The Trump administration touted last year’s bombing of Iranian nuclear sites as one of its great military successes.
US Air Force B-2 bombers dropped 14 of the world’s biggest bombs, hitting two Iranian nuclear installations without any US casualties or loss of aircraft, including the dozens of fighter jets, tankers and support aircraft that helped execute the mission.
Now President Donald Trump is threatening to attack Iran again, this time in solidarity with the hundreds of thousands of ordinary Iranians who have taken to the streets to oppose the hardline regime in Tehran.
But any new US attack on the Islamic Republic is unlikely to mirror the one-time strikes that hit three nuclear targets last summer, analysts say.
An attack in support of the protesters would need to focus on a range of command centers and other targets related to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), its affiliated Basij forces and the Iranian police force, which are the main organizations carrying out the bloody crackdown on dissent.
But those command centers are located within populated areas, meaning there’s a substantial risk of US raids killing the very civilians Trump is trying to support, the analysts say.
And killing civilians could backfire.
“Whatever (the US) does, it has to be very precise with no non-IRGC casualties,” said Hawaii-based analyst Carl Schuster, a former US Navy captain.
Any attack that harmed civilians “even if inadvertently” risks alienating the “dissidents who are united only in their hatred of the regime. Losses makes us a foreign power trying to suppress, dominate Iran, not a liberating influence,” Schuster said.
Peter Layton, a visiting fellow at the Griffith Asia Institute in Australia, echoed the caution regarding possible civilian casualties, but said there is a diverse target set available to Washington.
First, Iran’s top leadership might be vulnerable, most likely indirectly because Iran has learned from Israeli attacks that targeted and killed senior members of Iran’s military and nuclear scientists last year, Layton said.
Schuster agreed.
Iran’s leaders have seen “the need to disperse and hide what is important to them. We have shown we can hit what we can find,” Schuster said.
Still, hitting the homes and offices of regime leaders would send a message, according to Layton.
“The military value is small, but it is really theater in doing something for the protesters,” he said.
Washington could also hit Iranian leaders in their wallets, analysts said.
“The leadership and the IRGC have a range of commercial businesses and money-making enterprises across the country. Attack the specific facilities that are financially important to them as individuals and their families,” Layton said.
There are a lot of those, he said, citing Australian government estimates that one to two thirds of Iran’s gross domestic product is controlled by the IRGC.
“Weak spots” could be found on the list of IRGC enterprises, Layton added.
Schuster noted that there is some space between the IRGC and Iran’s top leadership.
“The goal is to make the IRGC leadership and rank and file … worry more about their own survival than that of the regime,” he said, adding, “the IRGC itself has never been suicidal.”
While the B-2 bombers were the sharp end of last summer’s US attack on the nuclear sites, the diverse target set now in the mix might be more suitable for other US assets, analysts said.
“Regional IRGC HQs and bases can be hit by (Tomahawk) cruise missiles,” Schuster said.
The highly accurate Tomahawks can be fired from US Navy submarines and surface ships well off Iranian shores, minimizing the risk of US casualties.
Another cruise missile option is the Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile (JASSM). Carrying a 1,000-pound penetrating warhead and with a range of up to 620 miles (1,000 kilometers), the JASSM can also be fired well off Iranian shores from a range of US Air Force jets, including F-15, F-16 and F-35 fighters and B-1, B-2 and B-52 bombers, as well as US Navy F/A-18 fighters.
Drones could also be used, analysts said.
It’s “unlikely to see crewed aircraft dropping short-range ordnance or free fall bombs as (it is) likely to be assessed as too risky,” Layton said.
While the US usually has an aircraft carrier in the Mideast, as of Monday the nearest flattop, the USS Abraham Lincoln, was thousands of miles away in the South China Sea.
Carriers travel with a cluster of ships that can also deliver missiles and other support for operations. In the fall the Trump administration moved a carrier group along with a slew of other ships, aircraft and thousands of troops to the Caribbean as part of its pressure campaign against the leadership of Venezuela. While some of those assets have begun to filter back out of the region, it has reduced the options available to military planners for immediate action on Iran.
That means any imminent air strikes would come from a range of airbases in the Persian Gulf region, or from farther afield.
During last summer’s B-2 strikes, the stealth bombers flew nonstop from their base in Missouri to Iran with aerial refueling along the way. Any of the US Air Force jets mentioned above can be refueled in the air.
The analysts said watching for movement of the tanker aircraft could be one sign US action is coming soon, as well as if strike aircraft like the B-1 bomber or F-15 Strike Eagle are moved closer to Iran.
Whatever method the Trump administration might choose to strike Iran this time, expect it to be “dramatic,” Layton said.
“The administration is attracted to theater. This means dramatic, media-attracting, head-turning events,” he said.
And expect it to be quick, he said, just like last year’s one-time strike on the nuclear facilities.
“The administration likes short-duration raids that involve the lowest risk to the US forces involved.”
Layton said one way to do that might be to strike oil facilities in the Persian Gulf.
“The easiest and safest target set,” he said.
“It would damage Iran economically for the medium to long term. Some drama in big plumes of smoke and easy for external media to cover,” Layton said.