Iran Strategy: Iran Strategy: Expanding the War, Increasing the Cost, and Surviving Donald Trump –

Written by Stephen ErlangerThe first priority of the Islamic Republic of Iran is survival. To do so, its leaders will want to raise the cost of the war to President Trump – in terms of American casualties, costs, and inflation – in an attempt to convince him to declare victory and go home.

Analysts say that Iran, facing the overwhelming firepower of the United States and Israel, is expanding the battlefield from its own territory to the wider region. The goals are to destroy oil and gas infrastructure in neighboring countries, close the Strait of Hormuz to shipping and restrict air traffic – all in order to disrupt the economies of the Persian Gulf and drive up global energy prices and inflation. Iran will also try to exhaust the number of expensive interceptor missiles held by its enemies.

“War has become a test of will and endurance,” said Vali Nasr of the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. He added: “Iran faces qualitatively superior militaries, so the strategy is to test their will by expanding the battlefield, complicating the war and increasing the risk to the global economy.” The strategy is not complicated.“The Iranians want to spread the pain as much as they can, regardless of the cost to themselves and the scorched relations with their neighbors, in the hope of creating enough opposition to the war to force President Trump to back down,” said Ali Vaez, Iran director at the International Crisis Group, a Brussels-based think tank.

He added: “For the Islamic Republic, survival is a victory, even if it is costly.” The plan is called asymmetric resilience, accepting initial damage to maintain the ability to escalate when Israeli, American and Persian Gulf air defenses are weak. American bases and embassies and even some European bases and embassies have already been attacked, with six American soldiers killed and three aircraft shot down. Hezbollah has entered the war, and the Persian Gulf states are worried and running out of expensive interceptor missiles used against Iranian drones.

Saudi and Qatari energy facilities were hit. Oil and gas prices rose and shipping operations through the Strait of Hormuz practically stopped.Ali Larijani, secretary of Iran’s National Security Council, claimed on social media on Monday that Iran, “unlike the United States, has prepared itself for a long war,” including plans for gradual escalation and expansion of the battlefield.Franz Stefan Gade, a military analyst, described the conflict as a “race against time.”

He added that Israel, the United States and their allies are trying to destroy the missiles, launch pads and communication points as quickly as possible, so that it will not be easy to launch advanced Iranian missiles.Even heavily armed Israel, near the end of the 12-day war against Iran in June, was forced to limit its use of interceptor missiles, allowing some Iranian missiles to land if they were not deemed close to key sites or cities. If Iran’s strategy is clear, so are the risks.

This is already showing.Analysts say that the United States is encouraging Iranian minorities, such as the Kurds and Baluchis, to rise up against the government, bombing police and army positions in those areas, in the hope of creating at least the beginning of a popular uprising. Although Iran has attacked the Persian Gulf countries, Tehran has so far failed to drive a wedge between them and Washington.As always, it’s difficult to know what Trump thinks, said Ellie Geranmayeh, an Iran expert at the European Council on Foreign Relations, a research group.

She added: “Trump has already ousted Khamenei, which no other president dared to do.” “He has an out-of-the-way ramp if he wants.”Matthew Kroenig, a former US defense official, agrees with this opinion. He added that Trump is “skeptical of long, protracted military campaigns” and could be satisfied with a number of outcomes, including the Venezuela model. “They achieved many of their goals.”