Mid-East war has no clear end in sight after three weeks

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PARIS – The Middle East war has entered a new phase with regular attacks on globally important energy infrastructure, but there is still no obvious way out, with Washington’s objectives and Tehran’s ability to maintain long-term pressure both unclear.

Expansion

The conflict sparked on Feb 28 by US-Israeli bombardment of Iran is grinding into its fourth week, with Iranian attacks on energy infrastructure in the Gulf and Israeli strikes reaching the Caspian Sea.

Tehran has vowed to retaliate after an Israeli strike on March 18 damaged Iran’s South Pars gas field, which draws on the world’s biggest known gas reserve and is vital for domestic supplies.

On March 20, drone attacks hit Kuwait’s giant Mina Al-Ahmadi refinery, a day after a direct hit on Qatar’s vital Ras Laffan natural gas facility.

Geographically, too, the conflict has spread.

Iran on March 20 tried and failed to hit a joint UK-US military base in the Indian Ocean, a UK official said, after the Wall Street Journal reported Tehran fired two ballistic missiles at it.

On March 19 and 20, Israel said its jets hit several Iranian naval vessels in the Caspian Sea and Iran’s Noor region on its shores.

Iran’s de facto blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, through which 20 per cent of the world’s oil and gas normally flows, and the attacks on energy infrastructure have sent crude oil prices soaring.

A barrel of North Sea Brent crude was up more than 50 per cent over the past month and now comfortably more than US$105.

Way out?

A diplomatic solution to the conflict seems unlikely.

The United States and Israel are pursuing their campaign to take out members of the Iranian leadership, after killing supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in the first hour of the war.

On March 18, they killed national security chief Ali Larijani, in what was likely the biggest loss to the Islamic republic since then.

Israel seems to be aiming for regime change in Tehran, while US Donald Trump has given shifting goals for the war, including ousting Iran’s clerical leaders.

But on March 20 he said he was considering “winding down” military operations, listing the objectives as ensuring Iran could never get a nuclear weapon, protecting Gulf allies, and destroying Tehran’s missile arsenal, navy, air force and industrial base.

The White House press secretary said the Pentagon was looking at four to six weeks to complete its mission.

Mr Trump earlier rejected the idea of a ceasefire, claiming the United States and Israel were “literally obliterating” Iran.

As for Iran, by extending the conflict to the whole region, it may have alienated Gulf countries who could have acted as mediators to bring about a truce.

Can Iran keep it up?

Day after day, US and Israeli air power pound Iranian military sites to destroy its missile launchers, stockpiles and production capabilities.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on March 19 claimed that Iran no longer had the capacity to manufacture ballistic missiles.

Iran’s Revolutionary Guards spokesman Ali Mohammad Naini refuted those claims, saying that “even under wartime conditions”, Iran was continuing missile production.

An US-Israel strike killed him at dawn on March 20.

The number of Iranian strikes on Gulf countries has dropped since the start of the war.

On March 20, the United Arab Emirates said its air defences detected 26 drones and four ballistic missiles, far less than the 117 drones and 17 missiles more than 10 days earlier on March 8.

But analyst Kelly Grieco, of the Stimson Center, warned against jumping to hasty conclusions.

“Tehran may have simply concluded that a lower, sustained launch rate is sufficient to maintain coercive pressure on Gulf states, while conserving inventory for a conflict that could last months,” she wrote March 16 on news commentary website War On The Rocks.

Reopening Hormuz

Reopening the Hormuz Strait to tankers would be risky for the United States.

It “will require the United States to concentrate its forces in a relatively small area”, said executive director of IISS-Middle East Martin Sampson.

“For Iran, this will be a target-rich environment,” he said.

Beyond unblocking the actual chokepoint, any power wishing to secure maritime traffic would have to control four islands at the entrance of the Gulf, analyst Pierre Razoux said.

But Iran had turned Siri, Greater Tunb, Lesser Tunb and Abu Moussa into “mini-fortresses, with anti-ship missiles”, he added.

US media last week reported that the Pentagon has dispatched the amphibious assault ship USS Tripoli and around 2,500 Marines to the region.

They “can clearly be used to land on these islands” in order to “secure the shipping lane,” Mr Razoux said.

Mr Daniel Schneiderman, of Penn Washington, said he thought scenarios likely being studied included using the marines “to land on and hold Kharg Island, the site through which 90 per cent of Iran’s oil exports pass” further north inside the Gulf.

Another would be establishing “a beachhead on the Iranian coast to restore freedom of navigation through the Strait of Hormuz”, he added.

The Wall Street Journal said on March 20 Washington was deploying between 2,200 and 2,500 US Marines from the California-based USS Boxer Amphibious Ready Group and 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit.

Any of these missions “will almost certainly come at significant costs in terms of troops killed and equipment lost,” Mr Schneiderman added.

Mr Trump on March 20 demanded allies help to secure the strait, saying the United States did not use it.

Houthis

The conflict could widen still if the Iran-backed Houthi rebels controlling the Yemen capital joined in.

“The Houthis have yet to enter the expanding regional war,” said Betul Dogan Akkas of Ankara University.

“But their ability to disrupt shipping, strike Gulf energy infrastructure, and pressure regional rivals makes them the conflict’s most unpredictable actor.” AFP