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According to the State Department, Iran provides $100 million a year in funding for Palestinian terrorist groups, along with training in military tactics. Many are now calling for Iran to be held to account for its support of terrorism. But while it’s easy to demand that we stop “appeasing” Iran, it’s much harder to say what we should be doing. As veteran U.S. diplomat Aaron David Miller told me, “We have a strategic problem with Iran, and we have no strategic solution.”
This is not, of course, a new dilemma. It’s been going on for nearly half a century, ever since the 1979 Iranian Revolution resulted in the seizure of more than 50 hostages at the U.S. Embassy in Tehran. We recently commemorated the 40th anniversary of the Oct. 23, 1983, suicide bomber attacks mounted by Hezbollah against the U.S. Marine and French military barracks in Beirut. Those bombings killed 241 U.S. military personnel and 58 French troops. Iran has only recently admitted its responsibility, but the U.S. intelligence community had proof at the time of Iran’s involvement. Yet the United States never effectively retaliated. Instead, the Reagan administration traded arms for hostages with Tehran.
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This set a pattern that would be followed up to the present day of Iran sponsoring terrorism and the United States and its allies failing to figure out any effective countermeasures. This was true of both Democratic and Republican presidents — including some of the most hawkish.
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President George W. Bush invaded Afghanistan and Iraq, but when Iranian proxies killed some 603 U.S. troops in a series of attacks in Iraq, he refused to expand the war across the border. (And, of course, his overthrow of Saddam Hussein redounded to Iran’s benefit by removing a major obstacle to its regional designs.) President Donald Trump contemplated bombing Iran in 2019 in retaliation for Iran shooting down a U.S. drone, but decided against it at the last minute. Nor did he respond militarily to a massive Iranian-orchestrated attack later that year against Saudi oil facilities.
Under both Trump and President Biden, Iranian-backed proxy forces have regularly attacked U.S. bases in Iraq and Syria with rockets, mortars and drones. The U.S. response has usually been narrowly targeted airstrikes on Iranian-backed militias in Syria; the most recent such strike took place on Thursday. That’s a relatively safe response that does not risk escalation — but also does not dissuade Iran from its murderous and malign activities.
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Even on those rare occasions when the United States has hit back more directly against Iran — for example, in 1988 when U.S. forces sank Iranian navy ships and platforms in the Persian Gulf or in 2020 when a U.S. drone strike in Iraq killed Gen. Qasem Soleimani, head of Iran’s terrorist-sponsoring Quds Force — it has been careful to do so outside of Iran itself.
Why doesn’t the United States simply bomb Iran? Because, as a former senior U.S. intelligence officer explained to me, “Every president from Carter to Trump and Biden has been intent on avoiding conventional war with Iran — not because we wouldn’t win, but because there would be secondary consequences that nobody wants and may not be able to entirely predict.”
Chief among those consequences is the threat that Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and its proxies — notably the Houthis in Yemen — could use mines, missiles, drones and boats packed with explosives to close the Bab el-Mandeb Strait and the Straits of Hormuz, two of the most economically important waterways in the world. Interrupting the flow of commerce through those waters could lead to a global energy crisis — and plunge the United States and Europe into recession.
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Iran has another potent deterrent against attack in the 150,000 rockets that it has provided to Hezbollah. Israel knows that if it (or even the United States) strikes Iran directly, Hezbollah is likely to rain missiles down on Israel. The last thing Israel should want while it is fighting Hamas is a second front in the north, even if some Israeli officials rashly advocated launching a preemptive strike on Hezbollah after Oct. 7.
So Iran has effectively deterred the United States and even Israel from going to war over its sponsorship of terrorism — or over its nuclear program. That leaves the West reliant on other methods of trying to counter Iran’s proxy warfare. These include U.S. Navy attempts to intercept Iranian arms shipments, Israeli airstrikes on Iranian arms shipments in Syria, covert action against the Quds Force by both Israel and the United States, and of course sanctions against Iran. More broadly, the United States has tried to build a coalition to contain Iran by fostering links between Israel and the Gulf Arab states. The Trump administration succeeded in brokering the Abraham Accords normalizing relations between Israel and Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates, and Biden’s foreign policy team was well on its way to achieving a similar diplomatic understanding between Israel and Saudi Arabia before the Oct. 7 attack.
