More Questions About Iran's Intentions in the Gulf

By Michael Collins Dunn

Although the U.S. is still concentrating on making sure that Iraq's nuclear potential has been destroyed, the greatest concern for the future security of the Gulf region is the rapid rearmament of Iran. Iran has been acquiring frontline combat aircraft, sophisticated tanks and missiles, and even submarines. It also recently conducted large-scale amphibious maneuvers which seemed to be a rehearsal for landing troops across the Gulf, should it choose to do so.

Following renewed tensions over Abu Musa island in the Persian Gulf and unconfirmed but persistent rumors about Iranian acquisition of nuclear weapons, the smaller Gulf states are looking warily toward their giant neighbor. Its recent maneuvers combined with its arms buildup are a reminder that Iran is the biggest kid on the block in the Gulf. Whatever its intentions, its neighbors will have to take its capabilities into consideration in planning their own military growth. Those who argue against arms sales to Saudi Arabia on the grounds that this fuels a Gulf "arms race" overlook the fact that, in arms acquisition, Iran is several laps ahead of all of its neighbors combined.

Iran has been rearming ever since the end of the 1980-88 war with Iraq. While reports differ over numbers, both the Iranians and the Russian media confirm that Iran has acquired additional MiG-29s, other combat aircraft, and substantial numbers of T-72 tanks (one recent deal alone is said to amount to $1 billion). At least two submarines are on order.

All of those deals were concluded before the breakup of the Soviet Union. Since the breakup, there have been numerous reports that Iran is seeking a wide array of equipment, some at bargain-basement prices, from the Central Asian republics. The submarines, for example, will be the only full-sized subs in any Gulf country's navy. One rumor, which has turned up since last December in numerous Middle Eastern and European media, claims that three tactical nuclear warheads disappeared from Semipalatinsk test range in Kazakhstan last year and that Russian intelligence is convinced that two of them are in Iran. U.S. officials have said in testimony that they have no evidence to support these reports, and Kazakh officials have strongly denied them. But they fuel the nervousness about Iran's intentions.

There also were reports in April that Iran was expelling United Arab Emirates nationals from Abu Musa island, and had closed the only Arabic-language school there. Shortly before the UAE achieved independence in 1971, the Shah of Iran had occupied Abu Musa, which had been administered by the UAE Emirate of Sharja, and the Greater and Lesser Tumb islands, which belonged to another UAE Emirate, Ras El-Kheima. That Shah agreed to share sovereignty and oil revenues on Abu Musa with Sharja, but Iranian troops remained in sole occupation. This year's flap eased when Iran insisted that it had not disturbed UAE nationals in any way, although it admitted that Arabs of other nationalities were not welcome on the island. Because there are still a number of outstanding Iranian claims to offshore oil exploration zones in the Gulf, any new expansionist behavior could foreshadow some new territorial grab.

The smaller Gulf states are looking warily toward their giant neighbor.

This is the background to Iran's recently completed 11-day amphibious warfare exercise, involving army, air force, navy and Revolutionary Guards Corps units and including marine landings on "hostile" beaches. Even if the scope and elements involved were exaggerated by the Iranian media, the question arises as to why this message is being sent at this time.

The Victory 3 maneuvers, completed May 4, covered an extensive area of the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman, on either side of the crucial Strait of Hormuz and in the strait itself. The Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA) said the maneuvers were aimed at improving training and coordination between the Armed Forces and the Revolutionary Guards Corps (Pasdaran).

Controlled from headquarters in Bandar Abbas, the maneuvers involved over 10,000 nautical square miles and a total of 45 destroyers, missile-launching craft, logistics ships, frigates, and 150 speedboats, as well as anti-submarine, attack and minesweeper helicopters and Air Force fighter-bombers, IRNA claimed. Marines and Special Forces brigades and electronic warfare units were involved as well as divers and "Revolutionary Guards Corps special submarines," probably meaning midget submarines. Recently purchased Russian submarines are not yet operational and are for the navy, not the Guards.

Since the defeat of Iraq, Iran is far and away the largest and best-armed military force in the Gulf region. Iran may have been seeking to convey the message that it would be prepared to resist any American intervention on its side of the strait, but the use of amphibious landings certainly suggested that Iran might be exercising for an interventionist move followed by an attempt to defend its own gains by controlling access to the strait.

Recent Elections

In the recent Iranian elections, President Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani's pragmatic faction of clerics easily swamped the hard-liners. But the hard-liners retain strong influence in other institutions of the Iranian government and military, particularly the Revolutionary Guard. Furthermore, despite Rafsanjani's generally perceived pragmatism, he has good credentials as well in the export of revolution. At the moment, Iran needs international cooperation and Western trade to revive its shattered economy. In the longer term, however, its intentions may prove to be more expansionist.

The most benign reading which can be put on the recent amphibious maneuvers is that Iran genuinely believes that American or Western intervention in its affairs is inevitable, and is exercising its ability to resist. At least equally likely is that Iran is exercising its muscle for possible future adventures on the other side of the Gulf. One rarely needs to land marines on a hostile shore as a defensive measure.

Michael Collins Dunn, Ph.D. is senior analyst of the International Estimate, Inc., a Washington-based consultancy, and editor of its biweekly newsletter, The Estimate.