Battlegrounds

by H. R. McMaster

  Despite having been tarnished by this scandal as vice president, President George H. W. Bush had high hopes for engaging Iran and, in particular, for gaining the release of nine American hostages held in Lebanon. The new U.S. president offered an olive branch in his inaugural address, and stated that Iranian assistance in releasing the hostages could transform the relationship: “Goodwill begets goodwill. Good faith can be a spiral that endlessly moves on.”23 The Bush administration requested that a UN intermediary travel to Tehran to test Iranian willingness to engage.

  The cycle of rising expectations and dashed hopes continued. In 1989, after Ayatollah Khomeini died, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei became Supreme Leader and Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, who had negotiated the arms-for-hostages deal, became President. Rafsanjani, who was a businessman and politician as well as a cleric, forged a strong relationship with the bazaar, or Iranian mercantile class. The war had made a shambles of the Iranian economy. Infrastructure was damaged and dilapidated. Oil production suffered. The Bush administration offered more than words to explore improved relations, releasing the $567 million frozen by Washington after the Tehran embassy attack in 1979.24 But Rafsanjani had neither the power nor the inclination to dispense goodwill. He and the merchant class were far weaker than Khamenei and his conservative clerics, security service, and IRGC allies.

  All the while, the IRGC was supplying terrorist cells in Europe with weapons to attack their political enemies and Western interests. In 1989, Iranian agents murdered prominent Kurdish-Iranian resistance leader Abdul Rahman Ghassemlou in Vienna; that same year, Khomeini issued a fatwa (a judgment rendered by an Islamic jurist) directing the assassination of the novelist Salman Rushdie, whose book The Satanic Verses contained passages that the Supreme Leader deemed blasphemous; the next year, Iranian “diplomats” shot Kazem Rajavi, brother of People’s Mujahedin of Iran cofounder Massoud Rajavi, in Geneva; in 1991, Iranian assassins killed the Shah’s last prime minister, Shapour Bakhtiar, in Paris after failing a decade earlier; and in 1992, Iranian agents murdered three prominent Kurdish Iranian leaders and their interpreter in a Greek restaurant in Berlin.25

  As President Bush offered his olive branch and Europe expanded economic relations with Iran, the Iranian-supported Lebanese terrorist group Hezbollah was going global. Worldwide attacks included a 1989 failed bombing in London in an attempt to assassinate Rushdie, a 1992 bombing of the Israeli embassy in Argentina that killed twenty-nine people, a 1994 bombing of a Jewish community center in Argentina that killed eighty-five people,26 and the bombing of Alas Chiricanas Flight 901 on its way from Colón to Panama City, Panama, that killed all twenty-one of its passengers. In 1996, Hezbollah bombed the Khobar Towers complex in Saudi Arabia, killing nineteen U.S. Air Force personnel. Rafsanjani’s successor, Mohammed Khatami, categorically denied, as Iranian leaders always do, that Iran supports terrorist operations overseas. He held out hope for reform in Iran, describing an internal political competition in which “one political tendency” that “firmly believes in the prevalence of logic and the rule of law” grapples with “another tendency that believes it is entitled to go beyond the law.”27 Maybe this new Iranian president who called for a “dialogue between civilizations” could end Iran’s use of terrorism. Once Iran’s responsibility for the Khobar Towers bombing became clear, the possibility of improved relations convinced Bill Clinton to forgo retaliation.

  Strategic narcissism endured, in the form of continuing reluctance to confront Iranian aggression. As the George W. Bush administration commenced at the beginning of 2001, there was still hope for improved relations based on the perceived strength of moderates and reformers inside the Islamic Republic. The tragedy of the 9/11 attacks seemed to present an opportunity to work together against common enemies such as Al-Qaeda and the Taliban. After the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan, Iranian and U.S. diplomats discussed the formation of the new Afghan government, but that cooperation was limited and short-lived.28 In his January 2002 State of the Union address, President Bush included Iran, along with Iraq and North Korea, as part of an “axis of evil.” The Iranians suspended diplomatic contacts. Even more significant than the offense Iran took from the speech, the combination of Iranian economic weakness, growing international awareness of Iran’s nuclear weapons program, and Iran’s intensification of its proxy wars would shape the next phase of the contentious U.S.-Iranian relationship.

