18 Comments

Curt:

The 3 reasons I can think of that Iran would initiate such a provocation are:

1. They wish to test our nerve and defenses, in case of future confrontation in the Gulf;
2. Akmadinajad (sp)is attempting to create a crisis for internal purposes; and
3. Iran wishes to start a crisis that would drive up oil prices.

Have I missed anything?

Jan 9, 2008 - 10:55 am JasonC:

Yes, you missed one other reason. With Bush in Israel, Iran wishes to signal that even an independent Israeli strike on their nuclear facilities, without direct US involvement, would immediately draw a response against the straits, leading directly to military confronation between the US and Iran.

They read our own unwillingness to do anything directly - highlighted by the NIE - as showing we would find such a confrontation politically too painful at this time. They think we have leverage with the Israelis, are more “dovish” or weak on Iran, and can get the Israelis to lay off.

Hence the timing. None of your other explanations account for the timing, this one does.

Jan 9, 2008 - 6:11 pm a Duoist:

The psychology of Iranian theofascism will drive the regime to seek constant confrontation. The high anxiety level of puritanism in theofascism ideology guarantees that this latest Persian Gulf incident is only one in a long string of confrontations to come, following nearly thirty years of anti-American behavior.

The puritanical theofascist is psychically compelled to test its moral values against the inferior moral values of others, in a never-ending flirtation with its own death. Five lightly armed speed boats jumping wakes and bellicose grandstanding afterward are symptomatic of the
irrational, bullying nature of theofascism: In your face, you impotent and corrupt…

Once theofascism is nuclear armed, its constant confrontational nature will mean that another world war is almost certain.

Jan 9, 2008 - 6:39 pm Ira Zad:

“Once upon a time I used to end my columns on Iran with “Faster, Please.” But I stopped, because it was so clear we weren’t going to do anything serious, faster or slower.”
I not only agree with you, Dr. Ledeen, but I applaud you for your correct assertion about the same for quiet a while now, before it was so clear as it is now.

The Tehran Theocracy’s hardline faction, i.e., Ahmadinejad and Khamenei and their cohorts had obviously pre-planned and pre-staged this ridiculous show of thuggish-ness in the gulf.

As to the reasons for it, here is why I think they did it:

1) To send a warning to US and Israel (however unprofessionally and clumsily); by making it coincide with Bush’s trip to Israel where he wants to unite the region against Iran and its clients Hezbollah and Hamas. The message being that they can, at any time of their choosing, attempt to blow up a hole in the side of a US navy ship (like the Yemen event during Bill Clinton.)

2) To show –once again– that they (Iranian regime) are irrational, international thugs and rogues who do not give a hoot about international maritime protocol or law. A kind of thuggish “Don’t Mess with Me” message.

3) To send a loud warning to the “reformists” (mullahs with European ties) inside the Iranian regime who are now preparing themselves to be included in the parliamentary elections in 2 months time in Iran. Khamenei made a speech only yesterday condemning those “reformists” whom he called “traitors” for calling for the presence of international observers (including American observers) during the said elections. Khamenei also heard what Bush said a day or two ago that he, Bush, supports “moderate leaders” from Tehran to Damascus to Beirut (It now seems painfully clear that our President has totally lost grip on Iran, and has lost his way on Iran altogether to the forces of appeasement in the state department who support the European mullahs faction in Iran.)

4) The Iranian regime knows that US/Bush cannot do anything militarily against them right now since this is an election year, and also due to the NIE on Iran which helped the mullahs greatly in their objectives. So, they are pulling Bush’s chain by these theatrics in the gulf to show to all Arab gulf states that, as the mammoth banner inscription says above Khamenei’s head whenever he delivers a speech, “America Cannot Do a Damn Thing!” (This is, incidentally, Khomeini’s old phrase.)

So, yeah, unless something really unexpected happens between now and 2009, it seems that this President will be retreating into his bunker on Iran for the rest of his term: And that is exactly what the mullahs are hoping for.

The mullahs also hope for Hussein Obama, who has a soft spot in his heart for all Islamists internationally, to get into the White House in 2009; when we will all be in bed together with Iranian regime, and be singing kumbaya with the mullahs as conducted by Hussein Obama himself. But that will only mean that the mullahs will get us again and again, on the time of their choosing. And that the regime will, on a more likely basis than not, get their nuclear weapons during Obama’s term.

Treacherous days await America.

http://mor2com.blogspot.com/

Jan 10, 2008 - 12:24 am David W. Lincoln:

I am thinking that the US Navy would have examined what went wrong with the USS Cole, and have trained the boys and girls to have faster reaction times.

So, we have the Revolutionary Guards testing the US Navy to see how fast those reaction times are.

