January 14, 2008 

Early Sunday morning, January 6, 2008, five Iranian speed boats, operated by members of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, came dangerously close to the cruiser USS Port Royal, the destroyer USS Hopper, and the frigate USS Ingraham in international waters in the Strait of Hormuz.  When officers on the US ships heard a voice on the radio say, “I am coming at you.  You will explode in a couple of minutes,” why didn’t they give the order to sink the boats, and what would have happened if they had?

A parade of experts and commentators on CNN and Fox News have speculated on whether Tehran or an aggressive Revolutionary Guard commander gave the order to harass the ships.  Alternatively, they have praised the US Navy officer in charge for showing restraint and criticized the Bush Administration for showing weakness on the eve of the President’s visit to the Middle East.

The Revolutionary Guard is notoriously unpredictable and undisciplined.  Iran experts say it’s certainly possible a local Revolutionary Guard commander acting on his own initiated the incident.  Regardless, it wasn’t necessary to destroy the speed boats if the US ships were not in imminent danger.  We have to trust the captains of the three ships.  Apparently, they didn’t believe they were.

I’m confident the ship's crews were ready for action, and had the Iranian boats gotten too close or fired on the ships, the US officer in command would have given the order to sink them.  After the USS Cole incident, every US Navy ship's officer knows the rules of engagement in situations like this.

I have no special insight into Iranian intentions or what else they may have been doing that US intelligence or electronic sensors may have detected.  Doubts exist, for example, as to whether the radio broadcast actually came from the boats.  I can only speculate that President Ahmadinejad and his Revolutionary Guard would welcome a confrontation with the US to divert the attention of the Iranian people from Iran’s stalled economy and double-digit inflation.  It’s difficult to predict exactly how the incident would have escalated had the US ships sunk the Iranian boats.

What I do know, however, is that Iran has a variety of anti-ship missiles, Chinese C-802, Silkworm HY-2, and Iranian derivatives, with ranges up to 200 nautical miles poised to strike US ships in or near the Strait of Hormuz which is only 21-miles-wide at its narrowest point.  

In the late-1980s, during the Iran-Iraq War, I had several conversations with the late He Peng-fei, head of China's People’s Liberation Army Equipment Bureau, about the Silkworms.  He, a principal interlocutor on US Arms sales to China prior to the June, 1989, Tienanmen incident, was the Chinese military officer who sold the Silkworms to the Iranians.  I recall how concerned the US was then that Iran might fire one of them at a US ship.

Because US ships have been transiting the Strait of Hormuz for 20 years under the threat of Iranian anti-ship missiles, everyone from President Bush to the sailor on watch is well aware of the dangers.  Even if this was the case of an over-active Revolutionary Guard commander, the situation could easily have gotten out of hand.  Had our ships fired on the Iranian boats, Iran may well have used the incident to fire anti-ship missiles at them, claiming afterward they were only defending themselves against a US attack. 

Our ships have the means to defend themselves against anti-ship missiles, but that’s no guarantee, in such a confined space and with little warning time, that one or more wouldn’t hit their targets.  In that event the US no doubt would retaliate by taking out the missile firing batteries and their radars.  

What would happen next is that Rosie O’Donnell, and a host of other like-minded people who believe Bush has been looking for an opportunity to attack Iran, would be crying “Gulf of Tonkin” all over national television.  Washington and the media would be abuzz with accusations and speculation about who really bore responsibility for instigating the incident in the first place.

Given the erosion of the Bush Administration’s credibility in the minds of many Americans, Bush’s low approval ratings, and the recent National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iran’s nuclear non-weapons program, the US would be in a no-win situation.  There would be little to no support in the US Congress or among the American people to pursue the situation further.

Nevertheless, any lethal incident between the US and Iran would not be easy to contain.  Hezbollah in Lebanon, supplied with thousands of surface to surface rockets and missiles and financed by Iran, needs little incentive to strike at Israel as it did in 2006.  Rejuvenated Iranian support for Iraqi insurgents would further complicate US strategy in Iraq.  The Strait of Hormuz could become a free-fire zone for Iranian anti-ship missiles.  And the price of oil and gasoline would soar out of sight.

President Bush put Iran on notice last week, warning them there will be grave consequences if they attack US ships.  Should another provocation occur that threatens US lives, Iran and the American people know what to expect.  The US has the right and the obligation to defend its forces.  But don’t expect Iran to cower.  Iran and the US are, and will remain, at serious cross purposes.  Iran seeks to dominate the region, wants the US out, and will do everything it can to make that happen.

With the situation in Iraq improving and no new terrorist attack in the US since 9/11, national security issues currently aren’t dominating the debates among the presidential candidates.  Iran’s provocation in the Strait of Hormuz should make clear, if it wasn't already, the challenges the next US president will face in dealing with Iran.  It should also serve as a reminder to the candidates and the voters how quickly national security can trump other issues and is likely to in the next president’s first term.

Finally, everyone should pause and think about how a nuclear-armed Iran, emboldened by the immunity they would believe that gave them, would be exponentially more dangerous and more inclined to confront the United States.