Opinion After US airstrikes, Iran has few options, none of them good

Quite predictably, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi has condemned these attacks in unequivocal terms, referring to them as “barbaric” and a violation of international law. Other high military officials in Iran have also promised to retaliate against the United States.

Back home in the United States, a handful of the members of the US Congress, both in the House and the Senate, have stated that President Donald Trump’s decision to launch these attacks constitutes a violation of the War Powers Act. Most of the critics are Democrats, but a handful of Republicans have also expressed their misgivings about the use of force without appropriate Congressional authorisation. Trump, of course, has already threatened to run a candidate of his choice against Congressman Thomas Massie of Kentucky, who had criticised the President’s unilateral actions.

What transpires next, especially in the region, remains an open question. In Israel, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is obviously pleased with Trump’s decision to enter the fray. Even though Israel had quickly achieved air superiority over Iran’s skies and had decimated its ground-to-air defence capabilities, it lacked the military wherewithal to launch an effective strike against the underground facility at Fordow. Trump’s decision to attack Fordow has, at least at first blush, helped Israel achieve one of its military goals. With explicit American support for its stated military objectives, Israel is likely to feel even more emboldened. Consequently, it is likely to sustain its military campaign against Iran in the immediate future.

How might Iran, which now finds itself quite beleaguered, respond? Given the presence of American military personnel and a range of US military bases in its immediate vicinity, it may lash out at them, invoking the inherent right to self-defence. The Iranian regime may well deem these acts to be necessary for the purposes of bolstering popular support at home, which had been steadily sagging before the onset of this conflict with Israel and now the United States. In the wake of the attacks, especially those of the United States, press reports indicate that there is a “rally around the flag” syndrome within Iran. Even Iranians who have grave reservations about Ayatollah Khamenei’s Islamic regime are of the view that they find the US and Israeli attacks on their homeland to be unacceptable.

The US attacks, then, may have provided the regime a temporary reprieve. However, it is unlikely to last very long as the day-to-day privations that ordinary Iranians face will soon come to the fore once again. In the meanwhile, the retaliatory options of the regime are limited. It will, no doubt, continue to utilise its drone and missile capabilities to attack Israel but at the same time, it is unclear how many of these munitions remain in its arsenal.

Also, unlike in the past, its client organisations, such as Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in the Gaza Strip, have, for all practical purposes, been decimated in recent days. Only the Houthis in Yemen, who are quite hostile towards the United States, remain. Nevertheless, they can only inflict a finite amount of damage on US forces and commercial shipping in the region. Consequently, their actions, for the most part, are likely to be symbolic. The US, which had previously used force against the Houthis, will retaliate against them, and this time with greater fury.

If these assumptions are correct, the Islamic regime may find itself truly besieged. After the initial wave of support wanes, it will quickly discover that its military options are quite limited. Had the US not intervened in this conflict, despite the obvious weaknesses of its air defences, it could have continued to wreak some havoc on Israel through its reliance on drones and missiles. It may well continue down that path but is likely to discover that it is an increasingly unviable strategy.

Under these very trying and constrained circumstances, what else might Tehran do? It will, no doubt, seek the military and diplomatic assistance of its two key allies, the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and Russia. Already, both states have diplomatically lined up with Iran, though the PRC’s support for Iran has been less full-throated. The PRC, which has considerable investments in Iran, may nevertheless provide some military assistance. However, these are unlikely to turn the tide of the war and will only be of symbolic significance. Russia, which remains tied down in the Ukraine imbroglio, will find it difficult to provide any substantial military assistance to its West Asian ally. At best, it will sustain its diplomatic support for Iran. This, nevertheless, will amount to what scholars of international relations refer to as “cheap talk”. Words that do not entail serious costs.

With the Iranian regime on the ropes, some within the Trump administration and most within Netanyahu’s government are, no doubt, hoping that a collapse of the much-despised Khamenei regime is either imminent or, in any case, on the cards before too long. The end of the Islamic regime would bring much joy in those quarters. However, the adage “be careful about what you wish for” may well be an apt warning to both groups. Deposing Saddam Hussein in Iraq brought much initial glee to those who orchestrated his downfall. The aftermath, however, did not turn out well for the United States, or the region at large.

The writer is a senior fellow and directs the Huntington Program on Strengthening US-India Relations at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University