It is a plausible explanation, and that’s about the extent of how far an alternative answer can be plausible.

Jan 10, 2008 - 12:53 am David Thomson:

The feckless Bush administration missed a golden opportunity to send a clear message to our enemies. Our military forces should have blown the Iranian attackers out of the water. This would have been the calm and rational response. The verbal threat by the Iranians alone justified such a response.

ML:

well i don’t know the Rules of Engagement, and I will probably not know, since they are properly classified. i tend to agree with you, obviously.

Jan 10, 2008 - 11:58 am Curt:

An AP “News Analysis” states that Bush could benefit from this latest exercise in Iranian belicosity, in that Bush would have an easier time convincing the “moderate” Sunni states that Iran is indeed a risk, and that it would be in their interest to side with America and Israel against the Iranians.

Coincidentally, I read an article before the boat confrontation that claimed the Gulf states weren’t as worried about Iran as they used to be, and so weren’t as apt to side with America in the conflict. Maybe this incident will help change that perception.

Jan 10, 2008 - 4:44 pm Harry:

Iran’s purpose was to disrupt Bush’s ME meetings. Iran is afraid of unity between the US and the GCC. Heaven knows peace between Israel and Palestine resides in some other universe. I doubt Iran is too concerned about the peace process especially when they hold key cards to instability. Iran has been asking for a smack for some time now and I guess this will only add to it if and when it comes.
I received an e-mail from a high school chum who urged us to fax Bush regarding Jonathan Pollard’s release for spying on America for Israel. I’d like to ask Mr. Ledeen if he could enlighten us on the reasons Pollard is still in jail and why his release, urged by many, are denied?

ML:

I’m not the right person to ask about Pollard. I thought we should have executed him.

Jan 10, 2008 - 10:53 pm azad.andish:

Suppose you are a greedy brutal rascal. You kill whoever you want. You make whatever destructive missiles you wish and you commit all and any kind of inhuman actions one can imagine ( and sometimes even cannot imagine ). As a response all those who were once thought to be able to stop you from acting insanely send their smiling “politicians” to “negotiate” with you and beg you to prove that you are a saint not a satan. You continue your inhuman acts and tell them their decisions are worthless papers. When you do not even try to prove you are a saint their intelligence comes to the scene and prepares a report and unilaterally says you are not as bad as one may think.
Result : you get more aggressive against timid simpletons.
What do you think would have happened if the US ship was blown up by mullahs? NOTHING. They have blowing up US one-man ships in Iraq and Afghanistan for the past years and NOTHING has happened.
Until Mr and Mrs Hamlets are running the US administration the storey will repeated. Alas!

Jan 11, 2008 - 1:53 am Harry:

Mr. Ledeen, your response says it all, Thanks.

Jan 11, 2008 - 6:45 am Mickey:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/7181929.stm

If this story is true it looks as though the Iranians were trying to provoke the ships into firing on the speedboats without the speedboat crews knowing that they were cannon fodder. They could subsequently claim that the speedboats were victim of unprovoked American agression.

ML:

How can the BBC possibly know about the intentions of the commanders of the speedboats?

Jan 11, 2008 - 10:06 am Darlene:

White boxes that floated,five or six of them, were released from the Iranian fast boats who were circling our ships. What were they?

They may have been tests of drift rates or merely items to force our ships to dodge so that they could gain information about our reaction times. Or More likely, in my opinion, they were a precursor for a new type of acquatic IED that the Iranian Republican Guard is developing– or has developed. If the latter is true and they are still floating out there they are a danger to any ship in the area.

Should this happen again I think we should shoot one of those white boxes and see if it explodes. If not and it merely sinks then we dont have to doge it. If they are still floating around maybe one will wash ashore and we can get lucky and examine it. Another thought is that surely we have the capability to safely pluck one out of the water to examine it. I suspect the US navy is doing all of this and just not telling us or them about it. And you can be sure if we start shooting boxes then those fast boats will set speed records rturning to Iranian shores.

Sure the timing was related to the Bush visit to the Middle east, however, it is now coming out that this is the third such incident over the past month.It is also certain that there is an internal and an external motive behind it But no matter how you draw it the clear desire by Iran is to blow up a US Naval vessel and if they do that means war.

This is a great story to depict the irrational fanatism of the Iranian regime but the story of the Squirrels that they captured because they were CIA spies is still my favorite. And in actuality you know squirrels would make great spies because they can get in anywhere and they love all sorts of nuts.

I love your books on Iran Michael, your writings at National Review and AIE. and of course this your blog. You have taught me a lot and I thank you!!. Keep it up, more and more people are becoming informed because of your work–Never give up!!

