Page 2 of 2 THE ROVING
EYE From
al-Qaeda to
al-Quds By Pepe Escobar
indirectly warned the US in no
uncertain terms "any change in [Iraq's Prime
Minister Nuri al-] Maliki's government will lead
to the outbreak of a security crisis in Iraq".
This could be code, for instance, for the
IRGC-trained Badr Corps giving to the Iranians the
precise coordinates of American forces to be
targeted inside Iraq.
This past Saturday,
Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei
named the vastly experienced General Mohammad Ali
Jafari
as the new leader of the IRGC. The former leader
for the past 10 years, Yahya Rahim Safavi, has
been catapulted upwards and is now the "military
advisor" for the supreme leader. Sources in Tehran
say this move was not a reaction to the US threat.
Both commanders told the Iranian press the
decision had been made in early July.
US
neo-cons may be oblivious to it, but it's always
crucial to remember that in Iran the IRGC as well
as the regular army are under the control of a
civilian cleric, the supreme leader. New commander
Jafari himself, in a press conference in Tehran,
defined the IRGC as "a precautionary force at the
service of the commander-in-chief in order to rush
to the help of other organizations wherever help
is necessary".
The IRGC, a former popular
army that blossomed out of the 1979 Islamic
Revolution must, according to the country's
constitution "guard the revolution and its
achievements". The regular army for its part
"guards the independence, territorial integrity,
and political order of the Islamic Republic".
During the revolution, Jafari was a
student at the elite architecture school at the
University of Tehran. According to his own
biography he "was active in the takeover" of the
American Embassy. He went to the Iran-Iraq war in
the 1980s as a member of the Basij militia, and
then joined the IRGC when he was 25 (he's 50
today), and soon became a commander. After the war
he was a commander of the IRGC' ground forces. In
2005, the supreme leader put him in charge of the
IRGC's Strategic Center, developing a new Iranian
military strategy.
This fine strategist
identifies the IRGC's role as mostly "deterrence
and defense". More importantly, he characterizes
the IRGC as a popular organization excelling in
asymmetrical war - "similar to the one Hezbollah
fought against Israel" in his own words - and, one
might add, similar to what Iran will fight against
the US. His message to the US after his
appointment was clear: "I suggest that they end
their presence and interact with Islam and
countries of the region from afar. This will
surely be to their benefit and I suggest that they
leave the region as soon as possible."
The eternal Rafsanjani This
past Tuesday, former president Ali Akbar Hashemi
Rafsanjani became the head of the Council of
Experts - the supreme, secretive body of 86
clerics that chooses the supreme leader's
successor. He won by 41 to 33 votes, with 11
abstentions and one spoiled ballot.
Rafsanjani had already been the most voted
in the December 2006 elections for the council,
but he was still number two to Ayatollah Ali
Meshkini, who died at the end of June. A key
"spoiler" figure - ultra-hardliner Ayatollah
Mesbah Yazdi, Ahmadinejad's mentor - did not even
contest this latest election; it was Ayatollah
Janati, a protege of Yazdi, who lost to
Rafsanjani.
First of all, this means a
new, although narrow, defeat of the
ultra-hardliners. It also shows how fierce is the
competition among at least four factions at the
top of the Iranian system. But most of all it
fully restores Rafsanjani - a pragmatist very much
in favor of an accommodation with the US - to the
limelight. He is now the head of both the
Expediency Council (for which he was nominated by
Khamenei) and the Council of Experts. He now even
has the power to depose the supreme leader if he
sees fit. US conservatives would be certainly
thrilled with the prospect.
Rafsanjani's
perception in Iran is mixed. He's very popular
among Tehran's middle classes. The faraway
provinces mostly support populist Ahmadinejad.
Arguably the richest man in the whole country, he
may also be one of the most corrupt. His
presidency (1989-1997), according to reformists in
Tehran, was a disaster. The justice system in
Argentina has issued an international warrant for
his arrest, related to an anti-Israeli bombing in
Buenos Aires in 1994 which killed 85 people.
Rafsanjani would use all his privileged
back channels in Washington to avoid war. He is
very much aware of the stakes, declaring after his
election, "The United States plan for the Great
Middle East, which was drawn up after September 11
[2001] seriously threatens our region." But he may
be as helpless to defuse the situation as dejected
European diplomats.
The only guiding logic
of the US far right in power is permanent war. The
hellish mechanism is already in place. Any pretext
will do for Bush to order an attack on the Quds
force inside Iran. The IRGC will retaliate. And
there it is, the precious casus belli for
"shock and awe" remixed. First the bombing of
Quds; then the bombing of Bushehr, Natanz and
Isfahan. The whole of Iran, out of Persian
national pride, will rally behind Ahmadinejad, the
supreme leader, the IRGC and the theocratic police
state. So much for regime change.
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