Decision Time in Tehran

One hitherto unexamined question about an potential Iranian response to a US or Israeli attack is about goals, motives, and strategy. Say you are an Iranian government national security official. You wake up to the shouts of your subordinates and the sound of bombs crashing into government buildings. You have been on high alert for a while, perhaps sleeping in a bunker, but the moment has finally come. Roused, you frantically escape the destruction of your command site and hurry to a safe and hardened area, stepping over the bodies of those who were caught in the initial strike. Your subordinates await your command. The shouting and screaming grows louder, and the acrid smell of burning fires outside more intense. What are the policy goals that will inform your response?

We have seen a baseline of technical analyses of the ability of Iranians to do harm in response to an attack. These range from conventional "high-end asymmetric threats" such as military action in the Strait of Hormuz to the use of sleeper cells, paramilitary operatives, and proxies worldwide. But few analyses really look at the overall policy goals and motives behind an Iranian response. What would Iran, in other words, be trying to achieve?

Several baseline objectives are obviously (1) preserving regime authority and (2) preventing further strikes. These, however, are not straightforward, as steps taken to preserve regime control at all costs may conflict with flexibility and risk-taking needed to conduct military operations and political warfare. Establishing deterrence, on the other hand, may entail measures that would set in motion events that could threaten regime control. Perhaps a third option may be to do nothing and exploit public sympathy to weaken the adversary, saving the response for a future time.

The larger question is whether a strike would also shift the basic Iranian regional grand strategy towards full-on confrontation, which may entail the use of "active measures"--proxies and agents directly in Iraq and Afghanistan.

I'm curious to hear what everyone thinks the Iranian policy goals would be post-attack and what strategies Tehran would use to achieve them.

Comments

[YNSN]

Post attack would be dependent on the damage done to IRN. The amount of time it has taken to get us to the point we are at now, to say nothing of the time it might take to get to an actual conflict (limited or not) is only allowing the pressure and rhetoric to build.

There are 4.5 theaters to a conflict with Iran.
1 - waters of the gulf
2 - Iranian borders
3 - Israel
4 - CONUS
the .5 is the internet

Post-conflict strategy is dependent on the outcome in each of those theaters.

I think it will range from quelling a coup by the IRGC (1920s Japan style), to spinning up WWIII.

in between you will have Iran attempting to manage a situation I don't think they have the C2 to handle. While Iran looks like they have hedged all their strategic bets. Once conflict starts, I don't think they can control it, and the State as it exists today will be lost.

[A.E.]

I think that's true. That's why I make the point that maintaining the apparatus of control and retaliation are mutually exclusive objectives. An Iranian decision-maker would have a very hard question of whether they want to set in motion processes that would be very hard to control.

[YNSN]

With the SoH literally on their doorstep, and the most likely first move being to attempt to mine it, not to mention random shots at tankers of various flags, I do not see how even the US could keep this from escalating into a major war. By major I mean multiple nations involved that usually are not--China, Russia and every other major oil consumer. That is where the biggest ripples will come from in this.

The Tanker War redux will not keep oil prices where they are today. If Iran moves to cut off oil, no matter if Israel also directly attacked civilians do I think the Int't community would direct it's anger at Israel.

Iran's strategic hedge of the SoH has far too much collateral damage involved in using it.

I also think that the IRGC is foolish to think that we would ever place major ground forces in Iran. We have no need to, they ground forces--aside of missiles--will not play a major role in this conflict. Unless, they strike into their neighbors where the US is present.

End game, I say is 60/40 in favor of a regime change, Israel in chaos, the world financial system in major turmoil for the rest of FY11, Oil at $110 a barrel, IRQ's only oil terminal damaged-not destroyed, Bahrain/FIFTH Fleet HQ attacked and Mina Salman mined same with Qatar and Kuwait, Mecca/Riyadh with insurgent attacks (brings the arabs into the US-ISR coalition?, almost major terrorist attacks in 1 or 2 US cities, SoH closed to shipping for 2 months+, China I would like to say sides with the US. But, I don't know.

In the aftermath, nothing between the Israelis and Palestinians is settled.

Should we hope for a Gulf War or an OIF with Iran...

[A.E.]

Sounds like a wonderful FUBAR future. Yet in none of the calls to attack Iran are these addressed.

[YNSN]

I think that they are. We just don't hear about the assessments. For the US this is a geopolitical thing. For Israel, they perceive this as about survival.

[A.E.]

I remember a JFQ analysis about the US mirror-imaging Israel. It happens persistently .