None of these approaches has succeeded in stopping Iran’s fiendishly clever proxy strategy, but I don’t see any better alternative on the horizon. We can hope that the Iranian people will overthrow the mullahs, and we can cheer them on, but there is no indication that the U.S. government has any power to hasten the fall of a tyrannical regime that has withstood many popular protests over the years.
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That leaves America’s favorite coercive tool: economic sanctions. The Biden administration had relaxed sanctions on Iran in a bid to revive the nuclear deal that Trump foolishly exited. But that gambit appears to have failed: Iran is closer than ever to being able to build a nuclear bomb. Now it’s time to reverse course by more strictly enforcing sanctions to starve Iran of the funds that it needs to fund its militant groups.
The administration seems to have recognized that, after Oct. 7, it’s time for a tougher approach: It recently agreed with Qatar to freeze $6 billion in oil revenue that was going to be released to Iran for humanitarian purposes. Now the administration needs to crack down on Iranian oil smuggling, while lobbying Gulf Arab allies to raise production to offset any reduction of global oil supply.
We shouldn’t have any illusions that tighter sanctions will end Iranian sponsorship of terrorism, but they will at least constrain the resources available for extremist groups. The United States should also continue to strengthen its military presence in the Middle East — as the administration has done by deploying two aircraft carrier battle groups — to deter Iran from widening the war.
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But ultimately the most effective blow against Iran’s proxy strategy could be struck by the Israel Defense Forces in Gaza. If the IDF can defeat Hamas — admittedly a big if — that would neutralize Iran’s major proxy in the Sunni world and set back its wider regional offensive. Conversely, if Hamas retains its military capacity after the Israeli attack, that would be a major win for Iran and its “axis of resistance.”
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Ever since the horrific Hamas attack on Israel on Oct. 7, there has been a Jesuitical — or is it Talmudic? — debate over Iran’s degree of responsibility. U.S. and Israeli officials have said they have no evidence that Iran planned or authorized the attack, but there is no doubt that Iran was, at the very least, morally culpable for the massacre of 1,400 Israeli civilians — which Iranian leaders praised.
According to the State Department, Iran provides $100 million a year in funding for Palestinian terrorist groups, along with training in military tactics. Many are now calling for Iran to be held to account for its support of terrorism. But while it’s easy to demand that we stop “appeasing” Iran, it’s much harder to say what we should be doing. As veteran U.S. diplomat Aaron David Miller told me, “We have a strategic problem with Iran, and we have no strategic solution.”
This is not, of course, a new dilemma. It’s been going on for nearly half a century, ever since the 1979 Iranian Revolution resulted in the seizure of more than 50 hostages at the U.S. Embassy in Tehran. We recently commemorated the 40th anniversary of the Oct. 23, 1983, suicide bomber attacks mounted by Hezbollah against the U.S. Marine and French military barracks in Beirut. Those bombings killed 241 U.S. military personnel and 58 French troops. Iran has only recently admitted its responsibility, but the U.S. intelligence community had proof at the time of Iran’s involvement. Yet the United States never effectively retaliated. Instead, the Reagan administration traded arms for hostages with Tehran.
This set a pattern that would be followed up to the present day of Iran sponsoring terrorism and the United States and its allies failing to figure out any effective countermeasures. This was true of both Democratic and Republican presidents — including some of the most hawkish.
President George W. Bush invaded Afghanistan and Iraq, but when Iranian proxies killed some 603 U.S. troops in a series of attacks in Iraq, he refused to expand the war across the border. (And, of course, his overthrow of Saddam Hussein redounded to Iran’s benefit by removing a major obstacle to its regional designs.) President Donald Trump contemplated bombing Iran in 2019 in retaliation for Iran shooting down a U.S. drone, but decided against it at the last minute. Nor did he respond militarily to a massive Iranian-orchestrated attack later that year against Saudi oil facilities.
