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IS IRAN PREPARING FOR A US WAR?
The first sign came last June with the election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as president of the Islamic republic, an event that completed the conquest of all levers of power by the most radical elements of the establishment.
Since then the revolutionary factions have conducted a little publicised purge of the military, the security, the civil service, state-owned corporations and media. The most significant purges have affected the military high command. Among those replaced are the defence minister, the commander-in-chief of the regular army and his four deputies, 11 senior commanders of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and five commanders of the paramilitary Mobilisation of the Dispossessed. Some of the purged officers have been 'parked' in a mysterious new organ called The Defence Guidance Commission attached to the office of the 'Supreme Guide' Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The minister of intelligence and security and the minister of the interior, who controls the police and the gendarmerie, have also been replaced. Another sign that Tehran may be preparing for war is the appointment of military officers to posts normally held by civilians, such as governors, mayors and directors of major public corporations. But, perhaps, the surest sign yet is the military build-up under way in the five provinces bordering Iraq. The region, with a population of 20 million, has been put under the control of the IRGC which has also taken over units of the regular army, including the 88th Division and the border police. Iran is estimated to have 250,000 troops in the area, its biggest military build-up since the end of the Iran-Iraq war in 1988. One of the first acts of the new cabinet led by Ahmadinejad was to approve an "emergency" fund of $700 million (Dh2.57 billion) to be disbursed at the discretion of "the supreme guide" for "sacred defence purposes". Defence disbursements The new administration has also decided to speed up defence disbursements under a five-year plan approved by Khamenei last year. The plan aims at doubling the military budget by 2010. But it now seems that, thanks to rising oil revenues, most of the plan could be completed by 2008. In the past few weeks top regime figures, including Khamenei and Ahmadinejad, have made a series of unscheduled visits to Mash'had, Iran's second largest city. One curious fact revealed during these visits is that a bunker-like structure to house the 'supreme guide' is being completed close to the holy shrine of Reza, the Eighth Imam. The complex could also house the top echelon of government, including the president, the cabinet and members of the Islamic Majlis (parliament). The choice of Mash'had is not accidental. The city is located 1,000 kilometres from Tehran and thus as far as possible inside Iran and away from American fire power in Iraq and the Arabian Gulf. The United States is also expected to shrink from attacks against the Mash'had bunker for fear of collateral damage to the holy shrine of the Imam a few hundred yards away. The summer's comings and goings in Mash'had have provoked rumours that Khamenei plans to appoint Abbas Va'ez Tabasi, the mullah who runs the Eighth Imam's foundation, as "deputy supreme guide", just in case! The belief that the Americans would not attack sites close to the holy shrines has also led to the creation of a massive new military base at Fadak, a suburb of the holy city of Qom, south of Tehran, where the Eighth Imam's sister is buried. Work on the base which covers an area of 7.2 square kilometres started in August. Piecing together the bits of the jigsaw, one may guess the outline of Tehran's scenario for what it believes is an inevitable clash with the United States: • The diplomatic tussle over Iran's nuclear plans goes to the Security Council which will fail to take a decision thanks to Russian and Chinese vetoes. • The US, after much huffing and puffing, launches air strikes against Iran's nuclear installations (Tehran loves Israel to also participate because that would give the Islamic Republic a better claim to be fighting on behalf of Islam as a whole.). • Iran retaliates by ordering the forces it controls inside Iraq to attack American and British troops. At the same time the Lebanese branch of the Hezbollah launches massive rocket attacks against Israel while Hamas and the Islamic Jihad, whose leaders spent the past month in Tehran meeting Khamenei and his aides, organise a wave of suicide operations against Israel from Occupied Jerusalem and the West Bank. • The United States and its British allies, stationed in southern Iraq, launch a three pronged attack, from Shalamcheh, Hamroun and Shatt Al Arab to seize control of Khuzestan, the province that accounts for 70 per cent of Iran's oil production. • Iranian Special Forces attack Iraq from the Zaynalkosh salient, south of the Kurdish provinces, some 80 kilometres from Baghdad's first defences in Ba'aqubah. • Hazara Shiites strike against Kabul, the Afghan capital, from Maydanshahr while Pushtun warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and the remnants of the Taliban, some of whom are under Iranian protection, attack across Afghanistan. • The Americans and their allies attack Khuzestan. • Iran closes the Strait of Hormuz. • The Americans attack the Iranian provinces of Kermanshahan and Kurdistan. • US-led forces attack across the Mandali-Ilam axis. The Iranians retreat to the Zagross mountain range, the first line of Iran's natural defences. (To fight along the Zagross the IRGC is building new bases at Khorramabad, Pessyan, Borujerd, Zagheh and Malayer in the province of Luristan. The bases would assure the logistics of a quarter of a million troops and provide temporary shelter for half a million refugees from the border. These bases will complement older ones further west, at Sahneh and Kangavar. ) • Oil prices top $100 (Dh367) and the global economy plunges into a crisis. • Americans launch cruise missiles against "regime targets" in Tehran. But the regime is already in Mash'had, protected by the Eighth Imam. • Global TV networks air images of "indiscriminate carnage" and "wanton destruction" in Iranian cities. • The Security Council meets in emergency and orders a ceasefire while the American media and Congress revolt against President George W. Bush and his "pre-emptive" strategy. • Anti-Bush marches in Washington and dozens of other cities with Hollywood figures and other celebrities calling for Bush to be overthrown. • Bush accepts a UN-brokered ceasefire and withdraws his forces. • The Islamic Republic emerges victorious from what Ahmadinejad sees as "a clash of civilisations". • The Americans leave Iraq and Afghanistan as Bush becomes a lame-duck for the rest of his presidency. • The Islamic Republic gains new domestic legitimacy and proceeds to crush its opponents as "enemies of the nation and of Islam". • Iran can speed up making its nuclear weapons and long-range missiles without being harassed by Washington. • Iran becomes "the core power" of a new "Islamic pole" in a multi-polar system with China, the European Union and Latin America, under the Bolivarist leadership of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, emerging as other "poles". • Bush's successor acknowledges Iran's new status and sends Bill Clinton, who apologised to Iran for "our past misdeeds" in 2000, to Tehran to offer another formal apology on behalf of Bush's successor and offer Ahmadinejad "a grand bargain". • The Islamic Republic is now free to proceed to address what Khamenei has described as its "greatest historic task" which is the destruction of Israel. Sounds outlandish? Well, it is. The Islamic Republic is a fragile structure in a zone of political earthquakes. Logically, the last thing it should want is war. Nevertheless, former President Mohammad Khatami has warned that Tehran may be boxing itself into a position in which it will either have to surrender or fight. Iranian author Amir Taheri was editor-in-chief of Kayhan, a prominent daily, during the Shah. He is a member of Benador Associates. interchangeably. |
