Iran – How Will This Unfold?

VIEWS FROM OUTSIDE THE APIARY: IAN FLETCHER

As missiles fly back and forward, between Iran and the West, Ian Fletcher analyses both the likely immediate repercussions, and the potential flow-on-effects, including in Ukraine and New Zealand.

By Ian Fletcher

So, the Americans and the Israelis have attacked Iran. Overwhelming air power (and some great intelligence work by the Israelis) is dominating. What should we think?

The fighting itself? If there is a target that can be seen from the air, or identified by intelligence means, it will be hit. Iran’s top leadership seems to have been killed, or is likely to be. The Iranian response – so far – has been ineffective. It will take luck on their part to score any serious hits.

But there are limits to what the Americans and the Israelis can do. Firstly, they have probably only got enough attack munitions for a couple of weeks. That’ll do enormous damage, but it will end. Secondly, the Iranians will be able to make the Israelis (especially) use up a lot of their defensive weapons (the missiles that shoot down missiles). In the short war last year, this was a serious issue and one of the reasons the fighting stopped.

The Americans are calling for the Iranian people to ‘rise up’ and overthrow the regime. This is borderline fanciful. The Iranians (inexplicably) don’t like being bombed, and may rally around the regime. Secondly, the ruling clerical class (the religious leaders) number around 10,000. They are expecting this attack and have succession plans in place (short wars are always good for the careers of the survivors). The leadership welcome a martyr’s death, so there will be no lack of volunteers.

Most importantly, the regime security forces have no reason to turn on the leadership. They fear a revolution (they know; they started one in 1979, and it doesn’t end well for the losers). So, they will not hesitate to defend their grip on power. In a fight between unarmed civilians and soldiers with machine guns, the machine guns win. History shows that oppressive regimes only fall when either the security forces change sides, or there is an actual invasion. The Americans will not invade. So, don’t expect a successful popular revolution yet.

Ian Fletcher.

On the other hand, the regime is weak and deeply unpopular. The economy is collapsing, and Iran’s non-Persian ethnic groups (about half the 90m population) are oppressed. So, the Iranian government won’t want to test exactly how bad things need to get before the security forces change sides. There will be a deal, with new faces on the Iranian side. And probably by the end of March.

At some point, the Iranians will take the obvious package: no nuclear programme, no long-range missiles, and stop supporting Hezbollah and the Houthis in Yemen (the people who attack ships en route to the Suez Canal). In return, sanctions relief. That’s a big deal for us all.

It would bring Iranian oil back into the world market – dropping prices long term (the market is already saturated). That would also undercut or replace Russian sales (Russian oil sells cheaply to get around sanctions). Economic pressure on Russia goes up. I also expect the Iranians would stop selling cheap, nasty drones to the Russians. Pressure on Ukraine will drop, perhaps a lot. Iran may also re-enter the market for sheep-meat, especially live sheep. New Zealand used to have a very large market there. We need to consider our response.

In the Middle East, it would leave Israel under less threat, and probably under more political pressure to settle in Gaza (as no one has quite lost yet, low level conflict continues). It would see Iran leave the regional stage for a while – leading to a peace dividend in the Gulf States (investment boom ahead). And it would leave Turkey as the largest regional power other than Israel. We should all pay more attention to Turkey, and to the troubled region along Iran’s northern border, from Turkey to Afghanistan.

What lessons should New Zealand draw? Firstly, much as we might not want to face it, we are totally dependent on American power. We use American software (Microsoft, Apple, social media, for example), over an internet that is largely American controlled. We rely on the US to keep global sea-lanes open, and trade and borrow using a global financial system that is dollar-driven. The Iranian war shows today that the US is able to impose itself by force anywhere, except where it would need to use ground forces (the Americans just won’t accept the sort of losses the Ukrainians tolerate, for example). So, they are absolutely dominant in the air, sea, financial and cyber domains. For New Zealand, that means this power underpins our way of life. We may be repelled by cavalier acts of aggression, but we need the aggressor. Foreign affairs always involve moral ambiguity, and here it is.

"We may be repelled by cavalier acts of aggression, but we need the aggressor. Foreign affairs always involve moral ambiguity, and here it is."

This war is notable as the first one for decades where the US Administration has not notified Congress in advance. This reassertion of executive power (back to the way things were before the Vietnam War) is relevant: the American world view is now less benign, less patient, and more inclined to conclude that the end justifies the means. Gunboat diplomacy is what it used to be called. It’s back. Just ask the Cubans.

At the same time, the balance of powers within the US is in flux (with the federal government, States, the courts and Congress all jostling for position). The US Constitution is 250 years old. It’s being changed as we watch, without actually being amended. Politics is always the art of the possible.

A final thought: Israel (especially Netanyahu, the Prime Minister) has talked up the ‘imminent’ threat of an Iranian nuclear weapon for decades. If he’s right, we’re about to find out.

Ian Fletcher is a former head of New Zealand’s security agency, the GCSB, chief executive of the UK Patents Office, free trade negotiator with the European Commission and biosecurity expert for the Queensland government. These days he is a commercial flower grower in the Wairarapa and consultant to the apiculture industry with NZ Beekeeping Inc.