Is the closure of the Strait of Hormuz something unprecedented? Has the US military presence in the Gulf been linked principally to the Iranian threats in the region?
Answers to these two questions are interrelated. And the future course of the ongoing conflict between Iran on the one hand and the US and Israel on the other depends, perhaps, on the relevance of these two answers.
Coming to the first question, way back in the 1980s, the Strait of Hormuz was nearly closed when Iran, then fighting Iraq, planted mines, targeted ships, and threatened maritime traffic. In that sense, what Iran is doing today or threatening to do is a continuation of that policy. It is nothing new.
One may be reminded here of the anti-shipping campaigns during the Iran-Iraq War (1980-1988).
Known as “the Tanker War”, it began in 1981 when Iraq attacked ships carrying Iranian exports to weaken Iran’s ability to fight. Iraq declared that all ships going to or from Iranian ports in the northern zone of the Gulf were subject to attack.
Iraq used its air power to enforce its threats, primarily Super Frelon helicopters, F-1 Mirage, and MiG-23 fighters armed with Exocet anti-ship cruise missiles.
Iran then retaliated. But, as it did not have many effective anti-ship cruise missiles during 1984-1986, it used creative tactics when targeting ships by firing air-to-surface missiles that were originally intended to attack armored land vehicles.
Iran’s attacks caused little physical damage to ships, but successful hits on ships’ accommodation areas were said to have killed or wounded crew, interrupting transits in the process.
Against this background, the US Navy’s Fifth Fleet entered the region, after which an Iranian naval mine hit an American warship. That incident seems to have changed the rules of engagement, with the US now becoming a party to the so-called Gulf War for the first time since the end of World War II.
And, when Iran targeted Kuwait’s oil tankers, American flags were raised on these tankers, which were escorted by American naval vessels. US intervention subsequently led to the attacks on Iranian naval capabilities and some of its oil platforms.
However, things came to a halt when, on August 8, 1988, Iran and Iraq agreed to a ceasefire under American pressure.
However, the Tanker War initially led to a 25 percent drop in commercial shipping and a sharp rise in crude oil prices, but it did not significantly disrupt oil shipments.
In fact, Iran lowered oil prices to offset higher insurance premiums on shipments, and the real global oil price steadily declined during the 1980s. Even at its most intense point, the Tanker War failed to disrupt more than two percent of ships passing through the Persian Gulf.
Despite repeated Iranian threats to close the Strait of Hormuz during the Tanker War, Iran did not follow through with this threat, as it itself depended on the sea lanes for vital oil exports.
What is equally noteworthy and historically significant is that the Tanker War led to the permanent American military presence in the region. In what is the answer to the second question raised at the outset, before Iran’s attacks, the Americans did not have bases or warships in the Gulf.
Subsequently, with the then-Iraqi strongman Saddam Hussein falling from America’s grace for his attack on Kuwait, and then on its alleged stockpile of chemical weapons, America’s military presence in the region became stronger. The US established a permanent, large-scale military presence in the Gulf States primarily between 1990 and 2003.
It is true that during World War II, the US established a small consulate for military facilities in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia (1944). But after Iraq invaded Kuwait, the US formed a massive coalition and established a significant, long-term foothold in Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and later Kuwait.
Apparently, soon after some tensions arose in Saudi Arabia over the presence of American military personnel, the US removed its main command center (CENTCOM) from Saudi Arabia to Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar in 1996. Following the 2003 Iraq War, Camp Arifjan was constructed in Kuwait, further strengthening the presence.
Now, US military installations, housing thousands of personnel, are located in Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, the UAE, Iraq, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia, serving air, naval, and ground operations.
Key installations include Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar, the largest American base in the region; headquarters for the U.S. Fifth Fleet in Bahrain; a major Army logistics and command hub at Camp Arifjanin, Camp Buehring for support training and logistics and Ali Al Salem Air Basea key air combat facility – all in Kuwait; Al Dhafra Air Base and Jebel Ali Port Facility (Dubai) in the United Arab Emirates(UAE); Ain al-Asad Air Base and Erbil Air Base in Iraq; Muwaffaq Salti Air Base in Jordan, Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia; and Al-Tanf Garrison, a small post in southern Syria.
Reportedly, the US today has approximately 40,000 to 50,000 troops in the Middle East, “a fraction of the number the United States deployed in 2010, when it had over 100,000 troops in Iraq and around 70,000 in Afghanistan, as well as many more in neighboring countries”.
Given these facts, it is understandable why Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) leadership, which is the one that is fighting the war, is targeting American assets and infrastructure across the Gulf in an attempt to transform a bilateral conflict into a wider regional crisis that affects all the Gulf countries.
By emphasizing that it is striking Americans and their assets, not the Gulf governments as such, it, in effect, tells the Gulf monarchies that American military presence is the reason they are suffering.
Here, more than the military objective, Iran’s broader strategic goal is for the Gulf countries to see the American bases in their territories as magnets for escalation rather than shields, and then ask the Americans to leave.
So far, responses from the Gulf kingdoms have not met Iranian expectations, though, going by reactions on global social media, Tehran has every reason to be happy. The notable feature of the Gulf reaction is that of caution – coordination with the US on the security front without displaying overt political unity.
All told, the Gulf Sheikhdoms apprehend that in the absence of US forces, Tehran would find it easy to establish its regional supremacy by reviving its past policies towards the creation of pro-Iranian Shiite-led regimes in Iraq, Bahrain, Lebanon, and Syria.
For them, as Abdulrahman Al-Rashed, a Saudi journalist and intellectual, says, “the present war has revealed that Iran was planning to use its arsenal in its expansionist project, whose frantic destructive activity we see in the strikes against six Gulf countries, Iraq and Jordan, as well as reaching the Indian Ocean and Mediterranean Sea, in addition to its militias in Yemen, Lebanon and Iraq. Intentions are reflected by actions, not words.”
There is also a school of thought that without American presence, Iran will find it also easier to fulfill its nuclear ambition, something that will make the Arab allies that currently fall under the U.S. security umbrella, including Saudi Arabia and the UAE, take security into their own hands, which, in turn, could include attempts to build, or just buy, a nuclear weapon.
It is said that the American military presence in the Gulf implies beyond the standard explanations of ensuring “Oil and Gas Flow” for a stable global economy, and securing the existence of Israel as a nation.
A US withdrawal from the Gulf could create, so runs the argument, would not only create a power vacuum in the Middle East that China, Russia, or others might exploit but also send a message to other longtime American allies and partners in other parts of the world, particularly in the Indo-Pacific that the United States may not defend them should they be attacked.
In other words, it is a question of the reputation of a country that prides itself on being the world’s number one power.
And this being the case, despite his shifting rhetoric day after day, Trump, or for that matter any American President in his place, will not dare to leave the Gulf as per the dictates of the IRGC.
In fact, one should not be surprised that, on the other hand, American troops and bases are experiencing a massive military buildup, the largest since 2003.
Iran did not emerge exactly as the victor of the Tanker War. It is unlikely to be allowed victory this time, too.
- Author and veteran journalist Prakash Nanda is Chairman of the Editorial Board of the EurAsian Times and has been commenting on politics, foreign policy, and strategic affairs for nearly three decades. He is a former National Fellow of the Indian Council for Historical Research and a recipient of the Seoul Peace Prize Scholarship.
- CONTACT: prakash.nanda (at) hotmail.com
