In any crime, the principle of cui bono helps to identify the culprit. The Iranian regime is well aware of this. If a state is involved in a serious crime that risks triggering a real war, it seeks to make the world believe that it is other countries that are looking to provoke an unwanted war.
An objective analysis of the conflict climate and the current crisis in the Gulf suggests that the main beneficiary of a regional war is the Iranian mullahs’ regime.
Iran is fully aware of the danger of waiting for US economic sanctions to take full effect. The regime’s leaders understand that these devastating sanctions will lead to the regime’s collapse, internal erosion and fall into the hands of the Iranian people. They are therefore trying to evoke as much controversy as possible about the crisis.
With regard to the clear impact of economic sanctions, a military conflict is, in their view, the best scenario. Although the potential impact of an expected war remains likely, the impact of economic sanctions is certain. This is the starting point for understanding the logic of the mullahs’ regime at the current stage.
The best scenario for the Iranian regime is therefore to seek to trigger a military conflict that leads to the export of the internal crisis abroad. It will allow it to claim resistance and fall prey to an external plot, and such worn slogans exported to its supporters in Iran and the rest of the world.
Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and President Rouhani have certainly spoken more than once about their refusal to go to war. But the regime’s practices and its continued violations of international law, the sovereignty of neighbouring States and the principles of the Charter of the United Nations are not behaviours aimed at maintaining regional security and stability and avoiding wars and conflicts.
The Iranian regime believes in the ideology of political taqiya. It forms the basis for the policy and strategic planning of the theocratic regime in Iran. We can then understand why the heads of government repeat their anti-war statements, and Ingenuous people believe their words.
Another strategic reason for the many declarations against the war is that no sane regime publicly proclaims that it is seeking war. All the more reason, if the opposing party is the only major power that dominates the world order.
The United States has a sophisticated military arsenal and enormous military deterrence capabilities that can paralyze a military adversary like Iran, with its dilapidated military arsenal and empty allegations of dummy capabilities. IOn top of that, if one of them enters a military conflict, the United States’ allies, bound by defence cooperation agreements, will inevitably activate their advanced military capabilities.
Moreover, denying the continuation of the war brings the Iranian regime some regional and international sympathy, at least at the official level, in the midst of the considerable differences between the Trump government and several countries, for commercial and economic reasons such as China, or strategic and political reasons such as Russia.
The mullahs’ refusal to go to war is a myth.
When it witnessed how President Trump tried to avoid war by all means, the regime probably felt even more frustration. The mullahs then did something mad that embarrassed the White House and prevented it from escaping an undesirable scenario.
President Trump has not found a way out of giving up the tone of political calm he had set for himself in the previous days. He wanted to conclude agreements and not engage in a new military conflict, but also to maintain the prestige of the United States.
I believe that the mullahs’ regime is deliberately involved in the attack on oil tankers in the Gulf of Oman in a bid to embarrass President Trump and confront him with a fait accompli. It wants to push him to start the war and order to hit Iran.
Iran denies any involvement, although smoking-gun evidence indicates it is implicated. The Iranians have provided no evidence that the American accusations of involvement in the attack on the two ships in the Gulf of Oman were unfounded.
The world has seen the video presented by the U.S. government where Iranian forces appear on a small boat removing an unexploded mine from a ship. No one saw any evidence that the Iranian militia was innocent of this serious accusation.
It may be that the mullahs obtain what they are looking for, a military conflict that represents for their regime a lifeline to survive, even for a few more months.
