War With Iran – The Response

 With the U.S. attack last night on the nuclear facilities in Iran, we (both as a country and as individuals) need to start thinking about what sort of response to expect from Iran. Anyone that thinks that Iran is going to do nothing in response to a physical attack upon their soil by the “Great Satan” is guilty of wishful thinking at its worst.

Pundits today are certainly going to discuss the threat to US personnel (military and otherwise) stationed in, or operating within, the Gulf States, Diego Garcia, or Isreal, and that cannot be ignored. While my prayers and support go out to those personnel, that is beyond the scope of this blog. My concerns are more focused on the potential for Iranian attacks on facilities here in the United States. We probably do not have to worry about direct military attacks by the Republican Guards forces (though I must admit that drone attacks like those seen being conducted by Ukraine against Russia remain a distinct possibility given Iranian drone technology), but terror attacks and cyber attacks are a significant concern.

Terror attacks by their very nature are hard to predict. Would Iran go after direct attacks on the people of the United States in a true terror campaign? The weapons available to them are many (including those drones that I mentioned above) and it would be difficult to defend against such attacks by a nation state. Or would they specifically target military and critical infrastructure targets? If it is the later type targets, then we will have to be concerned about cyberattacks as part of that terror campaign.

Unfortunately, attacks against chemical facilities would fit into both of these scenarios. Facilities that hold significant quantities of what the now defunct CFATS program called ‘release threat’ chemicals (toxic, flammable, and explosive chemicals) could be attacked to cause great physical harm to surrounding population centers, as well as having a potential outsized impact on the national economy. More sophisticated attacks on chemical facilities could be designed with less direct impact on civilians and a more targeted attack on military capabilities or the economy. And, of course, a pure terror campaign could first target chemical facilities that house explosive or chemical weapon precursors for theft of those chemicals to empower WMD attacks on the population.

While the CFATS program was never designed to protect against nation state level attacks on chemical facilities, it did make those facilities harder to attack. More importantly it provided a cadre of federal assistance to those facilities and a way to funnel more resources to the most dangerous targets. Unfortunately, those resources are no longer available, and those defenses are almost certainly weakened by the loss of that program. While it would not be easy to stand that program back up, Congress certainly needs to look at emergency measures to do so, before Iran decides to use our chemical facilities as a weapon against us.