Iran vulnerable to sabotage on several fronts

Half a dozen explosions and fires over the past six weeks at Iranian nuclear, armaments, and electricity facilities and a hospital in north Tehran have rattled the government and shaken Iranians. These events have demonstrated Iran’s vulnerability to sabotage on both the military and civilian fronts and appear to signify that the US and Israel are ratcheting up their “maximum pressure” campaign by adding strategic physical attacks to the economic warfare that has undermined the country’s economy, collapsed its currency, and beggared millions of Iranians.

The initial explosion took place on June 26th at Khojir, a missile production plant near Parchin, a major site for the manufacture of weaponry. This coincided with a fire at a power plant at Shiraz, 965 kilometres to the south.

On June 30th an explosion at Tehran’s Sina Athar Medical Centre killed 19 and injured 14.  The authorities subsequently claimed arrests were made.

An explosion and fire on July 2nd destroyed ground level sheds at the centrifuge assembly section of Iran’s nuclear enrichment plant at Nantaz, 250 kilometres from Tehran.

Foreign experts suggested this may have set back Iran’s nuclear programme by 18 months because latest model centrifuges being developed at the site enrich uranium at high speed.

On July 4th, a fire at a power station in Ahvaz blacked out the area briefly.

A July 7th explosion at the industrial zone in Baqershahr, 23 kilometres from Tehran, killed two workers said to have been filling oxygen tanks.

An explosion early on July 10th in Western Tehran caused power failures in two residential areas near military and security facilities. It was reported that the incident took place at a missile facility/warehouse of the Revolutionary Guard Corps. The authorities deny there was any incident.

While two or three these events have been claimed to be industrial accidents, it is unlikely that those at military installations come into this category.

Under the 2015 nuclear deal, Iran agreed to employ only 5,060 of its oldest and least efficient centrifuges to produce a limited amount of low enriched uranium (with a concentration of 3-4 per cent) for fuel for power plants.  The underground complex at Nantaz was to be the sole production facility. Last year, Iran stepped back from its commitments in response to the May 2018 Trump administration’s withdrawal from the deal and re-imposition and expansion of sanctions. Iran installed newer centrifuges to enrich to 4.5 per cent far more uranium than permitted but did not enrich to 20 per cent shortening the route to 90 per cent needed for nuclear weaponry. Enrichment was also restarted at the Fordow facility.

Meanwhile, on the domestic front, undeterred by tightening US sanctions, Iran has continued to carry out research in rocketry and to upgrade and expand its defensive capabilities. As long as Iran did not develop missiles to carry nuclear warheads, these activities were not constrained by the nuclear deal although the Trump administration has called them justification for its exit from the deal.

On the regional front, Iran has strengthened relations with its allies in Syria, Iraq, and Lebanon to the chagrin of the Trump administration. Last week, Iran and Syria signed a bilateral military and security cooperation agreement with the aim of overcoming open warfare being waged on both countries by the US and Israel. Iran committed itself to upgrading Syria’s air defences and the two demanded the withdrawal of all foreign forces illegally in Syria — Turkish, US, and radical fundamentalists connected to al-Qaeda and Daesh.

For both countries improved air defences are essential. During the Syrian conflict Israel has carried out scores of aerial bombings on Syrian research and military sites as well as bases where Iranian advisers and officers and Iran-deployed militiamen have been located. Russian air defences have not successfully halted these attacks, perhaps, because Moscow does not want Israel to target its naval and air bases in Latakia province.

Tehran’s political and paramilitary allies in Iraq have challenged Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi’s attempts to corral Iran-allied Shia militias and force them to submit to the command structure of the national army. He tried and failed to detain members of Kataeb Hizbollah blamed for planning and carrying outrocket strikes on Iraqi bases hosting US troops and the US embassy in the Green Zone in Baghdad.

His two predecessors, Haidar al-Abadi and Adel Abdel-Mahdi, were fated to fail in this effort because Tehran’s allies have, so far, remained loyal and have, so far, successfully resisted pressure from the government. Since the assassination by the Trump administration of Iran’s Quds Force commander Qassem Suleimani last January, the militias and their political partners in parliament have demanded the total pullout of US troops from Iraq, arguing that the US has violated the agreement for their presence which prohibits the use of Iraqi territory to harm the country’s neighbours.

In addition to political clout, Tehran has considerable economic leverage over Baghdad which the US lacks. Iran provides neighbouring Iraq with electricity, refined petroleum products, food, machinery, spare parts and other essential goods.

In spite of constant and rising US pressure on crisis-ridden Beirut to cut ties with Tehran, Iran retains considerable influence in Lebanon through Shia Hizbullah and Amal and their partner Maronite President Michel Aoun and his Free Patriotic Movement.

These three centres of power have joined forces with rival Sunnis, Christians, Druze, and other communities with the aim of holding onto power since October when hundreds of thousands of Lebanese have taken to the country’s squares and streets to demand reform, an end to mismanagement and corruption and, ultimately, the overthrow of the sectarian political system imposed on Lebanon by France before independence.

Due to the political stalemate between status quo leaders and “revolutionaries”

Lebanon has slid rapidly toward total economic collapse. The Lebanese pound has depreciated by 80 per cent, businesses and industries have shut down, unemployment has risen to 30 per cent and hunger is stalking poor and middle class families. International donors have withheld $11 billion since 2018 and the International Monetary Fund has not released $9 billion because the government has not begun implementation of a credible economic reform programme which would involve rooting out corruption. US Secretary of state Mike Pompeo has said the US will back Lebanon as long as it carries out reforms and is “not subordinate to Iran.”

Tehran is not about to allow the US to engineer a breach with its allies in Beirut since the Trump administration and Israel seem to to be expanding their “maximum pressure”campaign with the objective of effecting “regime change” in Tehran.  Tehran is biding its time until the US election which, its leadership hopes, will effect “regime change “ in Washington.

 “Revolutionary” Iran supports the status quo in allied countries.  In Syria, this means the Assad government which has prevented that country from descending into chaos and anarchy over the past nine years.  Tehran is determ ined to preserve the sectarian regimes installed by the US in 2003-04 in Iraq and France in the 1930s in Lebanon and prevent reform — whatever the costs to these countries and their citizens.