Guest Blog: The Gulf of Tonkin and the Persian Gulf: The Case Against a War with Iran

The Gulf of Tonkin and the Persian Gulf: The Case Against a War with Iran



For those who know history, the capture of fifteen British sailors elicits an unhappy feeling of déjà vu. In the Gulf of Tonkin, U.S. naval forces were supporting South Vietnamese commandos engaged in sabotage operations in North Vietnam. Although Operation 34 A may have been a justifiable response to Vietcong infiltration of South Vietnam, the fact that U.S. naval forces were engaged in military conflict at the time of the first attack on the destroyer Maddox was withheld from the general public. Apparently, there was no second attack on the Maddox and the Turner Joy, and it may well be the case that in the first episode the Maddox was attacked in a case of mistaken identity by still relatively harmless patrol boats. In the second attack, it is clear that what Clausewitz called the fog of war played a key role, as nervous sonar technicians misinterpreted data under stress.

The point of the matter is that the Gulf of Tonkin incident was generated by dangerous interaction between U.S. naval forces pressuring an adversary, and then used to rationalize the escalation of U.S. involvement in the Vietnamese civil war, an escalation that President Johnson already desired. The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution that authorized the ultimate deaths of millions of Vietnamese and fifty thousand Americans would have been unlikely to have passed the Congress if either Operation 34 A or contemporary doubts as to the reality of the second attack had been public or congressional knowledge.

The analogy with the capture of the British sailors is obvious. It is widely rumored that the United States has been attempting to pressure the Iranians through destabilization activities of U.S. intelligence services. The Bush administration has called for regime change in Iran on more than one occasion. The Bush administration has placed an enormous naval and air strike force in the region capable of a devastating attack on Iran. This has created a very tense situation between the U.S. and Iran, especially on the Shat al Arab waterway where the British were captured, the waterway being a source of contention between Iran and Iraq that in significant measure lead to the Iran-Iraq War.

An episode like the capture of the British sailors was almost a certainty given the tense security environment. While we may not like the Iranian regime, we would be unwise to allow such an episode to be the first step to rationalizing an attack on Iran that is a Bush administration policy in search of a justification for the following reasons.

First, given the duplicity of the Administration in launching the attack on Iraq, there would need to be very precise GPS coordinates of the British ship's position provided by an independent source before anyone ought to believe the story being put forward. Second, any attack on Iran would severely stress the U.S. armed forces, because the United States would be required to secure the oil fields of Southern Iran in order to prevent Iranian retaliation with their oil weapon. Third, an attack on Iran would increase Muslim hostility to the United States in general, and especially among Shia in Iraq who are vital to achieving any reasonable outcome there. Fourth, any U.S. attack on Iran more generally would unite Shia and Sunni against the United States, a grievous development to long term U.S. security interests. Fifth, an attack on Iran would push China and Russia closer together, as the U.S. would appear as an increasingly dangerous menace to world order. Finally, because of all the above effects of an attack on Iran, Israel's long term security would be endangered. Israel cannot in the long term live with Muslim hostility that is provoked by the United States on an increasing basis and must find some accommodation in order to survive. Many Israelis fear Iran, and not without reason, but a Muslim world increasingly united in hatred of the U.S. cannot be in Israel's interest.

The impact of the Gulf of Tonkin incident was to destroy a generation of South and North Vietnamese, and kill fifty eight thousand American soldiers. The press must do its duty and see that the current drift of events with Iran does not generate an outcome orders of magnitude worse.

Guest Blogger Donnie is an adjunct professor of
Instructor of Political Science, Economics, Finance and Law
He can be reached here:
Drich@mc3.edu