B-2 Bombers Are in Diego Garcia; What Happens if Iran Attacks?

The Iranian regime brims with bluster: If President Donald Trump orders a strike on Iran, Tehran will respond by destroying the U.S. Indian Ocean base of Diego Garcia, 3000 miles to its south.

The trigger for Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s anger was Trump’s dispatch of B-2 stealth bombers to the remote base, presumably to threaten Iran should it continue to reject negotiations to end its nuclear program.

Neither the Iranian statement nor the dispatch of B-2s suggest war is imminent: Iranian authorities claim they can strike Diego Garcia with precision, but the base is outside the range of most Iranian missiles, more than five times more distant than the range of Iranian precision missiles, and twice the distance of Israel where Iranian missiles often missed their mark.

Simultaneously, long-range bombers at Diego Garcia are nothing new; the United States used B-52 bombers from Diego Garcia against both Iraq and Afghanistan.

After a U.S. drone eliminated Qods Force chief Qassem Soleimani along the Baghdad airport road, the Trump administration dispatched B-52s once again to Diego Garcia not because of imminent war, but rather to deter Iran from unwise retaliation.

If war becomes imminent, the greatest signal will be the removal of U.S. aircraft carriers from the Persian Gulf and into the northern Indian Ocean. This would negate Iran’s speed boats, drones, anti-ship missiles, and mines, but enable U.S. aircraft to hit deep into Iran given their greater range.

Still, wars in the Middle East are caused neither by oil nor water, but rather by overconfidence. There is increasing danger that those surrounding the supreme leader believe his rhetoric and could launch attacks at U.S. forces.

While Diego Garcia may be out-of-reach, the Fifth Fleet headquarters in Bahrain is not, nor are U.S. forces at the Al-Udeid Airbase in Qatar. Iran has a history of launching drones against Iraqi and Iraqi Kurdish bases where U.S. forces remain co-located.

Trump should therefore spell out to Iran what will happen if Iranian forces attack any American base, embassy, or school in the region.

If Trump seeks only a limited engagement meant to dissuade escalation but still demonstrate overwhelming choice, he should target two ports: Chabahar and Jask.

Both are important because they are Iran’s primary ports onto the open sea outside the Persian Gulf and Strait of Hormuz. Iran has invested increasingly in Chabahar, and sought to develop the port with on again, off again Chinese assistance.

Chabahar is not only potentially important to China’s ‘string of pearls’ series of ports ready to accommodate the Chinese navy, but it is also crucial to Iran’s desire to position itself as an access corridor to Eurasia.

Iranian investment in Jask over the past decade has also been significant, though at a lower level than Chabahar. Jask’s importance today is its role as a submarine base outside the Strait of Hormuz.

Should the United States destroy the Iranian military and port facilities in both Chabahar and Jask, not only would it set back the Iran-China alliance by reducing Iran’s attractiveness to China, but it would also enable the U.S. Navy or Israeli submarines to essentially bottle the Iranian Navy and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corp’s corollary navy into the Persian Gulf.

Certainly, other targets exist—Iran’s main naval base at Bandar Abbas and the Kharg Oil Terminal from which the Islamic Republic exports more than 90 percent of its oil—but these would be the targets of unrestricted war rather than a means to provide the regime an offramp.

If Trump wants to avoid escalation, it is time to tell Iran: Bluster has a price. Harm even one hair on an American soldier or sailor’s head and lose its Indian Ocean ports forever.