Will The US Hit Iran?

Iran's Return Handshake - Editorial
  
Iran has tested U.S. resolve with military escalation across the Middle East. Iranian involvement in attacks on Saudi oil production over the weekend marks a new phase.
     
President Trump is eager for direct talks with Iranian President Rouhani, and Secretary of State Pompeo floated a handshake meeting between the two at the coming UN General Assembly.
 
The weekend attack is Iran's return handshake.
(Wall Street Journal)


U.S.: Iran Fired Cruise Missiles in Attack - Martha Raddatz

Iran launched an attack from its territory on its neighbor, Saudi Arabia, using a dozen cruise missiles and over 20 drones to strike a key Saudi oil facility, a senior Trump administration official told ABC News. President Donald Trump warned the U.S. was "locked and loaded" to respond to the attack. A senior U.S. official told ABC News: "It was Iran. The Houthis are claiming credit for something they did not do." 
(ABC News)


Drone Strikes Knock Out Half of Saudi Oil Capacity
- John Defterios and Victoria Cavaliere
 
Drone strikes on key Saudi Arabian oil facilities in Abqaiq and Khurais have disrupted about half of the kingdom's oil capacity, or 5% of the daily global oil supply. While Yemen's Houthi rebels took responsibility for the attacks, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said: "Iran has now launched an unprecedented attack on the world's energy supply. There is no evidence the attacks came from Yemen." [The distance from Yemen to Abqaiq is 1,158 km. (720 miles).]
     
The U.S. "stands ready" to tap the country's Strategic Petroleum Reserve to steady oil markets if necessary, an Energy Department spokesperson said.
(CNN)
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UPDATES: 


Tehran Raises the Stakes - Amos Harel

The Iranian attack on Saudi oil installations is the most dramatic development in the Persian Gulf since the U.S. withdrew from the nuclear agreement in May 2018. 

The Iranian attack testifies to the improved capabilities of Iran's cruise missiles. While Israel is out of this system's current range, these capabilities are indicative of what might end up in the hands of Hizbullah. This signals the need for a speedy upgrade of Israeli defense and interception systems, with an emphasis on protecting strategic sites.
(Ha'aretz)


The International Community Needs to Get Tougher on Iran - Editorial

By any measure this is a geopolitical enormity, a deliberate attempt to disrupt the world's oil supplies, followed up by threats from the Revolutionary Guard to fire on U.S. warships in the Gulf. Nothing justifies Iran's random arrest of foreign nationals and threats to undermine the global economy. The time has come for a unified response to the menace emanating from Tehran.
(Telegraph-UK)


A Credibility Test - Michael Knights 

• If significant portions of the intelligence community conclude that the world's most important energy site has been hit by unprecedentedly advanced weapons launched directly from Iran or by the regime's proxies, the finding would challenge not only Riyadh and Washington, but the entire global energy community, including China.
• Iran has deliberately gone much further than its previous provocations, and if it avoids consequences once again, it may decide it has a free pass to go even further, whether against Saudi Arabia, Israel, or other U.S. partners. And other known global provocateurs will be watching how Washington responds, including Russia, China, and North Korea. For the sake of reestablishing deterrence, the attack must not go unanswered.

(Washington Institute for Near East Policy)
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Iran Sees No Drawback to Bellicose Strategy - David D. Kirkpatrick

Iranian scholars said Tehran has concluded that its recent aggressions have effectively strengthened its leverage with the West. Ali Ansari, a professor of Iranian history at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland, said that for Iranian hard-liners, "their policy of 'maximum resistance' is working."
   
Sanam Vakil, a scholar of Iran and the Persian Gulf at Chatham House policy institute in London, said the Iranians appear to have concluded from recent American actions that confrontation cannot lose, because even a potential American military action would almost certainly be a limited strike designed to avoid a prolonged ground war.
   
