2020 began with an eruption when the U.S. issued an drone strike on January 2nd - killing Iran’s most powerful general, Qasem Soleimani. (Image: ABC News)
2020 began with an eruption when the U.S. issued an drone strike on January 2nd - killing Iran’s most powerful general, Qasem Soleimani.
On Tuesday, US officials warned ships across Mideast waterways about the "possibility of Iranian action" against U.S. interests in the region.
Then, Tuesday afternoon, Iran state TV said Tehran has launched “tens” of surface-to-surface missiles at Iraq’s Ain Assad air base housing U.S. troops over America’s killing of a top Iranian general.
Dr. Saied Golkar is an Iranian-American and teaches middle eastern politics as an assistant professor at UTC. He said he is "shocked" by the news that Iran had issued the launch.
Before the launch, experts on Middle Eastern politics in our area told us they believed we should not be afraid of a military-style attack—and that’s not the kind of retaliation we should expect.
“I was shocked,” Golkar said. "Qasem Soleimani was the #2 man in Iran."
Golkar said there are many short-term consequences for assassinating the commander.
“You hope that you are undermining the Quds force activities in the region,” he said.
Golkar said there are long-term consequences as well.
“By assassinating number second person in the Iran political system, you’re undermining the regime,” he said.
Despite these consequences, Golkar said we shouldn’t fear military style retaliation from Iran.
“I really don’t think The Islamic Republic is going to attack the US directly or the US base directly in the region,” he said.
Due to the fact the survival of the Islamic Republic is of the utmost importance.
“They know that by attacking the US they are going to undermine the regime,” Golkar said.
Instead, Golkar predicted Iranian forces will issue numerous cyber attacks—intended to be undetectable, inconvenient, and annoying for the U.S.
“Or try to actually hack maybe transportation system,” he said.
But nothing large-scale that could kill hundreds of people—like disrupting air traffic—Golkar suspects.
“They know that the Trump administration is serious to respond,” he said.
However, the reason why Americans have been asked to evacuate the region, is because they are still a target to be kidnapped or taken hostage.
“That’s the most important eminent threat for the US,” Golkar said.
Watch Eryn Cooper's 5 PM report below.
While we wait to see how Iran responds to last week’s airstrike, we’re also waiting to find out how it may affect us economically here on our soil.
Specifically, our gas prices.
“Even if the oil in the Middle East—based on the attack—the price went up, goes up, doesn’t directly affect the US domestic consumer,” Golkar said.
Gas Price experts agree. Patrick DeHann with GasBuddy said he doesn’t anticipate a price change.
“I don’t really see a reason why things would escalate out of control or near record levels,” DeHann said.
That’s because our dependence on foreign oil has dramatically dropped.
DeHann said the US now produces 13 million barrels of oil a day compared to the 5.5 million barrels 10 years ago.
“If it doesn’t go up any we don’t go up on the street. If it goes up, we just chase the price up to how ever many cents it goes up,” DeHann said.
However, until we find out how and if Iran will retaliate, we won’t know exactly how it will change oil and gas prices here at home.
“I think the devil will be in the details of retaliation,” DeHann said.
DeHann said that if Iran did do anything that would increase oil prices, it wouldn’t be the first time.
He said attacks launched in September in Saudi Arabia knocked out millions of barrels per day of oil production.
As of Monday, AAA reported the average pump price in America was $2.58 a gallon, which is largely unchanged from what prices were before the drone strike.
Watch Eryn Cooper's 6 PM report below.
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