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3 Tehran falling into a US psy-ops
trap By Mahan Abedin
Psychological warfare is fast emerging as
the key component of the conflict between Iran and
the United States. It is being used extensively by
the latter to influence Iranian behavior in Iraq
and secure a climbdown by the Islamic Republic in
the intricate negotiations over the country's
controversial nuclear program.
As the
Iranians analyze and react to this carefully
crafted psychological-warfare campaign, they run
the risk of miscalculating broader developments in
the region. The most
important of these is Saudi
Arabia's new proactive foreign policy. In this
climate of heightened tensions and widespread
misunderstanding it is easy for the Iranians to
dismiss Saudi diplomacy as yet another plank of
America's psychological warfare against the
Islamic Republic. Miscalculations of this kind can
have drastic long-term consequences for Iranian
interests in the Middle East.
War of
words Psychological warfare has been a
feature of Iranian-US relations since the 1979
Islamic Revolution. Both sides have made extensive
use of it, not only to damage the morale of the
other, but also as a way of managing the conflict
and preventing it from escalating into a shooting
war. But never has this psychological war been so
intense and potentially dangerous as it is now.
Given the unprecedented instability across the
Middle East - with opposing factions allied either
to Iran or to the US - there is a real danger of
misunderstandings spinning out of control.
As always, it is the Americans who have
ratcheted up the war of words, with the Iranians
trying to come to terms with it.
The best
analyses can be found on websites that are
ideologically close to Iranian President Mahmud
Ahmadinejad. These are often managed by
second-generation revolutionaries with loose links
to the Islamic Republic's security establishment.
A highly illuminating analysis is provided by Dr
Hossein Kachouyan, a professor of sociology at
Tehran University and an expert on psychological
warfare. In an interview with Raja News
(www.rajanews.com), a website run by Ahmadinejad
loyalists, Kachouyan provides a historical
overview of the role of propaganda and
psychological warfare in human conflict with a
special focus on the Islamic way of war.
Kachouyan concludes, "Given that the
Americans are plagued by internal political
disputes and international constraints in addition
to huge political, economic and military problems
associated with their aggressions [against
Afghanistan and Iraq], they have no option but to
engage in psychological warfare against Iran." He
adds: "They are trying to cause splits in the
internal [Iranian] front ... and prevent us from
pursuing our objectives by creating fear, doubt
and division." [1]
As an Ahmadinejad
loyalist, Kachouyan is clearly referring to the
Rafsanjani camp, which has lately started a
widespread misinformation campaign against the
Ahmadinejad government, accusing it of radicalism,
unnecessary militancy, economic incompetence and
disregard for the national interest.
Another strong analysis (albeit a less
sophisticated one) is put forward by Raja News'
Qasim Ravanbakhsh. Ravanbakhsh identifies "Bush's
foot soldiers" in the psychological-warfare
campaign against Iran and concludes that the
Islamic Republic should hit back with a propaganda
campaign of its own and declare to the world that
the US "cannot do a damn thing". [2]
This
confidence is only partially rooted in the factors
outlined by the two authors - in particular
Kachouyan - namely that the US lacks the requisite
political will to wage war against the Islamic
Republic. The main driver behind this conviction
is the actual beliefs of Ahmadinejad and his
hardcore supporters. With backgrounds in the
Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (the IRGC, the
Islamic Republic's large and competent ideological
army), Ahmadinejad and his supporters believe the
Islamic Republic is unconquerable; with its
ability to project power well beyond its actual
size and resources rooted in its "undeterrable"
nature.
It is very important to understand
the origins and intricacies of this mindset.
People like Ahmadinejad and Kachouyan developed
their political consciousness not on the turbulent
streets of the Iranian revolution but in the
revolutionary decade of the 1980s, and especially
in the front lines of the Iran-Iraq War. The
belief that Iran faced much of the Western and
Eastern worlds during the war is widely shared in
the population, but it is especially intense in
the networks linked to the second-generation
revolutionaries.
From their perspective,
the Islamic Republic ensured its long-term
stability by facing much of the world with modest
means and with iron will as its only real
strategic asset (against an enemy that enjoyed the
unqualified support of much of the Arab and
Western worlds). They believe that the culture of
sacrifice born out of eight years of war, and the
unique nationalist-Islamic political heritage it
has spawned, will ensure the survival of the
Islamic Republic against all odds.
Furthermore, the very distinct features of
the Islamic Republic (a political system that
effortlessly combines democratic and theocratic
ideas and institutions) and the intense loyalty it
inspires among a substantial section of the
Iranian population (as well as a considerable
number of non-Iranians) enables the regime to face
its only serious security threat, namely the
United States.
This belief in the
"undeterrable" nature of the Islamic Republic in
turn influences Iranian psychological warfare
against the United States.
While Iranian
diplomats do their best to ease tension and
neutralize US saber-rattling, the IRGC is busy
conducting war
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