The Islamic regime’s remnants are keenly aware of American electoral dynamics — their best opportunity for an advantageous settlement to the war.
The report CNN published last Wednesday was notable only for its mention of the milestone that America achieved at the Strait of Hormuz. The U.S. escorted 40 ships carrying about 18 million barrels of oil, close to the pre-war average of 20 million barrels (minus Iranian exports, of course). Other than that, events at the strait have settled into a fraught but almost predictable pattern — one in which the U.S. has the upper hand:
The US used a range of air, sea, and space assets to not only continue hitting Iran’s capability to attack commercial vessels in the strait but simultaneously fended off waves of drone attacks as it conducted the risky escort operations for the ships carrying millions of barrels of oil.
Indeed, throughout the summer, U.S. forces have continued to quietly but persistently degrade the offensive capabilities and radar systems that Iran has used to effectively target commercial shipping in the strait. So, over the weekend, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps tried something different. According to U.S. Central Command, the IRGC fired ballistic missiles at an aircraft carrier and a guided-missile destroyer, both of which “successfully evaded” the attack. That escalatory conduct is interesting. Perhaps more interesting was the response: American forces targeted and either disabled or destroyed Iranian oil tankers.
The shift in American tactics has geostrategic implications, the Wall Street Journal explained:
The U.S. had avoided responding to Iranian attacks on ships through August as it shifted away from military action in favor of relying on economic pressure to squeeze Iran. But that restraint had worried Gulf allies, whose economies are being hurt by the fighting and attacks on their oil exports, because they feared Iran would escalate militarily in response to pressure on its economy.
Those fears are well founded. According to a subsequent Journal report, the combination of a crippling U.S. sanctions regime and the American maritime blockade will compel the Iranians to make some hard choices.
Iran “is still living off the profit” it acquired during the brief interlude in the fighting, when Trump’s fatally flawed memorandum of understanding with the Islamic Republic allowed Tehran to sell oil and its derivatives on the open market for hard U.S. cash. That folly is now a distant memory, and the money is running out. The shipping tracker Kpler “estimates that current deliveries of around a million barrels a day — which mostly go to China — could exhaust the store of Iranian oil on the water by mid-October,” forecasts the WSJ. “Payments for previously delivered cargoes would likely dry up by mid-December.”
So, five weeks or so. That’s it. At that point, the Iranian regime will not be flat broke, but it will be strapped enough that it will have to triage its resources or further inflate the currency — putting salaries in the pockets of regime officials, soldiers, and proxies at the expense of the rial’s value.
Regional observers believe that Iran will attempt to escalate its way out of this crisis before that happens. The timeline that the Journal lays out fits with at least one of Tehran’s strategic objectives. After all, what better time to attempt to embarrass the American president with an unforeseen surprise than October of an election year?
The Islamic regime’s remnants are keenly aware that American electoral dynamics represent their best opportunity for an advantageous settlement to the war. Iranian domestic media have “published more than 1,200 Persian-language articles within the past two weeks about Trump and the midterm elections,” the Jerusalem Post reported.
Last month, Foundation for Defense of Democracies chief executive Mark Dubowitz warned that Iran is likely to reprise the tactic that it pioneered with the 1980 hostage crisis, the “October surprise”:
We may soon face another Iranian ploy aimed at leveraging foreign elections to weaken the regime’s enemies.
Israel’s election is scheduled for Oct. 27; the US midterms are Nov. 3, exactly one week later.
That makes the end of October a potentially dangerous window for regime mischief.
Either a direct attack on the U.S. and its regional partners, or a large-scale escalation by terrorist proxies in the weeks leading up to the election, which compels either America or Israel to widen the war and send energy prices through the roof, Dubowitz wrote, would be “the regime’s ideal scenario.”
American and Israeli political, military and intelligence officials should agree on potential responses before missiles are flying, emotions are high, oil prices are spiking, poll numbers are dropping, and both governments are working at cross-purposes — straight into the Islamic Republic’s trap.
In that scenario, the best offense would be a good defense. Dubowitz is right, of course. The U.S. and Israel should coordinate a response to a destabilizing Iranian escalation now, but they should also do their utmost to limit the damage Iran can do by continuing to dictate the tempo of events in the region.