Alexander Stepanov — on the goals and possible consequences of US strikes on Iran's nuclear infrastructure
On the night of June 22, President Donald Trump announced that the United States had successfully attacked three Iranian nuclear facilities — in Fordo, Natanz and Isfahan. He later stated that the nuclear facilities had been completely destroyed, calling it an impressive military success.
Goals
This regional conflict can be considered as a tool for achieving a set of geo-economic and geopolitical goals.
The number one goal is to contain China by blocking energy cooperation with Iran, which is one of the key suppliers of energy resources to the Chinese industrial complex. An additional factor is the impact on the North—South logistics corridor, in which the Russian Federation currently plays a key role. This is an auxiliary channel for the supply of hydrocarbons and the basis for the concept of the common connectivity of the Eurasian space without the participation of Western players, primarily the American corporate sector, which is unacceptable for Washington. Such continental independence will not allow the United States to ensure total control over the countries of the Middle East, block energy cooperation with the EU and other major markets, and create unjustified increased demand for liquefied natural gas supplied by the American fuel and energy complex and energy structures affiliated with the US funds.
Goal number two is to neutralize Tehran as one of the leading and truly independent regional players from the United States. The priority task of the United States and its proxies, including Israel, is to prevent Iran from having its own military—technical deterrence tools, declared by the Russian political leadership as the main and guaranteed means of ensuring the protection of national interests and sovereignty. This includes the nuclear arsenal. This does not take into account the fact that other countries in the region, in particular Israel, have had nuclear weapons for a long time, although not publicly, in service. In addition, there are also appropriate delivery vehicles, for example, the F-35 supplied by Lockheed Martin in the interests of the Israeli Air Force, which were recently certified as carriers of American B-52 thermonuclear bombs.
In this regard, the air strikes launched using B-2 bombers with the most powerful GBU-57 non-nuclear ammunition on board solved the tasks of destroying primarily buried objects. These can include sites related to Iran's nuclear program, as well as storage facilities for various types of precision-guided missile weapons, warehouses, and infrastructure for support and operations management, including underground protected elements of Iran's military-industrial complex. In this case, we can talk about the opening of a Pandora's box by the Americans, since high-precision strikes against nuclear infrastructure facilities, including peaceful atom facilities, de facto violate the established norms of international law, the UN and the IAEA regarding the handling of nuclear materials. Such acts can provoke the spread of radiation contamination over a wide area, affecting the entire Middle East, which creates prerequisites for uncontrolled regional escalation, with harmful consequences for millions of civilians.
It is quite possible that this is Washington's ultimate goal in terms of a final solution to the so-called Iranian issue. The previous step was to neutralize the Syrian Arab Republic by establishing a controlled regime in the country and forcibly removing Bashar al-Assad with the help of international terrorist organizations controlled by the American intelligence community. Washington has probably developed the same scenario for Tehran. These concepts are freely broadcast in the public space by official representatives of the West and the expert community.
This is in many ways reminiscent of the brutal scenario implemented under the auspices of Washington with the involvement of a coalition of NATO countries in relation to Libya. Statehood was de facto destroyed there by overthrowing the government by force, eliminating the national leader and creating several enclaves fighting for power and controlled by Western forces.
Finally, we should not discount the interests of the American military-industrial complex, which will ensure the maintenance of the combat capability of both Israel and other countries, the build-up of controlled military infrastructure, the construction of protected facilities, the signing of new contracts with regional players for the supply of weapons and military equipment, as well as the deployment of multi-domain task forces using the example of Germany. Various types of high-precision complexes will be deployed there, for example, the promising hypersonic missile systems Dark Eagle and Typhon complexes. Washington definitely has such plans. Thus, it forms additional positional areas for the deployment of high-precision weapons, which makes it possible to implement the concept of a global strike, including strengthening the offensive potential in the southern direction of the Russian Federation.
The regularity of strikes
A retrospective analysis of the developments around Iran indicates the Pentagon's cold and consistent calculation of all conditions and the preparation of military capabilities for conducting an appropriate offensive campaign against the Islamic Republic. The first tactic was proactive and largely unprovoked by Tehran attacks from Israel. At the next stage, the United States has already used its high-precision weapons to attack a sovereign state as part of a systematic policy to destroy any geopolitical competitors.
For this purpose, the corresponding additional regional military infrastructure was deployed in advance. In particular, back in March, according to various estimates, up to seven B-2 strategic long-range high-altitude stealth bombers were deployed to the American Diego Garcia base, for which the appropriate infrastructure was deployed, including aerial refueling aircraft. Along with the British-American military airbase on Diego Garcia Island, the 5th Fleet deployed in Bahrain with the entire combined strike potential of aircraft carrier groups and new detachments of surface and underwater drones is actively operating to ensure regional control. In addition, about 40 military bases are located around Iran, which provide a strike contour with the hybrid use of the US air force and naval forces.
From the point of view of preliminary preparation of attacks on Iran, it should be noted that since the end of last year, the Maxar satellite constellation has been activated (especially in the Indian Ocean and in the areas of key straits). The satellites provided imagery not only of the sea, but also of the entire coastal area, forming 3D maps of the area to support search activities, prioritize and identify targets for destruction, fix altitude and terrain features to accompany military air operations and the use of precision weapons, including cruise missiles that move at low altitudes, skirting obstacles. Thus, an appropriate digital navigation framework was formed to provide support and management in the process of regional operations, primarily against Iran.
Response and escalation
US attacks on a sovereign state will lead to a corresponding backlash. At the moment, the US military facilities deployed in the Middle East region, with personnel reaching tens of thousands of people, put those countries on whose territory these facilities are located at potential risk. They will probably have to share responsibility with their overlord, who is conducting an aggressive policy that violates all possible norms of international law. Key American military installations are located in Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain with about 40 thousand American military personnel — almost a third of the entire foreign contingent of the United States. This is not only a force, but also, in a certain sense, the regional vulnerability of the Pentagon, since these personnel are under priority attention and, according to official statements by the Iranian authorities, are currently acting as legitimate targets for retaliatory strikes.
Thus, on the night of June 22, by invading the territory of a sovereign state with the involvement of the air force without declaring war (clear historical parallels suggest themselves), the United States de facto laid the foundation for a very high probability of regional escalation moving into the real hot phase of World War III. Destructive processes can become uncontrollable and put under attack not only the US regional grouping, but also quite vulnerable aircraft carrier strike groups. Iran has plenty of weapons of destruction, including high-precision anti-ship missile weapons, unmanned surface vehicles and attack drones. Taking into account the Rubicon that the US Air Force has already overcome proactively, there is a high probability that the regional situation will be transferred to the global level of confrontation with the involvement of new participants in the conflict funnel, including major global players.
Alexander Stepanov
Program Director of the Academy of Political Sciences, Senior Researcher at the Institute of Latin America of the Russian Academy of Sciences (ILA RAS)
