Thu 09 January 2019:
In the early hours of Wednesday morning local time, Iranian ballistic missiles struck two bases housing US forces in Iraq. Iran’s Foreign Minister Javad Zarif said Tehran “concluded proportionate measures in self-defense.”
The timing. The target. The threats of heavy retaliation already “locked and loaded,” as President Trump would have had it.
Yet Wednesday morning’s missile strikes against al-Asad airbase and Erbil airport — both of which play host to US troops — were clearly not an act designed to kill the most Americans possible.
Iran will have known that the troops are normally asleep in the early hours of the morning. Choosing to attack then likely minimized the number of personnel roaming around the base who could be killed or injured.
It will also have known the US has a strong air defense system that would have been on high alert. Tehran should have a grasp of how well its missiles would fare against such technology.
The missile attacks don’t make sense if Tehran’s goal was to really hurt US troops in large numbers — as some had been pledging to do.
They do make sense, however, as the execution of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s order to strike back openly, military-to-military, in response to the killing of Iranian commander Qasem Soleimani.
Khamenei’s instruction was confusing when first reported, given that the US would be bound to prevail in a straightforward military conflict. Was the Supreme Leader ordering an empty show of force?
Wednesday’s strikes sent a message that Iran would violate US red lines and engage in direct warfare, but they killed nobody.
The only thing wounded might be Iranian military pride that a moment they had so heavily trumpeted drew no blood from their adversary.
Possible explanation
First, that Khamenei, Iran’s octogenarian Supreme Leader, is out of touch with what his military can achieve and overestimated the effectiveness of the strikes, which then failed.
Such a miscalculation would be surprising, given his reported involvement in and knowledge of Iranian military affairs.
Second, that moderation won out, and this largely empty signal — hitting military targets in the dead of night with a small number of missiles — provides the off-ramp both sides might ultimately have been looking for.
The Iraqi Prime Minister’s office said it was given verbal notification from Tehran just before the attack happened. It’s hard to see how the US would not learn of that somehow.
Iran’s foreign minister, Javad Zarif, has sent the clear message that Iran does not want war. It is notable that his moderate English-speaking voice has been heard clearly throughout this volatile morning, at a time when moderation might be considered to have taken a back seat.
Trump may just take that off-ramp. Tehran and Washington have one thing in common: Their lack of appetite for a prolonged, open conflict with the other. Iran has a weak economy and internal dissent. Trump wants re-election and not another episode of “sand and death.”
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