The Tragedy of Flight 655 : U.S. Embassies in Mideast Reported on Full Alert : Iran Retaliate? Analysts See Few Options

NICOSIA, Cyprus —  Despite Iran’s almost hourly threats of retaliation against the United States in the wake of the downing of the Iranian jetliner on Sunday, Western analysts assessing the threat said Monday that Iran appears to have few options to hit back.

If Iran decides to go ahead with a retaliatory strike, in the view of analysts, the overwhelming likelihood is that the Tehran government would choose some form of guerrilla or terrorist action: sending a boat laden with explosives against an American warship, for example, or placing new mines in the Persian Gulf.

“There’s no question that if the Iranians could hit back, they would,” said Gary Sick, an expert on Iran for the National Security Council during the seizure of the American Embassy in Tehran in 1979. “People in Iran are under enormous pressure to respond somehow. The problem is that Iran doesn’t have many options.”

A Dismal Performance

Iran has given a dismal performance on the battlefield against Iraq in recent weeks, losing three major encounters and being driven out of its last strategic footholds on Iraqi territory. The showing was so poor that Iran last month took steps to integrate its army with the more radicalized Revolutionary Guards in an effort to overcome the weaknesses.

In addition, after a U.S. warship struck a mine in April, the United States attacked two offshore Iranian oil platforms and then sank six Iranian boats and warships in the gulf.

Although the April attack was also followed by calls for retaliation, nothing happened.

Don Kerr, an analyst at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London, said Iran’s pathetic military performance almost rules out the military option for Iranian planners.

“They cannot take on the U.S. on the ground--there is little opportunity,” Kerr said. “They can’t take on the U.S. Navy in the air--there would be a grave danger of losing what remains of their air force. They can’t take on the U.S. Navy on the water, because they have already lost a lot of navy ships and would lose more.”

Possible Use of Missiles

One military option left open to the Iranians would be the firing of ground-to-ground missiles, such as the Chinese made Silkworm or the Soviet made Scud-B, at American-flag shipping.

But analysts noted that ships like the cruiser Vincennes, which shot down the Iranian airliner Sunday, are especially equipped to detect missile firings and could easily destroy entire missile batteries with their own sophisticated missiles.

In the realm of terrorism, U.S. embassies in the Middle East were reported on full alert in expectation of some kind of terrorist attack, while naval ships in the gulf were said to have gone on highest defensive status.

“I would guess anyone would have a hard time coming near an American warship in the gulf right now,” Kerr said.

The only American facility in the region is a naval station in Bahrain, which is used for storage of goods being used to supply the fleet. But the Administrative Support Unit, as the base is known, is ringed by a double layer of security--American and Bahraini.

Action Against Hostages

Another possibility for Iranian strategists would be to take some action against one or more of the nine Americans held hostage in Lebanon, reportedly by such Iranian-backed radicals as the powerful Hezbollah (Party of God) militia.

But analysts noted that the only American hostage believed to have been killed in a retaliatory step was Peter Kilburn, a librarian at the American University of Beirut who was thought to have been “sold” by his kidnapers to Libya after the American air raid on that nation in April, 1986.

“We’re past the first 24 hours on the hostages, and those are the most difficult hours,” one analyst said. “If they wanted to kill a hostage in the emotional follow-up to the downing of the plane, it would most likely come in the first few hours. I am much less nervous about that now.”

What remains is the possibility of a seaborne terrorist attack against a warship or an American oil platform in the Persian Gulf. There are dozens of American-operated platforms in the coastal waters off the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia.

Mining the Gulf Again

More likely, in the view of many analysts, would be an Iranian resumption of mining the waters of the gulf in hopes of striking at U.S. warships in that fashion. That tactic offers the advantage of implied retaliation, but it can be disavowed publicly.

The Iranians have scored some successes with mines: Last July, the reflagged Kuwaiti tanker Bridgeton hit a mine at the outset of the U.S. operation to provide escorts to 11 Kuwaiti oil tankers re-registered under the American flag.

But the mining has also backfired, notably last year, when U.S. helicopters caught an Iranian ship in the act of launching mines and seized it, a series of events that led to a decision by Western European nations to send warships to the gulf. Although Iran never publicly admitted its responsibility, the mining incident proved deeply embarrassing.

Last October, the Iranians fired a number of their Silkworm missiles at Kuwait, initially hitting an American-flag tanker and then, after a U.S. military response, hitting Kuwait’s oil terminal.

Recaptured by Iraqis

Western analysts noted that Iran is far more limited now than it was at this time last year, when its forces were able to launch missiles at Kuwait from Iraq’s Faw Peninsula, which it had captured in February, 1986. The peninsula, however, was recaptured by the Iraqis in April.

Among others, Sick, the former National Security Council expert, believes that the most likely scenario is that the Iranians will use the airliner incident to verbally denounce the United States at the United Nations and in other forums and to whip up public opinion at home at a time when morale is flagging because of the long war with Iraq.

“In Iran today, you can’t be anything but a hard-liner,” Sick said. “The airliner incident undoubtedly strengthens the hard-liners’ position. And it was already pretty strong.”