New Aggressive Strategy Seen in Iranian Action

After months of carefully avoiding confrontation with U.S. naval forces in the Persian Gulf, Iran has adopted a new and apparently far more aggressive strategy--and that strategy cost it two of its four best warships Monday.

U.S. officials and academic analysts admit they were taken by surprise by Iran’s decision to abandon its earlier, cautious approach. They speculated that the regime of the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini was motivated either by internal political considerations or by a belief that Congress would bring home the U.S. task force if it was drawn into combat.

Six Iranian Vessels Hit

Iran clearly got the worst of Monday’s action. One of its four modern frigates apparently was destroyed and another was heavily damaged, while four smaller boats either were sunk or hit.

Nevertheless, if Iran continues its present course, it could draw the United States into a far more dangerous phase of the nine-month-old U.S. campaign of protecting re-registered Kuwaiti tankers and other ships flying the U.S. flag in the war-torn gulf.

It seems unlikely that Iran could survive a frontal engagement at sea with the U.S. force. But the Khomeini government probably could increase its support for terrorism or find other ways to attack U.S. interests.

“They could move to attack ships in the Strait of Hormuz,” an Administration official said. “I wouldn’t rule out escalation, either in the form of additional terrorism, which is always an option, or some other threat to shipping. With Iran, it is always difficult to predict.”

Iran recently ended a six-month lull in naval mine warfare, setting out a field of mines, one of which heavily damaged the U.S. frigate Samuel B. Roberts.

When U.S. warships retaliated by shelling two Iranian offshore oil platforms Monday, Iran chose to fight back. That was a sharp departure from its reaction after the last U.S. retaliatory attack in October, when the Iranians fired Silkworm missiles at Kuwait but avoided a direct engagement with the U.S. Navy.

Setbacks in Land War

U.S. experts both in and out of government speculated that Iran chose to escalate the war at sea because of reversals it has suffered on land in its war with Iraq. With Iranian parliamentary elections scheduled for later this month, the government may have felt pressure to take decisive military action for what basically are domestic political reasons.

“They’ve felt isolated lately, diplomatically and militarily,” an Administration official said. “They’re at least feeling the pinch of public opinion.”

“They have very difficult internal problems,” said retired Rear Adm. Eugene Carroll, deputy director of the private Center for Defense Information. “The pressure is growing, and the risk is growing. It was a desperation measure. In internal Iranian politics, they apparently felt they had to go back to this level of activity.”

Shireen T. Hunter, deputy director of the Middle East Project of the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, said Iranian hawks seemed to have taken the upper hand because more moderate factions had been unable to show results for their policy of avoiding contact with the U.S. Navy.

“They see that circumspection is not working,” Hunter said. “They may be feeling suicidal.”

Anthony Cordesman, an adjunct professor of international security studies at Georgetown University, said Iran had made no secret of its objective to end the U.S. presence in the gulf, which Tehran believes is hindering its war effort against Iraq.

“They are not looking at this as a confrontation with the United States. They are looking at it as a serious engagement in the war against Iraq,” Cordesman said.

He added that the Iranians might believe they could force a debate between the Reagan Administration and Congress over the 1973 War Powers Resolution, which gave Congress a policy-making role in the event of hostilities involving U.S. forces abroad.

“If the War Powers Act is invoked, they have a chance to force the United States out of the gulf,” he said. “Many intelligence people have warned that they might do something like this to try to inject the issue into the (U.S.) presidential race. If they can force the gulf as an issue in American politics, it’s worth a couple of frigates.”

One Administration official conceded that Washington does not know what Iran will do next.

“The major question here for us is, how do you deter Iran?” the official asked. “If they shoot a couple of Silkworms at an American warship, there would obviously be a major retaliation, but does that act as a deterrent to the Iranians? We really don’t know.”

Joseph Sisco, a former undersecretary of state, said there are severe limitations on the kind of military action Iran could sustain.

“It’s altogether possible that we might have a continuation in the short term, but I don’t see this as an extended period or any significant escalation,” Sisco told Cable News Network.

Carroll, whose organization takes a dovish view of the use of U.S. military force, said in a telephone interview that the initiative is with Iran. Under present circumstances, he said, the United States must respond to Iranian provocations.

“I think we have turned the game back to the Iranians, and we will have to dance to their tune,” he said. “When they pull the trigger again at a time and place of their choosing, we will have to respond.”

Defense Secretary Frank C. Carlucci agreed that the next move is Iran’s. “Hostilities have ended unless the Iranians once again demonstrate hostile intent,” he said. “We hope Iran will now realize the futility of its attempts to interfere with peaceful international shipping in the Persian Gulf.”