It has successfully inserted its Shia militias into the fabric of Iraq's security establishment, and its allies have a powerful voice in parliament. Syria's civil war has opened the door for a major Iranian military presence there, while next door in Lebanon Iran's ally Hezbollah has become the most potent force in the country. Iran is playing the long game. Its leaders hope that if it keeps up the pressure, both overt and covert, it will eventually make the Middle East a region not worth America's effort to stay engaged in, militarily.
Hence the frequent rocket attacks on US bases and Iran's support for civil protest calling for US troops to leave. An agreement that sees the end of US combat operations in Iraq will be seen by many in Tehran as a step in the right direction. Iraqis suffer as US-Iran shadow war shifts gear.
America now has only about 2, regular troops left in Iraq. This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Islamic State 2. Iran-backed militias in Iraq are suspected of carrying out a recent drone strike on Irbil airbase.
It's a lot less likely, for several reasons. Iran's long game. Image source, AFP. Aside from looking to torpedo U. The regime could be weakened at home and in the region, and its proxy infrastructure could become dilapidated, but Iran can bank on two important realities.
Firstly, that U. They are in the line of fire. Secondly, Iran is uniquely positioned to repair and rebuild its regional proxy networks. This is comprised of complex and multi-layered inter-personal and inter-organizational links, and undergirded by a diverse range of power centers: In Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and Yemen, Iran has established parallel institutions that are deeply entrenched, formidable, and durable amid weak state institutions and volatile security environments.
It has established powerful militia groups that can coalesce around shared values and objectives that ultimately tie them to the Islamic Republic. Iran has excelled at executing a form of one-state, two-systems formula for conflict-ridden countries in the region. The state e.
For the West, for example, security sector reform would mean reconstructing conventional national armies that abide by international norms and laws. Iran, in contrast, opts for an approach centered around a host of armed non-state actors, and has no inclination to align such an approach with international norms and laws or encourage its allies to respect human rights. It establishes networks and institutions that parallel national institutions, keeping them weak.
This opens the space for Iran to subjugate governing structures and political systems. Specifically, Iran creates or co-opts militias and informal authorities, allowing it to fill and exploit the gaps that emerge in fragile states.
However, ideology is only one part of the equation. Iran does not simply opportunistically back or deploy proxies like other states do.
Like its rivals and the U. And Iran has a marked capacity to exploit divisions among local movements that challenge its interests. Similarly, in Iraqi Kurdistan — following the Kurdish independence referendum — Iran divided the Kurdish leadership and mobilized its proxies into Kirkuk against the Kurdish Peshmerga.
Even with most of its navy sunk by U. Naval forces, Iran kept fighting and the Iranian people continued rallying behind Ayatollah Khomeini. Iran fought a smart war, avoiding too rapid and too dangerous an escalation. In essence, Iran expanded the battlefield of the Iran-Iraq War to other countries where it could exploit security vulnerabilities. We should expect the same in a future war, one for which Iran and Hezbollah have had decades to prepare. Indeed, Iran and Hezbollah are already waging a low intensity terror campaign against Israel from Bulgaria to India, and they have reportedly used cyber warfare against Saudi and Qatari oil companies.
Another lesson is that ending a future war will be a challenge. In , Iran sued for a cease-fire only after suffering catastrophic defeat on the ground against Iraqi forces and after Saddam Hussein threatened to fire Scud missiles armed with chemical warheads into Iranian cities. The final lesson is to always scrutinize the advice of allies.
Ironically, in the s the closest U. Israeli leaders, generals, and spies were obsessed by the Iraqi threat in the s just as they are preoccupied by the Iranian threat today, and they longed to restore the cozy relationship they had with the Shah in the s and s. American diplomats and spies deployed abroad were told to turn a blind eye to Israeli arms deals with Tehran, even when it was official U.
It was not to be. Looking back a quarter century after the war in is revealing and sobering. Khomeini did not conquer Basra and Baghdad and march on Jerusalem as he dreamed he would. But today, Iran is the dominant foreign power in Baghdad, thanks in large part to another war America fought in the Gulf. President George W. Bush toppled Saddam and ended his brutal dictatorship, but in doing so, Bush opened the door to a Shia majority government which is much friendlier to Tehran than to Riyadh or Amman, or Washington.
These are sobering reminders of the unintended consequences of wars. The first American war with Iran helped make Iran a more radical and extreme country. A second war may well do the same. Thus another war with Iran to stop its nuclear program may ultimately prove to be the catalyst that pushes Iran to acquire a dangerous nuclear weapons arsenal. Rather than stopping proliferation, it could incite it further. History of course does not repeat itself, but it does rhyme. Lessons of old wars should be carefully considered before entering new ones.
Many Americans have forgotten the lessons of our undeclared war in the s. We have fought so many other wars since: in Iraq twice , in Afghanistan, and in Libya. While it may be easy for Washington to forget, no Iranian has. This article was originally published by The Fletcher Forum. The vice president is basically a part of this charm operation that the United States implemented towards France in the past month and a half [
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