The New Iranian Superpower
By Robert Baer, 2008 Excerpts selected by Andy Ross, September 2009
The Devil We Know: Dealing with the New Iranian Superpower By Robert Baer
Crown, 2008
The numbers are page references
There's a growing confidence in Iran today that the United States will
finally have to come around to recognizing Iran's true stature in the world
as the only important player in the Middle East. 31
The Islamic
Revolutionary Guard Corps was born in blood. Founded by Ayatollah Khomeini
in 1979 to solidify control over Iran, the Revolutionary Guards started as a
brutal vigilante outfit, torturing or assassinating anyone suspected of
opposing the revolution. 34
President Ahmadinejad is a former
Revolutionary Guard, as is a majority of the Iranian cabinet. Former
Revolutionary Guard officers form a plurality of the 290 seats in
parliament. 35
Iraq gives Iran a platform to recruit new legions of
believers in its quest for empire. But just as important, with Najaf and
Sistani under Iranian control, the world's Shia will now have only Iran and
its shrine city of Qum to look to for spiritual guidance. The rivalry
between Iraq's Najaf and Iran's Qum had been the guarantor of an independent
Shia clergy. But now the spiritual counterweight to the authoritarian
clerics who run Iran is gone, along with the Iraqi army. 48
Iran
intends to use Iraq as a platform for dominating the Persian Gulf. Given the
world's addiction to hydrocarbons, the Gulf is a body of water as strategic
as the Pacific and Atlantic oceans. Iraq is the first piece in Iran's quest
for hegemony. 50
The Lebanon war is Iran's blueprint for the new
empire, fought for and held by proxies: the first Middle Eastern empire
since the Ottomans. 54
Iran has been at war with the United States
for the last thirty years. It was never a classical military confrontation;
the Iranians knew they could never win. Still, it was a war. The Iranians
understand how vulnerable we are thanks to our addiction to oil. 56
President Ahmadinejad is supposedly the executive power in Iran. ... But
little real power resides with Ahmadinejad. Instead, it lies with Ayatollah
Khamenei, Iran's security apparatus, the Revolutionary Guards, the army, and
other influential ayatollahs. ... None of this is new, as Persia has been
governed in a secretive way forever, from the Achaemenid Empire (550-330 BC)
until today. 66
Khomeini intended to fire Arab anger as he had that
of the Iranians. His message was simple: If Iran could beat the United
States — David slay Goliath — then the Arabs could beat Israel. 69
Unlike any other power in the Middle East, Iran learned how to harness the
millions upon millions of oppressed. The angry, proud, dispossessed Shia;
the frustrated Sunni — anyone with a grudge and a readiness to fight. Iran
stole the Promethean Islamic fire when the Sunni couldn't, organizing the
faithful into a disciplined military force, unlike anything the world has
seen since the Ottomans. 71
Americans should definitely be scared
about Iran and the Middle East ... Iran's foot soldiers are no longer
terrorists. They're a formidable army, which makes Iran something much more
dangerous. 76
Americans have missed Iran's critical transition, its
metamorphosis from a Shia rebellion and a terrorist state to a classic
military power. 78
Iran will one day have de facto control of Iraq's
oil, giving it considerably more weight in OPEC. If the Majnoun oil field
and other untapped Iraqi fields were to be developed, Iran's and Iraq's
total production would begin to rival that of Saudi Arabia. And if Iran were
able to fulfill its ambition of producing 8 million barrels a day by 2015,
its combined total would surpass Saudi Arabia's. 88
Removing Saddam
in March 2003, destroying Iraq's military, exposing the moderate Shia
clerics as powerless, and creating another vacuum for Iran to fill was a
colossal blunder. The United effectively offered up another Arab country to
Iran — another jewel in Iran's imperial crown. 92
Over the last three
decades in Lebanon, the Iranians constantly adapted, innovated, and tested
new weapons and tactics. ... There's a good argument that Iran's
modernization of guerilla warfare is a military development as important as
the introduction of the machine gun was to World War I, or the tank to World
War II. 96
Right now, at least, the Iranians don't need a nuclear
bomb. If a war is to be fought in the Gulf, Iraq, or Lebanon, Iran will
almost certainly fall back on its asymmetrical tactics and weapons. 110
Iran may not yet have nukes, but it has three things that are vastly
more important: highly developed asymmetrical fighting skills and weapons; a
growing army of hungry, disaffected, street-smart fighters; and an
invincible anticolonial message. With that, Iran has set the stage for its
push toward empire. 111
The word takfiri generally refers to a Sunni
Muslim who looks at the world in black-and-white ... A takfiri's mission is
to re-create the Caliphate according to a literal interpretation of the
Koran. 123
Unlike Hezbollah and Iran, the takfiris care less about
occupying ground and more about overthrowing "apostate regimes" in the
Middle East, from Mubarak's Egypt to the Al Saud in Saudi Arabia — a world