Jan 11, 2008 - 8:34 pm Alireza:

What happened in the Straits of Hormuz makes the point that neither U.S. military nor the Iranian side is really looking for REAL engagement. Both sides know about the other side’s capabilities and both sides know the end result will not benefit either side.

It is also clear the Iran wanted to make its point about Bush’s trip to the region. That’s not hard to understand.

My sense is that very possibly the U.S. Navy ALREADY had 110% political support to make such an engagement and fire and cause damage under such scenario.

However, I also sense that U.S. military, just like the war game that took place in 2002 (ww.nytimes.com/2008/01/12/washington/12navy.html?em&ex=1200286800&en=fcced6bdad2a32c4&ei=5087%0A), knew more not to make such an engagement to take place, where lots of people would have been killed and this event—or a similar scenario–
would have looked like 9/11 where many U.S. ships and people would die and that in itself allows the U.S. to nuke Iran. This NY Times article about the war game that took place in 2002 is very shocking.

So for U.S. to get to that point of calamity much worse than 9/11 must happen, like sinking most of U.S. navy ships in Persian Gulf, which then allows U.S. president to unleash the nuclear bombs on Iran.

I have a feeling that U.S. military knows about this political imagination that they have to be sacrificed FIRST to justify U.S. to nuke Iran. So I feel bad that U.S. Navy not only should look for Revolutionary Guards people around their ships, but they also must watch what’s is being cooked for them in Washington DC.

I could be called paranoid, but given recent political and military events, paranoid thinking is becoming more way of achieving political goals.

Jan 13, 2008 - 12:22 am winston:

It’s become very depressing…

Jan 13, 2008 - 11:38 am RCC:

1. I really don’t think that Ahmadinejad has any interests in ‘provoking’ the United States. I base that statement in the fact that a) he has no real military b) he has no means to halt our production or cause a cease-fire once a war started and c) However foolhearted, I take it as a small, albeit token, gesture of goodwill that he was willing to speak at the WTC site. Did you happen to witness the meeting he had with NYC rabbis, for I don’t know what to make of that. I had thought that he was an anti-semite, but I must be less certain now.

2. Both sides are running around the world accusing each other of being an aggressor. Right now, just speaking on the surface mind you, Mahmoud has some basic credibility in the fact that the U.S. Army is acting within 1000 miles of Tehran and the U.S. Navy is just offshore, ‘guarding’ one of the narrowest and most treacherous straits in the world. We don’t even like our carriers to be sent over there, the waters are shallow and there’s very little room to turn around; it’s incredibly risky just to navigate those waters.

I think we really have to ask ourselves, as Americans, what our role on this planet is supposed to be.

There are, and have been, other repressive societies in the past that we believed to be capable, ifnot determined, to assure the destruction of the U.S. When the Soviet Union “collapsed” post-1989, we all believed that the fear was over. Democracy had won, and basic human rights would be restored. Now, in 2008, we remain cautious of leaders such as Vladimir Putin as he continues to nationalize private industry and re-militarize his western borders. We now respond to him in kind. If the Soviet Union is to be a guide, then what are the long-term effects of any U.S. policy, what ability do we truly have to dictate the course of other civilizations — particularly civilizations that differ so much from our own?

We must examine our role in this world and ask ourselves exactly what our capacity is to determine global events. As time and this war have progressed, our allies, our manufacturing capacity, and our very currency have all greatly diminished to near-catastrophic proportions. Have you driven a Ford lately? Through Peshawar? The Fed is in perpetual free-fall while our debt to China — itself a repressive nuclear superpower — grows exponentially.

While I am to respect the rights of Mr. Ledeen for his views on democratic change in the interest in human rights, and I am wont to agree with him in spirit, I must seriously challenge our notions of what exactly we all are to perceive to be the limits of unilateral American influence in the 21st century?

We are entering into 2008 with the worst economic forecast in decades, the slipperiest Fed since the Great Depression, a dwindling middle class and a severely limited capacity for domestic production — in truth, our production capacity as well as our bond rating is a function of the blessings of Beijing, they that have financed our debts as well as this war.

Our currency is being replaced by the Euro in the global market and our standard of living is being outpaced by Japan and much of Western Europe.

Is our immense nuclear stockpile and the technological marvel that is the waning U.S. military enough for us all to continue our hard-lined policies in the Middle East? Is 12 million per hour not enough to finance our current defense budget as it presently stands?

