Iran’s escalating employment of armed drones serves as a tactical metaphor for the shifting strategic balance between Washington and Tehran. President Joe Biden can take action against Iran’s drone force, or Iran will kill Americans with those drones. The threat is really that simple.
Consider what happened last Thursday. As it sailed off the Omani coast, an Israeli-owned oil tanker was attacked by an Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps drone. Two of the Mercer Street’s crew, a British national and a Romanian, were killed. Iran denies culpability, but the U.S., British, and Israeli governments all assess with high confidence that Tehran is responsible. This understanding is likely based on surveillance and signal monitoring of Iranian drone command centers, analysis of the explosives, and delivery mechanism employed.
Iran has launched a number of other mine and missile strikes on Israeli-owned vessels in 2021. In April, Israeli special forces retaliated by attacking an Iranian spy vessel, the Saviz. The IRGC has also significantly escalated its drone-launched attacks on U.S. military and intelligence personnel in Iraq. With those forces now withdrawing, Iran has accomplished its objective and will look to other priorities (such as mitigating Western influence in crisis-hit Lebanon).
The drones, however, remain a potent threat. And thus far, Biden has only been willing to respond with mealy-mouthed statements. As new hard-liner president Ebrahim Raisi takes office on Thursday, Iran senses that the weak response to its drone warfare means that it can act with increasing impunity in other areas.
Under guidance from Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, outgoing President Hassan Rouhani has deliberately slowed negotiations to see the United States return to the JCPOA nuclear accord. Now comes Raisi’s turn. He has already ruled out including Iran’s ballistic missile systems into a restored accord. And the Biden administration’s response?
Its once resolute pledge that the U.S. would return only to a more credible nuclear deal has dissolved into a more basic negotiating strategy. Namely, begging Iran to return to compliance in return for massive sanctions relief and an implicit commitment to inspection protocols that are not intrusive. Facing double-digit, sometimes triple-digit, inflation on basic goods (including foods), Iran desperately needs U.S. sanctions relief. But Biden is acting as if the leverage positions are reversed.
History as much as current circumstances prove that Biden’s concessionary policy won’t work. Back in 2011, Iran rewarded the Obama administration’s pursuit of detente with an attempt to blow up the Cafe Milano restaurant in Washington, D.C. Today, Iran remains determined to avenge Qassem Soleimani, with former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo a top target. As I first reported, this threat led Congress to authorize Pompeo’s continued Diplomatic Security Service protection.
Bombing a rocket depot on the Iraq-Syria border won’t cut it. If Biden is to deter Iran from killing Americans, he’s going to have to target its drone program directly. That needn’t mean a sustained air campaign but rather a delivery of proportionate education. The next time Iran uses drones to attack Americans, the drone command center involved should be destroyed. If not, expect Khamenei and Raisi to unleash the already emboldened IRGC Quds force commander Esmail Qaani.
And dead Americans to follow in Qaani’s wake.
