The national radio news (CNN or CBS, I forget) led - as in this was the first story - with this rather interesting news.
Iran plans to send ships near the Atlantic coast of the United States, state-run Islamic Republic News Agency reported Tuesday, quoting a commander.If we speculate based on comments earlier this year by Air Force Gen. Douglas Fraser, the head of U.S. Southern Command, it probably means Iran is going to send one of their corvettes escorted by one of their logistics vessels to make a port visit to Venezuela. It will be interesting to see which vessels Iran sends on this rather long voyage.
"The Navy of the Iranian Army will have a powerful presence near the United States borders," read the headline of the story, in Farsi.
"Commander of the Navy of the Army of the Islamic Republic of Iran broke the news about the plans for the presence of this force in the Atlantic Ocean and said that the same way that the world arrogant power is present near our marine borders, we, with the help of our sailors who follow the concept of the supreme jurisprudence, shall also establish a powerful presence near the marine borders of the United States," the story said.
It is unclear when Iran plans to send out this flotilla to the Caribbean Sea, but it is worth noting that if it is soon - and it probably would happen within the next few weeks based on Iran's historical pattern for major announcements and major deployments - both the Iranians and the Chinese will have naval vessels in the Caribbean in the fall of 2011. That both China and Iran would be operating in the Caribbean in and of itself does not represent a national security threat, but it does expose the United States to the uncomfortable emerging geopolitical reality of the 21st century where regional powers do have global ambitions. Politically I see no evidence that US leaders have prepared American civilians for this emerging 21st century reality.
I see the Iranian deployment in two ways. First, Iranian power projection by sea is by itself - not a national security threat to the United States. Any ships the Iranians deploy to the western hemisphere poses no direct threat at all. With that said, direct threat is not their intention even if their rhetoric wants you to focus on that aspect of their deployment.
By now we should all be familiar with the Iranian playbook. They have a long history of successful practice. Americans who don't work for the Federal government but want to read specific examples of Iranian arms smuggling can always spend their time going through Wikileaks cables, which is basically a collection of stories regarding Iranian smuggling efforts to every asshat dictator in Africa. I have no idea if Iran is producing nuclear weapons with their nuclear program, but I do know Iranian leaders have never met a murderous dictator on this planet that they couldn't wait to sell weapons and ammunition to.
When it comes to Iranian naval diplomacy we should expect Iran to publicly say the absurd while privately doing the obvious. It is hard to imagine anything more absurd than the Iranian Navy projecting power to the US east coast, nor is it hard to imagine an activity more obvious than for the Iranian Navy to smuggle weapons banned under the UN sanctions regime that targets Iran.
Back in February when the Iranian corvette Alvand and the Iranian supply ship Kharg crossed the Suez canal to make port in Syria, there was much speculation regarding what Iran was trying to achieve. My initial thought was the Iranians were probably smuggling weapons on the Kharg. Later we learned that my speculation was accurate, and within several days of the Iranian naval vessels departing the region the Israeli Navy seized the merchant vessel Victoria which had recently left the same port in Syria and happened to be heavily loaded with Iranian arms that are illegal for export under UN sanctions and were intended for delivery in Gaza.
Various UN resolutions passed over the last two years by the UN Security Council has made trafficking weapons by merchant vessel much more difficult for Iran, or more specifically the IRGC (and the North Koreans too, btw). This diplomatic effort to curb illegal arms trafficking is one of the great achievements of the State Department, even if it rarely gets the praise it deserves. Attention to detail regarding the various vessels worldwide known to be part of the weapons smuggling business on a global scale has made it difficult, if not impossible, for nations like Iran or North Korea to deliver serious weapon components to other nations. This is largely a result of aligning UN resolutions to focus on the logistics of trafficking arms by sea. Those merchant vessels do not have the fuel for very long voyages, and have to stop in various ports internationally where nations have often either denied access to port or demanded a standard Coast Guard inspection upon arrival to port. The combination of denial or inspection has been very effective in curbing known smuggling and proliferation activities significantly.
Based on what we have seen from Iran the last few years, it is getting more and more clear the Iranians no longer trust their merchant vessel network for long range voyages, which is why we are seeing the Iranian Navy now making longer voyages in various seas - including consistently to the "Red Sea" and "Gulf of Aden" to fight pirates, even though every nation involved in anti-piracy knows that isn't what Iran's Navy is actually doing - except by occasional random accident.
Using naval ships to move weapons cargo makes things significantly more reliable as a transport mechanism for potentially illegal or politically controversial cargo by Iran, because no nation is ever going to allow a foreign government to thoroughly inspect one of one of their naval vessels. If Iran has secured access to various ports between Iran and the destination near the United States capable of providing the logistics necessary for the journey, then deploying naval vessels to the western hemisphere would be the logical way for Iran to deliver weapons to this part of the world.
So in my opinion, if we go based on the history of Iranian naval deployments to Eritrea, Sudan, or Syria to name a few, the Iranians are sending naval vessels to the western hemisphere for purposes of insuring successful delivery of high technology military components ranging from ballistic missile components, nuclear technology, or some other very sophisticated missile system like the anti-ship missiles intended for Gaza they smuggled in February.
All the Iranian sourced propaganda about Iranian naval power projection to the Atlantic, or even the western political focus regarding some marginal increase in geopolitical influence by Iran in Latin and South America is - in my opinion - nothing but noise. The real focus for serious observers should be to see (1) what weapons Iran is trying to deliver and (2) to whom they are trying to deliver them.
I'll also be curious if either the (3) UN has anything to say or if (4) if the US has anything beyond a generic, meaningless statement on the subject.
Posts
