Trump’s Iran conundrum: Choosing between bad options

Spare a thought for the courageous Iranians who braved their brutal government in the belief that US President Donald Trump meant it when he issued a social media post saying that HELP IS ON THE WAY.

Issued on January 13 after two nights of some of the largest anti-government protests in Iranian history, the posting said:

Iranian Patriots, KEEP PROTESTING — TAKE OVER YOUR INSTITUTIONS!!! Save the names of the killers and abusers. They will pay a big price. I have cancelled all meetings with Iranian Officials until the senseless killing of protesters STOPS. HELP IS ON ITS WAY. MIGA!!! PRESIDENT DONALD J. TRUMP.

The help would come, Trump said, unless government forces would stop killing protesters. But the killing continued. Estimates of the death toll range from 6,159 (from an Iranian Human Rights group) to more than 30,000 ( from TIME magazine.. The Iranian government put the toll at 3,117.

Trump never clarified how long he thought it would take help to arrive. But it is easy to see why some Iranians thought it would be soon —in the form or air strikes or a special operations attack on the model of the daring attack on Caracas that resulted in the capture and abduction of Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro just ten days before the “help is on the way” promise.

What was on the way was what Trump called “a massive armada” –the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier accompanied by three guided missile destroyers. The strike group, part of America’s overwhelming military superiority, arrived in the Indian Ocean on January 26 within striking distance to possible targets in Iran.

Killing demonstrators as a trigger for American action has disappeared from the White House vocabulary, which instead switched to long-standing American demands for Iranian policy changes.

Though the demands have not been officially announced, American and European officials said they included an end to all enrichment of uranium, limits on the number and range of ballistic missiles and breaking links with the armed groups serving as proxies for the Tehran rulers. The groups include Lebanon-based Hezbollah and Gaza’s Hamas.

Trump drew parallels between the vast naval force assembled in the waters off Venezuela before Maduro was snatched and the new build-up in striking distance of Iran and urged its leaders to negotiate a deal on its nuclear programme. “Time is running out, it is truly of the essence,” he told reporters.

One of the options under discussion by Trump and his closest aides, according to sources close to the White House, are air strikes on Iranian leaders and security forces to trigger another round of popular protests so widespread that the leadership of the regime would have to change.

But the protest movement has been so cowed and weakened by the slaughter of thousands in recent days that it takes a large dose of optimism to consider it a possibility.

While pondering the options, Washington has run into an unexpected obstacle: vocal opposition to a military strike from America’s closest allies in the region – Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Republic, Qatar and Oman. Saudi Arabia has ruled out the use of its airspace and territory for a U.S. attack.

The reason is fear that Iran could retaliate with attacks on U.S. allies – and worries that chaos could ensue in Iran if the regime fell.

Another outcome that is part of the considerations is direct attacks on U.S. installations. While Iran’s arsenal of ballistic missiles shrank during the 12-day war with Israel last year, it is thought to have enough left to hit most of the military bases the U.S. maintains in Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the UAE.

The biggest U.S. military institution in the Middle East is al Udeid airbase, which houses more than 10,000 Americans and is the headquarters of the U.S. Central Command, which coordinates air operations across Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan. As the prospect of war drew nearer, several hundred U.S. military have been evacuated from the base.

One of the darkest scenarios for Iranian retaliation would be laying mines in the Strait of Hormuz between Iran and Oman. A critical global trade route, it carries about a fifth of liquefied natural gas exports and a quarter of oil worldwide. Mining that waterway would seriously damage the global economy.

On the diplomatic front, Iran suffered a long-delayed blow from the European Union on Thursday (January 29); EU foreign ministers designated Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps as a terrorist organisation. Meeting in Brussels, the ministers also froze the assets and banned visas for 15 individuals.

EU chief Ursula von der Leyen said the move was “long overdue”, a nod to Washington which designated the Revolutionary Guards a terrorist group in 2019. “Terrorist is indeed how you call a regime that crushes its own people’s protests in blood.”