Tehran’s empty threat to close the Strait of Hormuz represents an opportunity for America. If President Obama plays his cards right, he could help slow Iran’s nuclear threat, promote hopes of regime change there, regain some lost trust with Israelis — and even boost his re-election chances.
All he has to do is publicly tear off the mullahs’ mask of invincibility.
On Tuesday, Iran ended its 10-day Persian Gulf muscle-flexing by issuing a stark warning for the US Navy’s aircraft carrier John C. Stennis: Stay out of the Gulf.
“I advise, recommend and warn” against “the return of this carrier to the Persian Gulf, because we are not in the habit of warning more than once,” said Iran’s armed-forces chief Major Gen. Ataollah Salehi.
As most military analysts will tell you, the Iranian on-again-off-again threat to block the major naval artery, through which a third of the world’s shipped crude oil passes daily, is an empty threat.
The mullahs are out to derail the sanctions America enacted at the new year, when it slapped Iran’s central bank in hopes of crippling Iran’s oil exports. The regime combined the threat on the strait (meant to spook the oil markets) with an offer to launch new talks with the West: It wants to return to the old diplomacy-threat-diplomacy cycle that has worked so well for it for decades.
In fact, Iran’s naval capabilities are so inferior to America’s that Tehran simply won’t hazard a confrontation. “I don’t believe the Iranians would dare to block the Strait of Hormuz,” says Ronen Bergman, one of Israel’s best-plugged-in intelligence analysts and author of “The Secret War With Iran.”
Iran, a superior player on the regional chess board, is really hoping for new negotiations — thus slowing the Euro-American sanction drive and gaining more time to advance its nuclear program.
Obama’s best counter is to pass on the chess match — and instead play a game he’s said to be great at: poker. Call Salehi’s bluff. Immediately send a carrier through Hormuz and use TV cameras (and his briefing of Pentagon reporters today) to show the world that the Gulf is open for all shipping.
A Wall Street Journal editorial suggested just that yesterday — but didn’t note how, even in Obama’s view of international relations, this move has few downsides (closing shipping lanes is a huge international law no-no) and many benefits.
By exposing Iran’s naval weakness, we may be able to peel off some of Tehran’s enablers (from small Gulf states to Latin American Chavistas) who value military muscle and ally themselves with Iran partly because they believe it’s a rising power.
And exposing the Great and Powerful Iran as just a little man behind a curtain should boost Iran’s internal dissent (which is growing quietly) as well.
Then there’s Israel. As Bergman told journalists yesterday at a briefing organized by The Israel Project, Israelis increasingly believe that “on a tactical level, sanctions do work,” but strategically, “they haven’t achieved the desired outcome” of stopping Iran’s nuclear drive. Also, he says, many Israelis believe that the covert operations that have long slowed down Iran’s race to the bomb are now “past their peak” effectiveness.
All of this (and the growing assumption that Jerusalem won’t wait for a US “green light” for a wider military operation) makes a military-averse Obama administration rather uneasy about Israel’s next move. A bold maneuver in the Gulf now could help regain some trust in Jerusalem and lead to better coordination with Washington.
Finally, sending ships into the Gulf could add a dimension to Obama’s “I killed Osama bin Laden and Khadafy” campaign boasts — countering Republican plans to exploit Obama’s perceived weakness on Iran.
Long term, the safest move here, for the president and for the nation, is to heed Adm. David Farragut: Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!