What happened to Iran’s anti-US provocations?
Two weeks can seem like a year in international relations when countries are about to go to war. That is what the last fortnight has felt like after Iran downed a US Global Hawk drone over the Gulf of Oman and US President Donald Trump called off airstrikes minutes before they were set to happen. Since, even though the Middle East still rests on a taught wire of tensions, Iran’s rhetoric has softened and the US has seemed to move past its tough talk.
The G20 summit in Osaka helped reduce threats of war partly by distracting world leaders. Iran is now angry with the UK after an audacious takeover of an oil tanker by the British Royal Marines in Gibraltar. The tanker, a Panamanian-flagged ship named the Grace 1, was grabbed by the British after elite soldiers rope landed from a helicopter in “pitch darkness,” according to The Independent. The ship is alleged to have been transporting oil to Syria. Iranian commentators have now threatened to seize a British ship.
Iran is playing its typical “good cop, bad cop” routine as the regime is threatening to exceed uranium enrichment stockpile limits spelled out in the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action or Iran Deal, while the foreign ministry in Tehran claims it wants to save the same deal. Iran’s foreign minister even received a glowing profile about his hardships at home and abroad in The New York Times. Iranian President Hassan Rouhani warned on Thursday that Iran would enrich to any level it wants. Meanwhile, Iran’s Press TV says that Trump has distorted Rouhani’s comments as Iran seeking a “new deal,” which is the US administration’s official desired outcome from the sanctions they put in place.
A careful reading of Iran’s statements and the actions of its proxies show that it has sought to reduce tension since June 20 when it shot down the drone. Although Iran continues some of the same rhetoric slamming Washington, it is clearly angling for closer support from Russia and eyeing the upcoming Russia-Turkey-Iran summit in August.
Iran’s Houthi rebel allies have kept up daily drone strikes on Saudi Arabia. This shows that Iran feels that Saudi intervention in Yemen is the weakest link of US allies in the region. Rumors that the United Arab Emirates, a key ally of Riyadh and Washington, may reduce its role in Yemen might have emboldened Iran. Iran are also testing how the Houthi drones, which are copies of Iranian drones, function against sophisticated US air defense technology that Saudi possesses.
Iran’s real goal in the Yemen conflict is not necessarily to defeat Saudi Arabia, but rather to embarrass Riyadh while presenting a preview to using its drones and technology against Israel. Press TV ran an article on Friday claiming Israel has held four Iranian diplomats for the past 37 years. Relative to their presence elsewhere, in Iraq, Iran’s policy is more to err on the side of caution while pushing its influence as to not set off a conflict with the US there. In mid-June, numerous rocket attacks near US forces in Iraq showed that Iran’s proxies can strike with precision. The rockets were a message, but stopped after June 20. This was clearly an indication that Iran sought to provoke the US from June 13, when oil tankers were attacked in the Gulf of Oman, and June 20 when the drone was shot down. Iran even said that it could have downed another US aircraft, but it saw how close the US came to airstrikes and Tehran doesn’t want an actual conflict.
Now Tehran is focused on other goals, which are linked to its overall goals of influencing the Middle East without creating a major conflict. Ayatollah Ali Movahedi-Kermani indicated in a Friday sermon that Iran was not seeking a nuclear bomb, but he also said that if Iran wanted to strike Israel it could. According to Iran’s ISNA news, he said that Iran could strike Israel’s nuclear reactor. His comments, said to the faithful in Iran, appeared more for internal consumption than for external propaganda.
Iran is also monitoring developments in Syria. Its policy makers can read Israeli press, such as Ynet’s claim that Israel has a “free rein in Syrian skies to go after Iran.” It can see the satellite images of damage from a July 1 airstrike of a hanger at Jarmaya near Damascus. Tehran can support the Russian Foreign Ministry assertion that “Israel’s practice of spontaneous strikes on Syria must be brought to an end.” But Tehran itself is more silent on the strikes and the apparent embarrassment to its ally and its own forces on the ground. It is only three months since an Iranian 3rd Khordad system was allegedly destroyed in T-4 airbase in Syria. Iran views the Gulf of Oman, Syria, and Iraq as one large arc of potential conflict. But for now, it has watered down its rhetoric and is focusing on other goals such as pressuring European countries to stay with the JCPOA and returning its tanker after the UK raid.