A top Iranian official has warned that the government is prepared for a long war with the US and signaled that it is willing to continue attacking Gulf countries in an effort to persuade them to convince Donald Trump to step back from the conflict.
The warning came in an exclusive CNN interview in Tehran with Kamal Kharazi, foreign policy adviser to the office of the Supreme Leader, who ruled out diplomacy for now and said the war would only end through economic pain – signaling a hardening of the government’s stance on day 10 of the conflict.
“I don’t see any room for diplomacy anymore. Because Donald Trump had been deceiving others and not keeping with his promises, and we experienced this in two times of negotiations – that while we were engaged in negotiation, they struck us,” Kharazi told CNN on Monday.
Between Trumps first and second terms, he has demonstrated the issue with any long term deal Iran might make with the US. Under Obama, Iran had agreed to international inspections and a general framework that would have ensured that they followed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (of which they are a signatory). Trump rolled up in 2017 and tossed that out the window. And now Trump has decided to further destroy any credibility the US had left by dropping bombs. I doubt there is any world left where the Iranian Government trusts the US Government. I’d expect them to go more the North Korea route, isolate themselves further and make a sprint for nuclear weapons. They will have to content themselves with being part of the BRICS system. But a nuclear umbrella, with a high likelihood of nuking Tel Aviv, seems the only way to ensure the US/Israel aren’t randomly lobbing bombs at them.
And between those two events Biden kept Trump’s sanctions while demanding they unilaterally returned to the agreement, along a host of other mistakes/“mistakes.” It’s not like America would become trustworthy if a blue war hawk was president rather than a red war hawk.
This depends on their production capabilities but they may not even need the nukes per se. If they can burn through US and Israeli AA munitions they may be able to simply bombard US bases and Israel until maintaining war is effectively impossible.
For quick context the US builds about 600 patriot missiles per year, the Iranians have already destroyed 800. Their chaf drones and missiles are rather effective against American equipment, but then again they’ve had 50 years to prepare.
That’s a reasonable play now, but it does nothing to ensure this won’t happen again. The US has the industrial capacity to ramp that 600 to 6000 if need be.
Ya, the defense economics of a $50k Shahead drone being taken out by a $4 milion Patriot missile do not work in the defenders’ favor. If Iran can keep that up long enough, those conventional weapons will start slipping through. Still, this was a known factor with Trump and Bibi’s war and I don’t think a bunch of civilians getting killed in drone attacks was a significant deterrent (QED, that war is going forward). While I believe that could result in the US/Israel making some propaganda declaration of victory and quietly ending the war, I don’t think it would ever be a deterrent in the future. That’s why I would expect Iran to want nukes. If they want to ensure that the US and Israel don’t just randomly drop bombs on Iran when a US leader needs a distraction, they need a credible threat of Israeli cities disappearing in a mushroom cloud. That’s something that couldn’t just be ignored.