Under both Trump and President Biden, Iranian-backed proxy forces have regularly attacked U.S. bases in Iraq and Syria with rockets, mortars and drones. The U.S. response has usually been narrowly targeted airstrikes on Iranian-backed militias in Syria; the most recent such strike took place on Thursday. That’s a relatively safe response that does not risk escalation — but also does not dissuade Iran from its murderous and malign activities.
Even on those rare occasions when the United States has hit back more directly against Iran — for example, in 1988 when U.S. forces sank Iranian navy ships and platforms in the Persian Gulf or in 2020 when a U.S. drone strike in Iraq killed Gen. Qasem Soleimani, head of Iran’s terrorist-sponsoring Quds Force — it has been careful to do so outside of Iran itself.
Why doesn’t the United States simply bomb Iran? Because, as a former senior U.S. intelligence officer explained to me, “Every president from Carter to Trump and Biden has been intent on avoiding conventional war with Iran — not because we wouldn’t win, but because there would be secondary consequences that nobody wants and may not be able to entirely predict.”
Chief among those consequences is the threat that Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and its proxies — notably the Houthis in Yemen — could use mines, missiles, drones and boats packed with explosives to close the Bab el-Mandeb Strait and the Straits of Hormuz, two of the most economically important waterways in the world. Interrupting the flow of commerce through those waters could lead to a global energy crisis — and plunge the United States and Europe into recession.
Iran has another potent deterrent against attack in the 150,000 rockets that it has provided to Hezbollah. Israel knows that if it (or even the United States) strikes Iran directly, Hezbollah is likely to rain missiles down on Israel. The last thing Israel should want while it is fighting Hamas is a second front in the north, even if some Israeli officials rashly advocated launching a preemptive strike on Hezbollah after Oct. 7.
So Iran has effectively deterred the United States and even Israel from going to war over its sponsorship of terrorism — or over its nuclear program. That leaves the West reliant on other methods of trying to counter Iran’s proxy warfare. These include U.S. Navy attempts to intercept Iranian arms shipments, Israeli airstrikes on Iranian arms shipments in Syria, covert action against the Quds Force by both Israel and the United States, and of course sanctions against Iran. More broadly, the United States has tried to build a coalition to contain Iran by fostering links between Israel and the Gulf Arab states. The Trump administration succeeded in brokering the Abraham Accords normalizing relations between Israel and Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates, and Biden’s foreign policy team was well on its way to achieving a similar diplomatic understanding between Israel and Saudi Arabia before the Oct. 7 attack.
None of these approaches has succeeded in stopping Iran’s fiendishly clever proxy strategy, but I don’t see any better alternative on the horizon. We can hope that the Iranian people will overthrow the mullahs, and we can cheer them on, but there is no indication that the U.S. government has any power to hasten the fall of a tyrannical regime that has withstood many popular protests over the years.
That leaves America’s favorite coercive tool: economic sanctions. The Biden administration had relaxed sanctions on Iran in a bid to revive the nuclear deal that Trump foolishly exited. But that gambit appears to have failed: Iran is closer than ever to being able to build a nuclear bomb. Now it’s time to reverse course by more strictly enforcing sanctions to starve Iran of the funds that it needs to fund its militant groups.
The administration seems to have recognized that, after Oct. 7, it’s time for a tougher approach: It recently agreed with Qatar to freeze $6 billion in oil revenue that was going to be released to Iran for humanitarian purposes. Now the administration needs to crack down on Iranian oil smuggling, while lobbying Gulf Arab allies to raise production to offset any reduction of global oil supply.
We shouldn’t have any illusions that tighter sanctions will end Iranian sponsorship of terrorism, but they will at least constrain the resources available for extremist groups. The United States should also continue to strengthen its military presence in the Middle East — as the administration has done by deploying two aircraft carrier battle groups — to deter Iran from widening the war.
But ultimately the most effective blow against Iran’s proxy strategy could be struck by the Israel Defense Forces in Gaza. If the IDF can defeat Hamas — admittedly a big if — that would neutralize Iran’s major proxy in the Sunni world and set back its wider regional offensive. Conversely, if Hamas retains its military capacity after the Israeli attack, that would be a major win for Iran and its “axis of resistance.”
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