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2 If Iran's Guards strike back
... By Hussain Mousavi
The recent move by the US government to
designate Iran's most powerful military unit, the
Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), as a
terrorist organization reflects a tougher US
stance towards Tehran in response to its
controversial nuclear program and military reach
in the Middle East.
Though largely aimed
at weakening the IRGC's global business operations
and financial network, the new sanctions are the most
aggressive form of US policy
in confronting Iran's growing influence in Iraq,
where US military officials accuse the IRGC of
supplying weapons and military expertise to
Shi'ite militias.
With the IRGC as the
first national military organization sanctioned by
the United States, Washington and Tehran have now
moved another step closer to a possible military
showdown. In light of the unfolding crisis, it
remains unclear what could happen in a military
conflict between Iran and the United States. A
basic scenario involves a comprehensive US attack
on Iran's nuclear facilities, naval forces,
information and technology support system
(especially those linked to nuclear sites in
Bushehr, Isfahan and Tehran) and finally the
bombing of IRGC ground force units stationed near
the strategic cities of Abadan, Ahvaz, Chah Bahar,
Dezful, Hamadan, Khoramshahr and Mashahd.
The United States, possibly with the help
of Israel, could help stave off Iranian
retaliation by destroying Iran's command air base
where Iranian fighter jets are kept on daily
readiness against potential attacks by American
forces.
Assuredly, these military
operations will be followed by a severe Iranian
retaliation. In the words of the IRGC's commander,
General Muhammad Ali Jafari, the IRGC will unleash
its most sophisticated conventional armed forces
against the US military in the event of any attack
on Iranian soil. To what degree the Guard will use
unconventional means of response remains unclear.
So far, most of the discussion in academic and
policy circles has focused on the Guard's
connection with various Iraqi Shi'ite militia
groups, particularly the Badr Organization, the
military wing of the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council
(SIIC) that originally received training and
funding from the IRGC in the early 1980s.
Yet such a straightforward assessment
reads too much into the historical connections
between the two military units and ignores the
highly complex relationship between post-Ba'athist
Shi'ite militias and IRGC forces.
Shi'ite militias and Sunni insurgents
A common perception in the intelligence
community is that the IRGC and its intelligence
operations branch, the Quds Force, have their
greatest influence with Shi'ite militant
organizations like the Mahdi Army (whose
operations were suspended for six months in August
by Shi'ite leader Muqtada al-Sadr). According to
General David Petraeus, the Quds Force is already
engaged in a proxy war with US forces by providing
the most radical Shi'ite groups ammunition and
shaped explosive charges to wage guerrilla warfare
in the cities of Iraq.
While conclusive
evidence for Iran's activities in Iraq has yet to
be presented by the US Army, a direct connection
between the IRGC and politically established
Shi'ite militant groups remains somewhat unlikely.
The military wings of a number of major Iraqi
Shi'ite parties are already implanted in the
country's political establishment and these
organizations will most likely avoid any risky
involvement in a proxy war that would link them
with a foreign army, especially one which was
largely responsible for the death of many Iraqis
(including Shi'ites) in the 1980s.
Since
2003, Shi'ite leaders like Abdul Aziz Hakim and
Muqtada have been doing their best to be perceived
by the Iraqi population as leaders of indigenous
movements, independent from any foreign entities,
especially Iran. Any direct attempt to collaborate
with the Iranian government, particularly the IRGC
with its infamous reputation among many Shi'ite
and Sunni nationalists as the sworn enemy of Iraq,
could jeopardize the long-standing objective of
politically active Shi'ite groups to secure their
parties' interests in the country's unstable
democratic process.
Much of the rhetoric
behind Muqtada's support for Iran should be viewed
therefore as the tactics of political opportunism
rather than an actual plan of military cooperation
with Tehran. In the case of the Badr Organization,
this professional militia is fully under the
control of the political elites of the SIIC and
integrated within the party's political structure.
The chances of the militia splintering away from
the political party and collaborating with the
IRGC, while at the same time continuing to seek
the support of the US military against potential
attacks from the Mahdi Army and Sunni insurgents,
remains unlikely.
In Iraq's unstable
political situation, the IRGC will most likely
seek the alliance of non-politically established
Shi'ite militants, like the many splinter groups
of the Mahdi Army. Many former Mahdi Army
commanders are willing to strike an alliance with
the Guard in their fight against US domination
over Shi'ite territories. Here ideology may play a
more decisive role than mere military or political
opportunism.
Many high-level IRGC
militants, especially veterans of the Iraq-Iran
War of the 1980s, are admirers of the
revolutionary ideology advocated by Ayatollah
Sadeq al-Sadr, who is a source of authority and
reverence for his followers. The ideological
affinity between the IRGC and various Sadrists
militants, especially those who see Muqtada
al-Sadr as a traitor for joining the Iraqi
political establishment under the US occupation,
may bring about a dangerous alliance between the
two Shi'ite factions, despite their different
agendas.
A less likely but still
conceivable scenario involves the emergence of a
military alliance between the IRGC and Sunni
insurgent groups. Sunni insurgent groups may be a
source of support for the IRGC as the Quds Brigade
moves to provide advance explosive devices and
intensive training for assassination and
kidnappings of US personnel and Iraqi
collaborators. In the event of a US attack on
Iran, the Guard could supply arms and military
technology to various non-Ba'athist, non-Salafist
Iraqi Sunni militant groups, though such a move
remains unlikely since many Sunni Iraqis are Arab
nationalists unwilling to cooperate with Persian
Iran.
Tactics of retaliation It
goes without saying that in the case of a US
attack on Iran the Shi'ite population in Iraq
would be largely supportive of Tehran's
retaliatory military actions. It remains unclear,
however, as to the extent to which the Shi'ite
clerical establishment would be willing to give
allegiance to the Iranian leadership, who
historically have rejected the Quietist ideology
of the Iraqi Shi'ite seminary at Najaf and its
conservative stance against revolutionary
uprising. By
Head
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