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Editor's Note: Samantha Vinograd is a national security analyst for CNN. He worked on the National Security Council of President Barack Obama from 2009 to 2013 and in the Treasury Department during the presidency of George W. Bush. Follow her on @sam_vinograd. The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author.
(CNN) - While the international community works to define who is responsible for the most recent attack on Saudi oil facilities, the US government. He pointed to Iran.
Despite initially blaming the Houthis, a rebel group backed by Iran, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo directly blamed Iran and said the attacks had not originated in Yemen.
While Iran denies responsibility, Saudi Arabia issued a statement Sunday that said the attack "could have come from both Iraq and Iran." If Iran is found guilty, Saturday's would be the most recent escalation of attacks by the regime against the United States, our allies and our interests.
This escalation comes days before President Donald Trump and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani meet in New York for the annual meeting of the United Nations General Assembly. The White House has not ruled out a possible meeting between the two leaders. If this occurs, whether in New York or in the future, its substantive success will depend on Trump recognizing, and willing to close, some of his self-inflicted political wounds.
Bad boy for life
While analysts review the origin of the attacks on Saturday in Saudi Arabia, something is already clear: Iran is implementing its own campaign of maximum pressure to persuade the United States to lift the sanctions and give access to income of great need. While the United States relies on sanctions to punish Iranian activities assessed as illegal - such as its support for terrorism and the resumption of its nuclear activity - Iran uses violent tactics to promote its agenda.
Iran recently reinforced its terrorist activities in key international waters, such as when a British flag tanker was diverted to one of its ports, a move that the British authorities called illegal. Around the same date, US forces destroyed an Iranian drone that approached the flagship USS Boxer, and while Iran denied the attack, the United States blamed them for the attacks on oil tankers near the Strait of Hormuz.
Iran also supports militias in countries like Iraq and Syria that threaten the United States and its allies like Israel. The government announced this month that it had new intelligence data indicating "an intensified risk that Iranian forces or those they employ were considering an imminent attack on US forces or interests in the Persian Gulf or in Iraq." Some foreign counterparts expressed skepticism about this recent announcement, but the intelligence community publicly declared in January that Iranian-backed militias in Iraq remained the primary threat to US personnel. in that country, and they expected the threat to increase.
The US intelligence community He also assessed that Iran will continue to develop and maintain its terrorist capabilities to deter or retaliate against those it perceives as its enemies.
As the largest state sponsor of terrorism, the Iranian regime has a long history in favor of violence and only last year was accused of planning a murder in Denmark and a bomb attack in Paris. Iran denied being involved in either plan.
With advanced cyber capabilities, Iran poses a threat also in cyberspace. It has the proven intention and capacity - even against Saudi Aramco - to launch cyberattacks worldwide. The Department of Homeland Security and the FBI warned in June that Iran has increased its cyberattacks against the United States in the face of rising tensions.
In other words, the matrix of Iran's evil activity is not shrinking but it could be argued that it is expanding.
Do not encourage bad behavior
While the history of Iran's illegal activities precede Trump - and probably last longer than his time in office - his decisions have exacerbated tensions with Iran. His decision to include the bodies of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard as a foreign terrorist organization was received by the Pentagon with the warning that the designation could put American troops at risk.
His decision to withdraw from the nuclear agreement with Iran has not only led this country to increase attacks against the United States and its allies, but has also unnecessarily reintroduced a nuclear threat when we face so many other threats. Now that Iran is restarting the activities that were banned under the nuclear agreement, such as crossing a limit on its low-enrichment uranium reserves and uranium enrichment to a higher level than allowed, US national security experts have had to deal with the additional concern of a reborn nuclear threat.
If a real exit for Iran is not found, tensions and attacks will likely continue. This could impact US national security in several ways. Iran supports agents throughout the Middle East, and that includes providing them with drone drone technology, weapons and advanced intelligence.
A panel of UN experts concluded that Iran has provided drone technology to the Houthis in Yemen, and that this is impacting beyond the borders of Yemen. The Houthis have launched attacks on Saudi Arabia this year, and they are not the only Iranian agents that are attacking the Saudi kingdom. US intelligence officials determined that the attack in May against a Saudi oil pumping station was launched from Iraq by a militia supported by Iran. Iran has also helped Lebanese Hezbollah improve its capabilities.
A wide range of easy targets - including energy facilities - still exist in Saudi Arabia and throughout the region. After Pompeo blames Iran for Saturday's attack, Iran warned that "everyone should know that all US bases and their aircraft carriers that are at a distance of up to 2,000 km around Iran are within the range of our missiles." . We have already sent more military assets to the region and have carried out cyber operations against Iran recently, but we run the risk of getting into an endless arms race if we fail to identify a credible way to reduce tensions.
New York Minute
So what should the Trump administration do? Holding Iran accountable for its unacceptable actions is a central aspect of any coherent strategy on that country, but to date the government suffers from self-inflicted wounds and the lack of a strategy designed to bring Iran back to the negotiating table.
Be it a meeting between Trump and Rouhani in New York or private discussions between American and Iranian experts to expose the parameters of significant negotiations, the National Security team should not fail to see the larger picture: Iran is a bad actor, but at make wrong decisions the US government It has aggravated those threats. Conjuring any of these threats, starting with those of a nuclear nature, should be a priority. To do so, the president will have to do something improper: recognize that he was wrong when he left the nuclear agreement without a realistic plan to renegotiate it.
(Translation of William Montes)
Drone attacks
