Iran's Deadly Ambition. Ilan Berman

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ IRGC’s most visible, and potent, presence, however, is that of its elite paramilitary wing, known as the Quds Force (IRGC-QF). While the larger Guards are preoccupied with everything from territorial defense to economic expansion, the IRGC-QF has been dedicated to a singular aim since its formation in 1990: carrying out the “extra-regional operations of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.”³⁵ In other words, the IRGC-QF is the vanguard of terrorism and insurgency in the name of the Islamic Republic. And while the size of the force is small—just 10,000 to 15,000 men, less than 10 percent of the IRGC’s total forces of more than 125,000³⁶—it would be hard to overstate its contributions to global instability. The Quds Force is, quite simply, the purest expression of the Islamic Republic’s belief that it “plays a key role in world affairs as the standard bearer of revolutionary Islam and the guardian of oppressed Muslims (and even non-Muslims) everywhere.”³⁷

       PIVOT POINTS

      In September 1980, less than two years after the establishment of the Islamic Republic, Ayatollah Khomeini’s fledgling regime found itself at war. The cause was an invasion by the neighboring regime of Baathist dictator Saddam Hussein, which sought to seize the advantage and strike an early blow against what it saw as an emerging ideological adversary. The resulting conflict lasted for most of the ensuing decade, and when it finally drew to a close in the late summer of 1988, the toll on Iran was enormous.

      Officially, Iranian authorities estimated that they suffered close to 300,000 casualties as a result of the hostilities.³⁸ Western sources, however, put the figure at significantly higher: half a million souls, or more.³⁹ More than 500,000 others were physically or mentally disabled either during the war or in its aftermath.⁴⁰ In all, the conflict may have cost Iran as much as $1 trillion—a devastating economic loss to the fledgling regime in Tehran.⁴¹

      Nearly as significant was the war’s psychological impact. Khomeini’s revolution gained popularity because its virulent version of insurgent Islam was a compelling alternative to the Shah’s secular and stale authoritarianism. Yet in their first military outing, Iran’s holy warriors were bested by a secular adversary. The conflict left the Islamic Republic deeply traumatized, but it also helped instill a sense of unity among Iran’s populace. Iraq’s aggression and the West’s support of Saddam Hussein during the conflict bred in Tehran the sense that it was alone against the world.⁴²

      Nearly in tandem, the Islamic Republic suffered a major ideological crisis. Less than a year after the end of hostilities with Iran, Ayatollah Khomeini unexpectedly died of a heart attack, throwing his regime into partisan chaos. The resulting political tug-of-war led to the rise of a consensus candidate, the country’s current supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. It also led many in the West to conclude that Iran’s revolutionary fervor had run its course, or that it soon would.⁴³ For much of the following decade, Western analysis was colored by this vision of a post-revolutionary Iran, one in which practical concerns and economic priorities trumped revolutionary zeal.⁴⁴

      The message from Tehran, however, could not have been more different. In the aftermath of Khomeini’s passing, Iranian officials took pains to emphasize that the core tenets of Khomeini’s revolution—chief among them the ideal of “exporting the revolution”—remained in effect.⁴⁵ This priority, however, would be achieved more subtly than it had been in the past. Whereas the heady early days of the Islamic Republic saw the Iranian regime become a locus of global insurgent activities, following the Iran-Iraq War the Iranian regime gravitated toward a new way of war, one characterized by the use of proxies, an economy of violence, and an exceedingly long view of global competition.⁴⁶ This remains the strategy pursued by Iran’s leaders today.

       MISREADING IRAN

      Amazingly, most of this context is lost in contemporary political discourse over Iran. Precious few analysts of Iranian politics have bothered to read the formative texts that helped shape the behavior of the Islamic Republic. Fewer still are familiar with the history and strategic culture that continues to animate the Iranian state. As a result, the Beltway policy community is consistently caught off guard by the Iranian regime’s foreign adventurism and bankrolling of global terror, as well as by the scope of its international ambitions.

      To be fair, not all branches of the U.S. government have been taken by surprise. In its inaugural report to Congress on Iran’s military capabilities, released publicly in the spring of 2010, the Pentagon noted that Iran simultaneously is seeking to ensure “the survival of the regime” and to “become the strongest and most influential country in the Middle East and to influence world affairs.” The Pentagon also pointed out that the Iranian leadership’s long-term “ideological goal is to be able to export its theocratic form of government, its version of Shia Islam, and stand up for the ‘oppressed’ according to their religious interpretations of the law.”⁴⁷

      The Pentagon’s subsequent 2012 report on the subject said much the same thing. “Iran continues to seek to increase its stature by countering U.S. influence and expanding ties with regional actors while advocating Islamic solidarity,” it noted. “Iran also desires to expand economic and security agreements with other nations, particularly members of the Nonaligned Movement in Latin America and Africa.”⁴⁸

      Yet, as U.S. policy moved steadily toward engagement with Iran’s ayatollahs, this assessment was progressively watered down. Thus, in keeping with the Obama administration’s change in policy focus, the 2014 edition of the Pentagon’s report on Iran’s military capabilities was minimalist in nature and said nothing at all about the Islamic Republic’s ideological objectives.⁴⁹ In that regard, it represents a more or less faithful reflection of the dominant view held by administration officials and supporters—these days, Iran is concerned above all simply with “regime survival.”⁵⁰

      Iranian leaders, however, are thinking considerably bigger. That was the message Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, sought to convey to officials in his government as recently as September 2014. In a meeting with members of the Assembly of Experts, the Islamic Republic’s premier religious supervisory body, Khamenei asserted that the existing international system is “in the process of change” and a “new order is being formed.” These changes, he made clear, are a mortal blow to the West and a boon to Iran. “The power of the West on their two foundations—values and thoughts and the political and military—have become shaky” and can be subverted, Khamenei insisted.⁵¹

      Iran, in other words, is still revolutionary after all these years. And today, very much in line with Khomeini’s famous 1980 dictum that his regime must “strive to export our revolution throughout the world,”⁵² the Islamic Republic is pursuing a truly global agenda, one that is built around three primary fronts.

      The first, and most immediate, is sectarian in nature. The Iranian regime views itself as the vanguard of the so-called Shia Crescent in the Middle East and the ideological champion of the interests of the beleaguered Shia minority in the Sunni-dominated Muslim world.⁵³ This outlook informs Iran’s ongoing sponsorship of Lebanon’s Hezbollah militia, its primary—and most important—terrorist proxy, as well as its backing of assorted Shiite insurgent groups in neighboring Iraq and Shia insurgents in Bahrain, Yemen, and elsewhere.

      The second front is pan-Islamist. Iran’s leaders believe fervently that their regime is the natural ideological leader of the Islamic world and the rightful inheritor of the mantle of the Prophet Mohammed.⁵⁴ This conviction underlies Iran’s long-standing strategic rivalry with Saudi Arabia, Sunni Islam’s most important player—a contest Iran’s leaders see as one not only for СКАЧАТЬ