  So-called moderates in Iran were moderate mainly in American and Western imaginations, but rarely at home. In December 2001, former president Rafsanjani, the man who had served as the vessel for Western dreams of Iranian moderation prior to Khatami, spoke from the podium at Tehran University to deliver the government’s official weekly sermon. He declared, “If one day, the Islamic world is also equipped with weapons like those that Israel possesses now, then the imperialists’ strategy will reach a standstill because the use of even one nuclear bomb inside Israel will destroy everything.” In August 2002, an Iranian exile group revealed the existence of a secret facility in Natanz capable of enriching uranium for use in nuclear weapons as well as civilian nuclear power reactors.29 The Iranian bomb was meant to be the ultimate weapon in the Islamic Republic’s proxy wars to push the United States out of the Middle East, dominate its Arab neighbors, and destroy Israel.

  Even as it initiated programs to encourage a change in the nature of the Iranian regime through Persian-language broadcasts and support to civil society groups, the Bush administration pursued cooperation with Iran against Al-Qaeda, an organization that seemed to hate Iranian Shia Muslims as much as American Christians and Jews. In 2003, after the United States and British militaries accomplished in weeks what the Iranian military could not accomplish in eight years, deposing Saddam, the Iranians engaged in discussions, fearful that they might be next on the Bush administration’s regime change agenda. But instead of cooperating with the United States against what seemed to be a common enemy, the IRGC and Iran’s security apparatus gave Al-Qaeda leaders safe haven and helped them target the United States and Arab monarchies.30 Iran also used Al-Qaeda to jump-start a sectarian civil war in Iraq that allowed Iran to settle old scores with former Baathists, build powerful proxy forces, and infiltrate its agents into Iraqi institutions. The U.S. post-invasion failure to consolidate gains in Iraq opened the door for the IRGC and the MOIS, the Islamic Republic’s domestic and foreign spy service, comprising many of the Shah’s former SAVAK secret police). Iranian operatives and intelligence agents moved freely across unguarded borders. As the United States and Coalition forces struggled with a growing insurgency, Iranian fear of America’s conventional military prowess dissipated. The IRGC and their allied militias in Iraq added American soldiers to their list of targets as they intensified their proxy war against the United States.

  These militias began killing and maiming American servicemen and women with Iranian-manufactured roadside bombs called explosively formed penetrators (EFPs). EFPs are as lethal as they are simple. A metal or PVC pipe packed with explosives and capped with a curved copper or steel disc is detonated. The explosion transforms the disc into a high-velocity molten slug capable of penetrating vehicles’ armor protection.31 EFPs required precision manufacturing in Iran. To transport them to battlefields abroad, the regime developed complex and innovative smuggling networks and techniques.

  But Washington was slow to respond to Iran’s escalation of the war, despite the urging of some civilian and military officials to confront Iranian aggression. Similar to the Obama and Trump administrations’ self-delusion that the Taliban was separate from Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan, the Bush administration indulged an implausible theory that Iran’s leaders might simply be unaware that their agents in Iraq were killing hundreds of American soldiers. When asked about the irrefutable evidence that the deadly EFPs were coming from Iran, President Bush said, “What we don’t know is whether or not the head leaders of Iran ordered the Qods [Quds] Force to do what they did.”32 Two days earlier, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of
Staff Peter Pace stated that the weapons shipments from Iran did not mean that “the Iranian government per se, for sure, is directly involved in doing this.” I read those statements when I was in Iraq as commander of the Third Armored Cavalry Regiment. It was not ambiguous to me or to our troopers; the preponderance of our casualties in the area south of Baghdad was due to Iranian-made EFPs provided through a network run by the Revolutionary Guard Quds Force. Those who conducted the attacks were trained and directed by the IRGC Quds Force. It was implausible that Iranian leaders were not responsible for killing more than six hundred U.S. soldiers, over 17 percent of all U.S. deaths in Iraq from 2003 to 2011.33 Conciliatory action, even to the point of developing and promoting a cover story for Teheran, led neither to a reduction in Iran’s destructive activity nor to a stronger position for reformers. Instead, the lack of a strong response emboldened the revolutionaries.

