Peltus: The United States and Iran are playing a dangerous game

Middot; Peltus

With the confrontation between the United States and Iran in the Persian Gulf, the asymmetric conflict between the two parties may be out of control.Unless other countries in the world are involved, the dangerous games that the two countries are playing may erupt and direct conflict.

The deterioration of the situation was began in May 2018. At that time, the United States announced the withdrawal from the Iranian nuclear agreement in 2015 and resumed sanctions.Since then, as part of the maximum stress strategy, US sanctions have been upgraded several times, which has greatly reduced commercial transactions in Iran and other parts of the world, hitting its oil income, stimulating its currency depreciation, and leading its economy to recession.

Iran has no ability to govern the United States in the United States, and can only take a different approach.First of all, Iran put pressure on European allies such as France, Germany and Britain, and as a whole European Union, and believed that they should be intervened to ensure that it should be obtained in the 2015 joint action plan (the official name of the Iran nuclear agreement)Interests.

At the same time, Iran has reduced some of its promises to comply with the joint action plan, such as exceeding the nuclear concentration of abundance restrictions and restarting the research of advanced centrifugal machines.The U.S. President Trump administration seems to be unable to understand the danger of this, but the European Union is very clear.

In addition, Iran is launching an asymmetric war on the Persian Gulf and the Arabian Peninsula.In recent months, Iran has detained several foreign tankers.It also shot down a U.S. military unmanned reconnaissance aircraft over the Holmus Strait of Oil Transportation, and seemed to have launched a series of destruction operations on nearby vessels.Iran supported the attack on Saudi Petroleum facilities in the Yemenhisha rebels.

Whether these events can be blamed directly or indirectly in Iran, basically irrelevant.The important thing is that they echoed the 2018 statement of Iranian President Rouhani, that is, if Iran is banned from selling oil, no oil can be shipped from the Persian Gulf.

So far, Iran has been able to transform the asymmetry of absolute strength into tactical advantages.That's right, the United States has excellent military power.But Trump does not want the United States to fall into another war in the Middle East, especially a war that requires him to deploy tens of thousands of US military.

In addition, although US sanctions have caused serious harm to Iran, it has not much room for follow -up operations.The Trump administration has played such a powerful card, and the result is likely to use all the chips, self -destruction advantages, and losing the key incentives for Iran to fulfill the promise of the Iraqi Agreement.The U.S. Nuclear Agreement contains the Snapback sanctions threats to be offset, increasing the risk of Iran's violation of the nuclear agreement, which has closer to the development of nuclear weapons.

Nevertheless, Iran's advantages are not particularly large.As the United States has exhausted the potential of sanctions, Iran may have exhausted the patience of the United States for its asymmetric tactics.After Saudi oil facilities were attacked, Trump immediately hinted that he would take military operations.Another unknown attack, not to mention that the attack of large -scale or causing casualties in the United States may cause an incomparable situation.

When the United States and Iran make everywhere in the current game, a more dangerous game may be unveiled.This does not necessarily mean a public war with weapons.But third parties such as Saudi Arabia and Israel may launch their own asymmetric attacks, and the United States itself may also turn to asymmetric war.All these action players have played this kind of game before, but the scale is limited.

Due to the danger of continuous upgrading of asymmetrical war, the European and UAE's active parties such as the Iranian nuclear agreement proposed the steps of resolving conflicts.The first and most important thing is that Iran and the United States have direct dialogue, and Europe seems to be working hard to promote this process.

In this process, Europe is best not to ignore the hype of the presidential meeting between the two countries.Let other senior officials meet, which can be achieved on various bilateral or multilateral occasions.

A related meeting held in Vienna in July this year showed that China, France, Germany, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the European Union signed the signed countries, all hoping to save the 2015 agreement as much as possible.However, the foreign solution of tension between Iran and the United States also requires the participation of Iranian neighbors.

Other thoughts to relieve tensions are also discussing.For example, French President Macron proposed to provide Iran with a US $ 15 billion credit limit to help him offset the loss of oil income caused by sanctions.All parties also proposed various plans for regional security dialogues.

These efforts make people have some reasons.However, the situation is becoming more and more precarious, and before the diplomatic means can improve the situation, the situation may become worse, which may lead to direct conflicts between the United States and Iran.

Author Volker Perthes is the chairman and director of the Science and Political Foundation of the Institute of International and Security in Berlin.

English Title: The us and iran are playing a dangerous game