Islamic revolution. ... Sunnis, in supporting takfiri movements, suffer a
morbid, existential angst. Saudi Arabia and Pakistan are relatively new
nations — Saudi Arabia was formed in 1932, Pakistan in 1947. Both bank on
Islam, if for no other reason than to hold their countries together. 124
When we invaded Afghanistan in October 2001, we went to war against the
Taliban and al Qaeda not understanding that they are religious convictions,
not countries. 126
Iran doesn't need to invade northern Iraq or
Turkey to exert its influence. Iran's gas and oil, and the energy corridors
it sits on, are more effective. Iran's bet in Kurdistan paid off, convincing
the Iranians more than ever that controlling the world's energy bloodstream
is the way to become a superpower. 131
NATO's invasion of Afghanistan
in October 2001, destroying the Taliban, was a godsend ... NATO left a
vacuum in western Afghanistan, allowing Iran to annex it economically. 131
Iran dominates a third of Iraq and the bulk of its oil. It is tightening
its control over three vital energy corridors: Afghanistan, the Strait of
Hormuz, and Kurdistan. ... The Gulf Arab sheikhdoms, and the oil that
sloshes just under their sands, are vulnerable to military takeover. Iran is
the overwhelmingly dominant military force in the Gulf, capable of quickly
putting a million men in uniform. The next largest military, Saudi Arabia's,
is just a quarter of its size. 137
If Iran succeeds in taking control
of the Persian Gulf, it would not only mark the first time that the waterway
hasn't been under Western dominance since the British Navy first sailed into
the Gulf in 1763, it would be a massive geopolitical shift, akin to Japan's
invading China in 1931 or Russia seizing Eastern Europe at the end of World
War II. 140
Aside from possessing no oil, Israel is demographically
insignificant. Muslims look at Israel as an American colonial fort, one not
worth the upkeep. 146
Iran has taken over from the Communists in the
war of conviction, and with the bond of belief, salvation, and the
hereafter, it's the greatest threat to the Middle East since the Ottomans.
152
Over the past twenty years, since the end of the Iran-Iraq War in
1988, Iran has quietly but steadily hijacked the Palestinian cause. 155
Following the 1979 Iranian revolution, Saudi Arabia poured money into
the Muslim Brotherhood ... The fact that three decades later Iran had
started to co-opt Palestinian members of the Muslim Brotherhood, in spite of
all the Saudi money, was a marked defeat for Saudi Arabia. 170
Hamas
is allied with Iran, taking Iranian money and guidance. ... After Hamas, the
Iranians tell the faithful, will be Jordan and Egypt, two countries that
currently recognize Israel. If Iran succeeds, Israel will find itself
completely besieged. 173-4
Iran abandoned terrorism for a more
classic military struggle ... It coalesced its sympathizers from rigid,
exclusionary sectarian factions into a united Islamic front, unlike anything
that has been achieved in Islam's history since the Crusades. 177
The
Sunni order is failing. ... The Sunni fundamentalists have no real plan
other than purifying Islam and imposing strict adherence to Sharia law. ...
The Shia, on the other hand, have ... ijtihad, the "exercise of independent
judgment." ... The practice has allowed the Shia to adapt much better to the
twenty-first century. 196
Iran has already absorbed more land,
influence, and control of trade routes than anyone else since the Ottomans.
... America's two traditional allies in the Middle East are failing states.
Pakistan is held together by an army that gives every sign of cracking.
Saudi Arabia is led by a flamboyantly corrupt, greedy royal family, taken
seriously by almost no one save the United States. 198
For two
thousand years before Islam, Iran's religion was Zoroastrianism, a
monotheistic religion that has left indelible traces on Iran, at times
causing other Muslims to wonder if Iran ever fully accepted Islam. 234
Former Iranian president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani ... said Iran's
clerical and secular leadership intended to regain "Iran's past greatness."
He spoke of the "imperial outlook" that prevailed among Iran's religious
leaders, an impulse to promote militant Islam. They wanted to turn Iran into
a "citadel of Islam" to help oppressed Muslims worldwide. They wanted to
control Mecca and Medina, Islam's two holy cities. 242
Shia Islam
[is] a progressive political movement, an ongoing struggle between justice
and injustice. It is tied to action ... Again we see in Iran a hybrid — a
hegemon seeking justice. Iran has a divine obligation to render justice, to
overthrow the grotesquely corrupt regimes on the Arab side of the Gulf. 247
America could take its medicine and sit down at the negotiating table
with Iran, treat it like the power it has become, ... acknowledging Iran's
predominance in the Middle East. 251
AR I find this a persuasive analysis. The time
spent reading this book was well spent. Iran will surely redefine Islam. Now
I must learn more about Zoroastrianism — my acquaintance with
Zoroaster/Zarathustra is limited to Nietzsche — with his Übermensch/superman
gloss!
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