ASSESSMENTS

Iran's Options Against the U.S. and Israel

Jun 9, 2018 | 10:00 GMT

An Iranian military truck carries surface-to-air missiles past a portrait of Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei during a military parade in Tehran.

An Iranian military truck carries surface-to-air missiles past a portrait of Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei during a parade April 18, 2018, in Tehran. For now, Iran will shy away from a conventional response to U.S. and Israeli pressure, as it hopes to maintain European support for the nuclear deal.

(ATTA KENARE/AFP/Getty Images)

Highlights

  • Iran will retaliate against the United States and Israel as opportunities arise.
  • To reduce the risk of incurring more sanctions and military action, or of alienating the European Union, Iran will defend itself by using cyberwarfare and other asymmetric means that can't be easily traced back to it.
  • Iran will deploy its cybercapabilities against government institutions of the United States, Israel and the Arab Gulf states, as well as against businesses based in these countries that are engaged in the oil and gas and finance sectors.
  • In the long term, both sides will find themselves pulled into a cycle of escalation, which will push Iran to use riskier options to retaliate against the United States and Israel.

The withdrawal of the United States from the Iran nuclear deal, the looming imposition of more U.S. sanctions, and Israel's determination to attack it inside Syria to prevent it from entrenching itself there present Iran with a challenge. Like any country intent on defending itself, Iran is compelled to retaliate against these two stronger military powers. But because Iran is intent on retaining as many of the economic benefits of the existing framework of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, as the nuclear deal is formally known, it is also reticent to rapidly escalate some of its retaliatory moves for fear of nudging the European Union in the direction of the United States. The United States and Israel can harm Iran far more than Iran can harm them. Thus Iran will retaliate by using cyberwarfare and other asymmetric means that are hard to track back to it, or by supporting...

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