I know what this all boils down to, this rhetoric between Bush and Mahmoud. I know the influence Iran has in Lebanon and I’ve been following the incursions by Hezbollah and Hamas in the past few years — in truth, affairs that go back to the 1960’s and before. There is little mistaking that there are factions within the Islamic community that are willing to carry out desperate acts to ensure the destruction of Israel, and I have no doubts that the money and the command structure leads directly back to Iran. But what of the extremist camps in Saudi Arabia? What of our use of wahabbi-ists in Lebanon? Recognizing the deeply divided and tribal nature of the region, have we not been left with no choice but to wage a war of morally-ambiguous opportunism, one that most-assuredly will result in generations of US-financed ethnic cleansing? Is this not the lesson of the bloody re-stratafication of Baghdad? Is Baghdad not but a mere microcosm of the entire Sunni/Shia Middle East crisis?

The problem I have is that this conflict is destroying American sovereignty and self-determination, it’s destroying American livelyhood, and it’s destroying American lives. And now, I am told, that the Powers that Be want to take the situation not just on the offensive, but on a nuclear offensive, against the wishes of several Joint Chiefs. People fear that Bush is capable of sacrificing the U.S.S. Enterprise or another warship in a staged event akin to the Gulf of Tonkin. If that were to occur, would you feel that to be a genuine act of aggression? In the tape released by the C.I.A concerning Hormuz, do you, yourself, identify any threatening voice that remotely sounds Persian?

Before the year ends, I feel that myself and the American people will know what it is like to be truly exhausted. We cannot continue as the world’s sole superpower, and we will very soon realize our inability to continue to do so. You will tell me that I’m arguing in favor of an isolationalist policy at the expense of Israel, and perhaps I am; perhaps I sometimes fear that the spirit of 1948 was just as misguided as the British conquest of India, but with global consequences. But have you not been reading about how very reluctant our cousins the Europeans are to visit this country, in spite of the growing economic incentives? Do you not see the valuation of the Dollar vs. Gold or the valuation of the Euro as a factor, itself, in imposing this country’s isolation? We will continue to model this country after Israel if this war is to continue, airport security was just the first among many steps toward that goal.

I’m not naturally pessimistic, but I fear we are to become the Soviets in Afghanistan, and we continue to stand and cheer Brezhnev as his aids smile and hold him upright.

I respect your views, Mr. Ledeen, for you must believe your views to benefit the good of all. But for myself, I see this as no time to begin misadventures in Persia. I must have to trust the NIE that states “Iran’s capacity to produce a nuclear weapon is limited” to about the next 15 years. I have to trust the intelligence community, for they truly know and understand the value of calculated risks.

Bush? I’m not so sure…

Thanks.
From somewhere in middle america.

ML:

Why would you trust the Intelligence Community after their proven failures over the past twenty-thirty years? That’s simply breathtaking.

And don’t you think that nearly thirty years of Iranian attacks against America and Americans are enough to justify at least some reaction?

Don’t you think Rumsfeld was right when he said that weakness is provocative?

For myself, quite aside from the ‘geopolitical’ issues, I think that America has a basic obligation to support democratic forces in tyrannical countries. Interestingly, the French foreign minister believes that all democratic countries have that obligation. So your narrow focus on America is, I think, too limited. This is a big war.

Jan 14, 2008 - 2:09 am Curt:

I read a very convincing article (via pajamas media?) in which it was predicted that Israel would bomb the Iran nuclear facility before the Russians deliver the nuclear fuel. If so, I would imagine that Iran would respond in numerous ways:
1. attempt to block or disrupt Persian Gulf shipping.
2. increase terrorist activity in Iraq.
3. direct Hezbollah to make attacks against Israel and/or Lebanon.

What’s are the thoughts here on an Israeli strike and Iranian response?

ML:

Well the Russians delivered the fuel and nothing happened. So that very convincing article was nonsense, wasn’t it?

I used to teach a logic class, in which one of the first principles was that you can’t produce a good analysis based on false premises.

Jan 14, 2008 - 12:32 pm Alireza:

In regard to U.S. navy news (**tp://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080114/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iran_us_navy) that the recorded threatening radio message might have been
work of a prankster, I think they are following the same path as the NIE report to lower the temperature that is working hard to boil and thicken the plot for the Fifth Fleet sacrificial phase. On one hand U.S. President comes out with very high voice and PR in retaliation, and then on the other side the U.S. Navy politely states maybe the whole thing was a set up.

This thing is getting very hot and U.S. Navy knows what’s cooking for them, so they know their main weapon right now is fighting back with PR campaign to lower the temperature.

ML:

You ever been on a warship? This is such nonsense…

Jan 14, 2008 - 5:24 pm Ira Zad:

Apparently, the US navy is now saying that such incidents with Iranian spped boats has happened 3 times before as wellen.

And no US reaction or even self-defense in any of these cases? This “U Turn”, as published in the WSJ today, could be part of the reason why Iranian regime is so emboldened now, and US hands so tied: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120027737099687613.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

Jan 15, 2008 - 1:34 pm

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