  The years 2005 to 2013 were ones of confrontation under President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. He and the conservatives were ascendant, as were oil revenues, and the regime intensified not only rhetoric, but also actions against Israel, the United States, Saudi Arabia, and the United Kingdom. On July 12, 2006, Hezbollah kidnapped two Israeli soldiers and ignited a war that went far beyond what Hezbollah secretary-general Hassan Nasrallah expected. Twelve hundred Lebanese, including more than 270 Hezbollah fighters, died along with 158 Israelis. In the wake of the war, Ahmadinejad vastly increased support for Hezbollah and for the Palestinian terrorist groups Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad. On January 20, 2007, Tehran’s proxies in Iraq became more audacious in direct action against U.S. forces. Qais al-Khazali led the militant group Asa’ib Ahl al-Haq in an attack on the Provincial Joint Coordination Center in Karbala. The militants wore U.S. uniforms to sneak past Iraqi guards. They killed one U.S. soldier and took four more hostage, all of whom were later murdered in cold blood. The Quds Force even planned a bold assassination and terrorist attack in the United States. On October 11, 2011, U.S. government officials foiled an assassination attempt on the Saudi ambassador to the United States, Adel al-Jubeir. Their planned attack at the ambassador’s favorite restaurant in Washington would have killed many bystanders. A month and a half later, on November 29, 2011, Iranian protestors stormed and overwhelmed the British embassy in Tehran, chanting “Death to England” and ransacking the premises and its sensitive contents. This unrest came after Great Britain announced new sanctions on the Iranian regime, and the movements appeared to have been state sponsored.34

  But Iran was paying a price for the intensification of its proxy wars and its pursuit of nuclear weapons. In Iraq, despite the reluctance in Washington to attribute attacks to leaders in Teheran, the U.S. military responded to the mounting violence from Shia militias. In January 2007, U.S. special operations forces raided the Iranian consulate in Erbil, which the United States suspected of being an IRGC base. Two months later, in March, Coalition special operations forces also attacked a terrorist cell in Basra that had been responsible for the deaths of the five U.S. soldiers in the January attack in Karbala. Among the captured were al-Khazali, the leader of that attack; his brother; and Mullah Ali Mussa Daqduq, a Lebanese Hezbollah advisor who had been working with the Iranians to create an Iraqi version of Lebanese Hezbollah. The Coalition also supported Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s 2007 “Charge of the Knights” offensive against the Mahdi Army in southern Iraq after Maliki uncovered a plot to replace him with someone who would be completely beholden to Iran, such as Ibrahim al-Jaafari or Ahmed Chalabi. The U.S. military’s heightened response caught the Shia militias and the IRGC by surprise. Quds Force commander Qasem Soleimani was particularly concerned with the capture of five Quds Force officers from the Erbil consulate, and fearing similar future incidents, he scaled back IRGC operations and personnel in Iraq.35

  Beginning in 2005, the Bush administration and European allies increased pressure on Iran in the form of economic sanctions and reportedly clandestine operations in response to Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons.36 Pressure continued in the Obama administration, and beginning in 2012, the Iranian economy contracted severely. Then, in 2014, oil prices fell, compounding the effect of tightening sanctions and bringing Iran’s economy to the brink of collapse.37 Iran was losing externally as well as internally. Iranian ally Bashar al-Assad seemed to be a dead man walking in Syria.

