Why is Iran bombing Gulf states while avoiding US naval assets and Israel?
Analysts say Iran is using Gulf states to pressure Washington while avoiding direct confrontation with US forces. As the United States escalates its strikes on
Analysts say Iran is using Gulf states to pressure Washington while avoiding direct confrontation with US forces. As the United States escalates its strikes on Iran, Tehran is hitting back, targeting military and civilian infrastructure across the Gulf states and Jordan while avoiding attacks on US naval assets deployed near its coast and on Israel – a strategy that analysts say is intended to pressure US President Donald Trump without expanding the scope of the war. While Washington has struck railway stations, power facilities, telecommunications networks and drinking-water infrastructure in Iran, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) has responded by attacking civilian airports and water and power stations in Kuwait and Bahrain. Military analysts said there’s a logic to this strategy. Targeting US naval “assets would bring a devastating US response”, retired Lebanese Brigadier General and military analyst Elias Hanna told Al Jazeera. “Another issue is the targeting of naval assets is difficult militarily because it’s protected and has sophisticated air defence systems.” But why is Tehran targeting neighbouring countries? Atifeh Taghiani, a professor of political science at the University of Tehran, argued that the US is using Gulf countries, particularly Kuwait, to target Iranian civilian infrastructure. During the first round of the US-Israel war on Iran in March and April, Iranian officials justified attacks on Gulf states by arguing that US operations were launched from military bases on their territory. They continue to make the same argument today, even though this narrative has deepened estrangement between Tehran and its neighbours, particularly as Gulf states have repeatedly insisted that they will not allow their territories to be used to launch attacks against Iran.
In an interview with Al Jazeera, Taghiani said international law gives Iran the right to retaliate against any country from which attacks are launched, stressing that US naval vessels are deliberately targeting Iranian civilian infrastructure because Washington “wants to deepen hostility among the countries of the region and is trying to make it harder for Iranians to respond.” Unrealistic ‘propaganda’ Abdullah al-Shayji, a professor of political science at Kuwait University, dismissed the Iranian academic’s remarks as recycled Iranian “propaganda”, arguing that claims that US attacks are launched from Gulf states “are no longer acceptable or realistic because all the strikes originate from the two US aircraft carriers George W Bush and Abraham Lincoln, which are no more than 150km [93 miles] from the Iranian coast.” According to al-Shayji, Gulf states agreed with the US that American forces stationed in the Gulf would remain strictly for defensive purposes and informed Tehran that their territory would not be used to launch attacks against Iran. He added that the Iranians “have produced no evidence” to support their claims. Al-Shayji said Iran knows that cruise missiles and Tomahawk missiles are launched from US aircraft carriers but fears the consequences if it kills even a single US service member in an attack on those vessels. Instead, he said, Tehran continues what he described as a failed strategy of targeting Gulf states in the hope they will pressure Washington to end the war. That, he argued, is unlikely because Trump “did not consult the Gulf states before launching this war and did not honour what had been agreed”. Iran’s continued attacks on water desalination facilities during the height of summer in a country such as Kuwait, whose population depends heavily on desalinated water, not only violate international law but also reflect a deliberate attempt to make life harder for civilians, al-Shayji said.
The BriefWire