile and torpedo boats from Britain’s 55 kt Bladerunner 51 speedboat, Bradstone Challenger. Such ‘swarm’ manoeuvres from 360 degrees can suck in opposing forces to a long drawn out low-level campaign of attrition to test political will and allied strength by raising risks and costs. Iran’s new military doctrine is a unique hybrid of Western concepts, Islamic zeal and martyrdom.

Bandar Abbas, 30 miles north of the Strait, is the easterly of three Gulf naval command zones. This main base for both navies has drydock and ship repair facilities. Its tactical air base houses naval fixed and rotary wing aircraft and an air force unit. IRGC-N island bases lie south and west: Qeshm has underground facilities for midget submarines; Larak, Abu Musa, Sirri and the Tunb islands are all within 15 miles of respective TSSs. SE of the Strait, on Iran’s south coast, lie the two blue-water bases of the IRIN at Jask and Chabahar. Jask has a tactical airbase and anti-ship missile batteries. All island bases are a strategic network for observation, interdiction and coastal missile batteries, some mobile, some ‘static warships’ with underground facilities. All serve as bases for inshore and patrol craft, FAC, small local and fishing craft for IRGC-N mining, and special forces operations. Even oil platforms are used. Access denial depends on ‘presence everywhere and nowhere’ doctrine, assisted by confusion, camouflage and terrain masking.

International mine counter-measures exercise

IMCMEX ‘12: 16-27 September 2012 was announced in July as “naval and military forces spanning 20 countries from four continents [that] will come together to participate in a defensive exercise to preserve the freedom of navigation in the international waterways of the Middle East and promote regional stability.” The exercise scenario focuses on a hypothetical threat from an extremist organisation to mine the international strategic waters of the Middle East, including the Red Sea, Gulf of Aden, Gulf of Oman and the Persian Gulf, although exercises will not extend into the Strait of Hormuz. This scenario is underscored by past terrorist attacks on shipping:[19]

• French supertanker MV Limburg – 20% full – south of Al Mukalla port 6 October 2002.
• Japanese supertanker M Star – full – in the Strait of Hormuz 28 July 2010.

MCMs and maritime security situations will be conducted in these areas allowing all units to test the full range of their capabilities. Focusing on Command-and-Control, the full schedule includes all aspects of maritime security operations and force protection vital to the objectives. The Pentagon stressed in a careful message: “This was not an exercise aimed at delivering a message to Iran.”

Conclusions

For some years Saudi Arabia and the UAE have been planning strategic export pipelines for oil and gas to bypass the Strait. During July two such facilities were opened, in addition to others operated by Saudi. The UAE line connects Abu Dhabi’s Habshan field with the export terminal of Fujairah – and now carries 65% of all UAE oil. Saudi’s line connects the Eastern province oilfields to Yanbu’s terminal on the Red Sea. These two pipelines, plus existing Saudi facilities, can now export 6.5 million bpd, equating to 40% of the total flow, without using the Strait.[20]

Britain’s precarious energy supplies need Hormuz. 46% of gas imports is Qatari LNG by sea – no other route. Such a major source, with only 24% of this gas under fixed contract, makes the UK’s whole energy supply vulnerable, compared to rivals who tie up long-term/fixed-price contracts.

If goaded into guerilla warfare in the confined Gulf waters, Western and regional allies would, in time, defeat Iranian naval forces. There would clearly be some losses and damage to allied ships, but losses to Iran would be more severe. Its offensive action could cost it most naval forces and air defences. Any closure of the Strait or tampering with world trade would, in addition, inflame opinion worldwide against serious violation of international norms. Over time regime collapse and suing for peace would follow.[21] If conflict is averted and Iran proceeds to build a bomb, the world may have to accept a more powerful Iran and adopt containment. Meanwhile strategic shocks are likely in this region at any time, involving naval forces. The RN is pitifully stretched after repeated cuts. The message to Government from the naval community is ‘Navies deter, costing less than conflict’. Middle East foreign policy, especially today, depends on the Royal Navy.[22]

References

[1] Professor Gwythian Prins, ‘The Navy has been holed below the waterline’, Times 24 August ’12

[2] Christopher Meyer, Getting Our Way

[3] Ben Macintyre, ‘Oil and history fuel Iran’s extreme paranoia’, Times 21 February ’12

[4]  Michael Connell, The Iran Primer: Iran’s Military Doctrine

[5] Danny Fortson, ‘Israel strikes gas in the Med’ Sunday Times 10 April ’11

[6] Peter Beinart, ‘Analysis: Barack Obama must make a public case before promising to strike Iran’, The Daily Beast 20 August ’12

[7] Peter Foster, ‘Bunker-Buster bomb is ready to use, says US Air Chief,’ Daily Telegraph 28 July ’12.

[8] Christopher Hope, Senior Political Correspondent: ‘MI6 agents have foiled Iran’s attempts to obtain nuclear weapons but the Middle Eastern state will succeed in arming itself within the next two years’, Daily Telegraph 12 July ’12

[9] Con Coughlin, Defence Editor, ‘Iran’s Revolutionary Guards overseeing huge expansion of country’s nuclear programme’, Daily Telegraph 17 July ’12

[10] Patrick Cockburn, ‘As the violence intensifies in Syria, there can only be one winner: the Kurds’, Independent on Sunday 26 August ’12

[11] Times full reporting team: Special two page world feature on Syria: ‘The stakes keep rising in game of revolt and politics, religion and death’, Times 18 August ’12

[12] Cockburn, ‘As the violence intensifies in Syria, there can only be one winner: the Kurds’, Independent on Sunday 26 August ’12

[13] Con Coughlin, ‘Iran’s supreme leader orders fresh terror attacks on West’, Daily Telegraph 22 August ’12

[14] Rear Admiral Richard Hill: e-mails with the author 6 August ’12.

[15] Najmeh Bozorgmehr in Tehran, ‘Subsidy dispute adds to Iran’s woes’, Financial Times 25 April ’12

[16] Tony Capaccio, ‘Iran’s Ballistic Missiles Improving, Pentagon Finds,’ Bloomberg 10 July ’12

[17] Anthony Cordesman, The Iran-Iraq War: the Tanker War and the Lessons of Naval Conflict.

[18] Michael Connell, op. cit.

[19] Dr Scott C Truver, ‘IMCMEX 12’, SLD Second Line of Defense 28 July ’12

[20] US Energy Information Administration: World Oil Transit Chokepoints 30 December ’12

[21] Dr. Dave Sloggett, ‘Conflagration in the Persian Gulf,’ The Naval Review February ’12

[22] Guy Liardet, ‘European prosperity is hanging by a thread and it’s called the Strait of Hormuz’, Times Military Matters 18 February ’12