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2 If Iran's Guards strike back
... By Hussain Mousavi
holding that a cleric should advise
and teach rather than rule, Quietism is at odds
with the late Ayatollah Khomeini's belief that
those most knowledgeable in Islamic law should
rule.
The Shi'ite clerical establishment
of Iraq could declare its opposition to US
military operations, particularly if civilian
casualties resulted from an attack. This would be
reminiscent of the time when Grand Ayatollah Ali
al-Sistani gave a stark warning to Israel during
the summer war of 2006 when many Lebanese
civilians (especially
Shi'ites) were the victims of Israeli air attacks.
Sistani could call on ordinary Shi'ite Iraqis to
rise up against the US occupation with the IRGC
finding fertile new ground for recruitment in its
military attacks against US forces inside Iraq.
The IRGC's most effective means of
combating US forces in Iraq will revolve primarily
around unconventional war tactics and intelligence
gathering, namely suicide terrorism and espionage
intelligence through an effective system of native
informants. The deadliest weapon that the IRGC can
employ against US forces in Iraq will be the "live
bomb". It is well known that the IRGC originally
carried suicide strategies to Hezbollah militants
in Lebanon in the early 1980s; the IRGC and
Hezbollah even deployed joint suicide operations
against Israeli and US forces.
Undoubtedly, the younger generation of the
IRGC would be more willing to commit acts of
suicide terrorism as a way to reenact the heroic
days of the Iran-Iraq War. The older, more
experienced generation of the Guard could operate
in Iraq as covert military instructors to Shi'ite
militants for suicide operations. With porous
borders between the two countries, many IRGC
militants trained in suicide tactics could find
bases in a number of southern Iraqi cities where
they could recruit volunteers for suicide missions
from the younger population of Shi'ite Iraq,
especially in places where anti-occupation
sentiments run high, like Diwaniya and Sadr City.
Although most of the IRGC's military
operations rely on conventional forces based in
Iran, like the special Muharram 10 Brigade with
combined training in ground and air defense, IRGC
operatives in Iraq could make car bombs a central
feature of counter-attacks on US forces. Similar
to Lebanese Hezbollah tactics against Israeli and
US forces, explosive-laden vehicles driven by
radicalized Iraqi Shi'ites could be crashed into
military targets.
The fifth column
The most significant advantage that the
IRGC has in Iraq is the support of military
operatives working within the US -trained Iraqi
police and army units in Baghdad and elsewhere.
According to a former Iranian agent deployed
during the Iraq-Iraq War, the IRGC's operatives
were fully embedded members of the Ba'athist army
while collaborating with the Guard's intelligence
center (author's interview with a former IRGC
intelligence officer of the Iran-Iraq War, October
10).
In a similar way, these military
personnel, who have been entrenched in the Iraqi
military and police force since 2003, can provide
valuable information for the IRGC's Quds Brigade.
At the time of conflict between Iran and the
United States, the task of the Quds Brigade would
be to transfer critical tactical and military
operations information from Iraq to the Committee
on Foreign Intelligence Abroad (CFIA), an IRGC
intelligence agency in Tehran.
Evaluating the threat The most
dangerous development that could occur in the
period prior to a military conflict between the
United States and Iran is the development of an
alliance between non-political Shi'ite
organizations, like the Mahdi splinter groups, and
the IRGC.
The formation of such alliances
could be prevented by encouraging the Iraqi
government (with the possible assistance of
Muqtada and his militia) to find ways to locate,
negotiate and incorporate these splinter groups
into the Iraqi electoral process and governmental
institutions. There is a further threat of acting
on bad intelligence from Iranian sources like the
terrorist group Mujahideen Khalq Organization
(MKO), who may provide information to the
coalition forces designed to expand a military
conflict between the United States and Iran for
their own political interests.
Conclusion: Defusing the
Guards The notion that direct negotiations
with the Islamic Republic of Iran legitimize its
authority is to ignore the basic truth that the
fundamental source of legitimacy of the Iranian
regime lies with the Iranian people. A crisis of
legitimacy has already been in process in Iran
since the election of Mohammed Khatami in 1997.
What a policy of engagement consists of is not the
Shi'ite "appeasement" of the Iranian government
but its recognition as a regional power, and the
understanding that the best way to contain Iran
would depend not on external forces of pressure
(eg UN sanctions or military attacks), but the
weakening of the most radicalized faction of the
IRGC, which seeks to keep Iran isolated for its
own economic interests. In this sense, the most
effective way to chip away at the IRGC's power is
to vigorously integrate it into the global
economic and political system rather than isolate
it.
Similar to the Chinese military, the
IRGC is now a major financial enterprise, but its
economic power is unevenly distributed among its
members. Many lower-ranking Guard militants come
from the low-income sector of Iranian society and
have leanings toward the reformist camp. Offering
younger IRGC officers an opportunity to
participate in regional and global markets could
create division between senior and middle ranks
within the Guard's economic community. An
obsession with force threatens to unite the IRGC
against a common enemy and brings the younger,
more impoverished generation closer to the older,
wealthier generation.
As the sound of the
drum-beat of confrontation increases, the call for
unity within Iran also gets louder. The
consequence of the policy of disengagement is that
Iranian influence in Afghanistan and Iraq is
enhanced by the growing military threat on Iran;
this accordingly follows the empowerment of
Iranian hardliners in the country's domestic
political circles with the looming threat of an
invasion by a foreign force already occupying two
of Iran's neighbors.
The irony of the US
policy of disengagement is that the more it aims
to weaken the IRGC through sanctions, the more it
strengthens its military influence, and hence
increases the chance of conflict in a region the
United States has sought to stabilize for many
years.
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