–If ‘The Game Has Changed,’ What’s the New Game?
By Denny Gulino
WASHINGTON (MaceNews) – Acting in the face of what it considered an imminent attack, the Pentagon’s killing of the Iranian Quds Force chief has set the stage for inevitable retaliation of some sort with the missing element for analysts the strategic context for the drastic escalation.
Comment Friday from both supporters and critics asked the same question, “Why now?” Evidently, it was suggested, the targeted general had arrived in Iraq to oversee another attack on U.S. facilities. Further details are yet to come, with the return of the full Congress to Capitol Hill next week sure to require much more explanation.
With Iran having just completed military exercises with China and Russia, the geopolitical ripple effects of the unilateral U.S. strike and whatever is to follow are unknowable.
Although world and markets reaction Friday, even oil prices, were comparatively muted, that could change in an instant should the next round be especially severe.
As the world awaits more details about what the U.S. expected to happen that required the killing of Gen. Qasem Soleimani stock markets reacted with moderate losses, less steep than at the open, down around 5.5% for the DJIA and 0.4% for the S&P 500 at midday.
In the credit market, the benchmark Treasury 10-year yield, at 1.813%, was down 0.63 of a point.
The perceived additional risk to oil supplies sent Brent crude up nearly 2.7% and WTI ahead 2.4%, a more moderate reaction than would have been the case before U.S. production reached its current high level and seemingly diminishing as the day wore on.
The VIX “fear index” was hardly fearful, only at a subdued 13.14, slightly improved from earlier in the day..
Tensions had already been building at the end of 2019. Iran-backed unarmed demonstrators entered the edge of the huge U.S. embassy compound in Baghdad earlier in the week. Rocket and other attacks on U.S. military facilities have been a constant low-level irritant that escalated with the death of a U.S. contractor last week. September’s rocket attack against Aramco facilities in Saudi Arabia had invoked fears for the security of the world’s oil supply.
Thursday’s military escalation was abrupt enough to prevent preparatory measures, like the evacuation of Americans from Iraq, preparing the Iraq government for the difficult domestic aftermath triggered by a U.S. attack in the capital city and apparently any in-depth briefings of congressional leaders.
Secretary of Defense Mark Esper’s oft-quoted comment Thursday that, “The game has changed,” suggested there has been some fundamental reordering of U.S. priorities in the Mideast yet the context for Thursday’s action remained largely unexplained.
The Mar a Lago White House operation had no announcement Friday of any special appearance by President Trump related to the attack such as followed the October killing of ISIS leader Abū Bakr al-Baghdadi.
Later in the day he has a scheduled public appearance before an evangelical support group at 5 p.m. ET.
Trump’s first related tweet Thursday night was simply a picture of an American flag soon after word of the attack spread. Since then he has tweeted his belief that the slain Quds general was not as widely admired within his country as accounts of him being a revered national hero would suggest.
“While Iran will never be able to properly admit it,” Trump wrote, “Soleimani was both hated and feared within the country. They are not nearly as saddened as the leaders will let the outside world believe. He should have been taken out many years ago!”
Friday Iran announced that supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has appointed, as expected, Soleimani’s deputy Brigadier General Esmail Qaani as the new leader of the Quds Force.
Supporters saw the U.S. action as long overdue against a malign actor responsible for many American deaths, someone adept at using considerable resources in opposition to American interests and apparently intent on ratcheting up tests of American resolve.
Critics saw the attack as another sign of an erratic and inconsistent president who had previously withheld retaliatory attacks in other circumstances in Syria and Iran as disproportionately severe, and who has demonstrated an aversion to a routine process of strategizing.the aftereffects of major decisions. Even close aides, for instance, had been surprised by the president’s sudden abandonment of Kurdish militia allies in deference to Turkey’s troop movements into Syria..
Looking ahead, some talking heads saw only a measured Iranian counterattack intended not to provoke the U.S. into a significantly heavier counter move. Others saw an all-out reflexive counteroffensive using some combination of cyber attacks, anti-ship missiles with swarm attacks by small warcraft. Still others saw something in between, a retaliatory attack large enough to get attention and assuage domestic anger, but small enough to disincline the U.S. from any massive counter-retaliation..
Iran is ringed by U.S. military installations and a carrier fleet within strike range, both affording a multitude of targets and, conversely, a formidable capacity for additional unilateral action. Commercial merchant marine operations in the Persian Gulf and vicinity, increasingly protected by U.S., European and Japanese ships, nevertheless remain a comparatively soft set of targets.
Questions that remain Friday afternoon include:
–Will Iran’s retaliatory strike be immediate? Will it extend to cyber attacks that could inflict damage to infrastructure within the United States?
–Does the U.S. attack and any retaliation significantly raise the ongoing level of tensions in the Mideast temporarily or long term?
–Do Iran and the United States gain more allies in their struggle against each other?
–Does the attack signal a new more aggressive approach to Iran over the medium and long term?
–Are Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and other oil production facilities facing new outages and hazards?
–Does the U.S. attack clear the way for Israel’s more aggressive moves against Iran?
–Is President Trump’s often expressed reticence to commit more troops to the Mideast, already under way to some extent, significantly altered?
–Does the U.S. fractured political landscape realign to any great extent so there is more or less support for President Trump? Do Republicans on Capitol Hill become more uneasy with the Trump approach to foreign policy or more supportive. Do Democrats make foreign policy even less bipartisan?
–Will there be congressional pressure to beef up the White House staff, with a new chief of staff and additional National Security Council staff?
–Can the U.S. action and any Iran retaliation somehow counterintuitively create any eventual new opportunities to defuse tensions?
–Do uncertainties that affect the markets diminish or increase in the weeks ahead because of any overhanging possibility of Iran retaliation?