Coping with The Unfathomable

By Jacob V. Lamar Jr

"I think there's no point in trying to predict what the Iranians are going to do. We simply have a task to do, and we're going to go ahead and do it." So said Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger, reflecting what was probably the Reagan Administration's dominant view of the challenge posed by Tehran. But even as the Administration was being assailed for the lack of foresight in its gulf policy, the Pentagon was thinking hard about what to do in the event of an Iranian attack on U.S. warships in the waterway. Beyond that, other questions loomed. How could immediate tensions in the region be eased? Above all, what can Western governments, and the U.S. in particular, do to cope with a radically unpredictable state like Iran?

The military questions alone threatened to be an enormously nuanced exercise. Some strategists have already been severely critical of the Administration for failing to hit back at Iran when the reflagged tanker Bridgeton struck a mine last month. "We should have pulverized Farsi Island," fumed Zbigniew Brzezinski, Jimmy Carter's National Security Adviser. "All this power cringing in the area is a terrible embarrassment."

For its part, the Administration insists that its policy is to retaliate swiftly against attacks on the gulf convoy -- once the aggressor has been accurately identified. Discussing the Bridgeton incident recently, for example, Weinberger asserted that it is impossible to know who laid the mine. "They don't leave fingerprints," said the Secretary curtly.

Other military experts, like Washington's Anthony Cordesman, consultant and author of the forthcoming book The Iran-Iraq War: 1984-1987, counsel more caution. Says Cordesman: "The key factor is to allow Iran to determine the level of escalation. The U.S. must not be perceived as escalating the conflict." U.S. military planners last week were hewing closely to Cordesman's line and planning for contingencies based on the nature of any foreseeable Iranian provocations. If Iran were to fire upon an American vessel with its Chinese-made Silkworm missiles, for example, the U.S. would most likely seek to destroy the missile sites. Bombers aboard the aircraft carrier U.S.S. Constellation, based just outside the gulf, could be dispatched on short notice. The Silkworms, situated in isolated spots along the gulf and manned by small crews, could be taken out cleanly.

If Iran chose to escalate in other ways that could be directly traced to Tehran, such as overt mining of gulf waters or frontal attacks on the reflagged tankers, the Pentagon has a menu of additional options. One choice is retaliatory U.S. mining around the Iranian oil refinery at Kharg Island or around the major port of Bushehr, two crucial harbors for Iranian sea trade. If more aggressive U.S. strikes were needed, particularly in retaliation for direct attacks on the tankers, bombers from the Constellation could hit Iranian airfields and key petroleum-refining installations with ease.

Those are largely tactical considerations. At the strategic level of coping with the gulf crisis and with Iran, experts find far fewer cut-and-dried answers. One strongly held view, however, is that Washington must devise all its moves in the region in much closer concert with U.S. allies. "The incredible feature of the gulf at the moment is how the U.S. is standing virtually alone, exposed," says Military Historian Edward Luttwak, author of Strategy: The Logic of War and Peace. As Luttwak sees it, "The whole lesson of history teaches the necessity of achieving consensus, at home and abroad, | for such adventures." The U.S. could help form such a consensus by including its allies, particularly Western Europe, in the formation of a coherent American policy. Once that was achieved, the U.S. could further bind its allies to its side by avoiding unilateral actions, such as its solitary decision to reflag Kuwait's tankers.

Many foreign policy analysts feel that if Washington wants to defuse Iranian radicalism, it needs to rethink its military options entirely. "If the American aim was to put a military presence in the gulf in order to deter Iranian action, it was an entirely misplaced decision," says Group Captain David Bolton, director of the British government-funded Royal United Services Institute for Defense Studies in London. Rather than shows of force, Bolton counsels a gradual withdrawal of U.S. warships from the area, "while quiet diplomacy U.S. allies seeks an international way out."

In diplomatic terms, such an effort may involve greater American recourse to that much maligned body the United Nations. The advantage of the U.N., explains Gary Sick, an Iran expert and former Middle East adviser to the Carter Administration, is that it allows other Arab nations to join publicly in an effort to moderate Iran's behavior. At the moment, many Arab states feel they cannot back the U.S. openly in any diplomatic enterprise because of Washington's strong support of Israel. The U.N., says Sick, at least offers a forum for low-profile and private discussion of the issue.

The Administration has already backed a U.N. Security Council resolution, passed in June, that called for a cease-fire in the Iran-Iraq war, an exchange of prisoners and peace negotiations. Tehran has so far refused to listen to the call. But that, says Sick, should discourage no one. He and most other experts agree that in dealing with fundamentalist radicalism, the most important weapons in the American arsenal are probably firmness and patience.

With reporting by Frank Melville/London and Bruce van Voorst/Washington