Domestically and in the region, surviving such a strike could strengthen the current Iranian government by rallying public opinion. "They are challenging American supremacy and forcing the international community to come to terms with a new relationship with the Islamic Republic," she said.
(New York Times)


Weighing U.S. Military Options in Iran - George Friedman

What will the U.S. do in response to Iran's drone and cruise missile attacks on Saudi Arabia's largest oil refinery? The attacks did not directly affect the U.S., save for the spike in oil prices, which actually helps the American oil industry.
   
There is a temptation to let the attacks slip into history. But the U.S. has formed an anti-Iran alliance in which Saudi Arabia is a key player. Doing nothing would call the U.S.-sponsored coalition into question. Failing to respond to an Iranian attack could help Iran increase its power throughout the region.
   
The Iranians know the dilemma they have posed for the U.S. They have bet that the risks are too high for the U.S. to respond.
(Geopolitical Futures)
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Range of Options Presented to Trump - Eric Schmitt and Edward Wong

Senior U.S. national security officials met to refine a list of potential targets to strike in Iran, should President Trump order a military retaliation. 
    
Saudi Arabia is said to fear that any military response could lead to further attacks against its vulnerable oil facilities.
(New York Times)


Many Options Short of War with Iran - Jeff Mason and Stephen Kalin

President Trump said there were many options short of war with Iran after its attack on U.S. ally Saudi Arabia's oil sites. "There are many options. There's the ultimate option and there are options that are a lot less than that," Trump said. "I'm saying the ultimate option meaning go in - war."  
(Reuters)


Operating in the "Gray Zone" to Counter Iran - Michael Eisenstadt

The combined drone/cruise missile strike against key Saudi oil facilities on Sep. 14 marks the most audacious in a series of Iranian asymmetric "gray zone" operations since May, all intended to counter Washington's "maximum pressure" policy. If Washington does not impose a military cost on Tehran for such actions, the regime will continue to escalate, with negative repercussions for the U.S. economy, American credibility, and regional stability.
    
Pursuing a gray zone strategy of its own represents Washington's best chance of avoiding significant escalation while buying time for its pressure campaign to work. Plausible deniability works both ways. The U.S. should respond in-kind to Iranian actions, using nonlethal ripostes to impose material costs.
    
Just as the Abqaiq strike demonstrated the vulnerability of Saudi oil facilities, Iran's own oil industry is vulnerable to sabotage, cyberattacks, and precision strikes. 90% of its oil exports go through a single terminal, Kharg Island. The U.S. should ensure that Tehran gets worse than it gives in these exchanges.
    
An effective U.S. gray zone strategy could help blunt Iran's counter-pressure campaign, constrain its ability to engage in destabilizing regional activities, and dissuade it from eventually attempting a slow-motion nuclear breakout. 

Conversely, failure to pursue such a strategy could embolden Tehran on all of these fronts. More fundamentally, if the U.S. does not operate successfully in the gray zone against a third-tier power like Iran, this will raise questions about its ability to counter much more capable actors like Russia and China in the years to come.
The writer is director of the Military and Security Studies Program at The Washington Institute.
(Washington Institute for Near East Policy)


The West Cannot Ignore Iran's Attacks - Editorial

Iran is the greatest threat to the West. It has worked for decades to undermine moderate Arab regimes in the Middle East, to develop and acquire nuclear weapons, and to arm and support some of the worst terrorist organizations known to man: Hizbullah, Hamas, and the Houthis.
    
Israel has single-handedly been fighting Iran along its different borders for years. Israel's conflict with Hamas and Hizbullah is, in reality, against Iran. Both groups are Tehran's proxies. The world cannot let Iran continue to get away with its attacks. The time has long come for Tehran to pay a price for its violence, support of terrorism and nuclear violations.
    
If Iran can get away with attacking the U.S., attacking Saudi Arabia, and violating restrictions on its nuclear program, what will stop it from building a nuclear weapon one day and then using it against Israel or another Western country - especially when some of their leaders have made no secret of their intentions to do just so? If Iran's attacks go unanswered they will only intensify. 
(Jerusalem Post)
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