  Iran needed a way out. In 2013, new leaders President Hassan Rouhani and Foreign Minister Javad Zarif began a charm offensive, even feigning a friendlier approach to Israel. In contrast to President Ahmadinejad’s denial of the Holocaust, Foreign Minister Zarif described the Nazi genocidal campaign against the Jews as a “horrifying tragedy” and even suggested that if Israel and the Palestinians reached a peace agreement, Tehran might recognize Israel.38 Once again, Western leaders were ready to believe that Iran might really, this time, moderate its behavior in response to a conciliatory gesture.

  But Iran was intensifying its proxy wars with increased support for the Syrian regime, Hezbollah, Iraqi militias, and the Houthi militia in Yemen. In February 2014, for example, Iran sent hundreds of “military specialists,” Quds Force commanders, and IRGC troops to Syria to boost the Assad regime. The Fatemiyoun Division, an Afghan Shia militia established and commanded by the IRGC, grew to an estimated twenty thousand fighters. Over the course of 2014, Iran also quietly increased its support for the Taliban in Afghanistan, both materially and through manpower.39 Meanwhile, the mullahs were advancing the nuclear program. As Iranian leaders negotiated with Western diplomats, Supreme Leader Khamenei announced that Iran would pursue 190,000 centrifuges rather than the 10,000 that negotiators were discussing. Nonetheless, the Obama administration, like those before it, chose to alleviate the pressure on the Iranian regime based on hopes of what conciliation might bring. When Iranian protesters reached out to Western democracies during the 2009 Green Movement, the administration issued a tepid statement to avoid upsetting the regime and foreclosing on the possibility of improved relations. The decision not to enforce the “red line” in Syria against the use of chemical weapons to murder civilians was, in part, a concession to Tehran. The administration even portrayed the Islamic Republic of Iran as a partner in the effort to remove chemical weapons from the Syrian regime’s arsenal.40

  The administration’s high hopes for the nascent Iranian Nuclear Deal led it to scale back what had been a promising effort to constrain Iran’s aggression. From 2008 to 2016, Project Cassandra disrupted Iran’s ability to fund its proxies abroad, including Lebanese Hezbollah’s international terrorist network. But as Treasury official Katherine Bauer later recalled, “the investigations were tamped down for fear of rocking the boat with Iran and jeopardizing the nuclear deal.”41

  And once the deal went into effect, the Obama administration was determined to avoid confrontations that might undo the agreement. As American money flowed into Iran and Iranian exports tripled, funding for terrorist organizations and IRGC operations across the region soared. Hezbollah received an additional $700 million per year; another $100 million went to various Palestinian militant and terrorist groups. The JCPOA strengthened the Iranian regime psychologically as well as financially. In contrast to the language in the deal’s preamble stipulating that signatories would “implement this JCPOA in good faith and in a constructive atmosphere” and “refrain from any action inconsistent with the letter, spirit, intent” of the agreement, the IRGC intensified operations in Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, Yemen, and eastern Saudi Arabia. For example, in October 2015, only months after the signing of the JCPOA, hundreds of Iranian troops arrived in Syria over a ten-day period to bolster offensive operations in Idlib and Hama. The IRGC also continued a series of ballistic missile tests in violation of UN Security Council resolutions, testing fourteen missiles from the signing of the agreement to February 2017, including a long-range ballistic missile under the guise of a satellite launch. Although a number of those launches failed, the Iranians were improving. In response to a June 2017 terrorist attack in Tehr
an, and to demonstrate its new capabilities, Iran launched six missiles from its territory over Iraq to strike an ISIS-controlled area in Dayr al-Zawr, Syria.42

  The Obama administration took conciliation with Iran to a new level. Just prior to Iran signing the agreement in the summer of 2015, the U.S. State Department flew pallets of euros and Swiss francs into Geneva, where trams loaded them onto Iranian cargo planes headed for Tehran. That same day, Iran released four Americans who had been, in effect, hostages. It was an operation reminiscent of the arms-for-hostages arrangement under the Reagan administration. Iran’s leaders regarded the thinly veiled cash-for-hostages payment as a sign of weakness rather than the metaphorical “outstretched hand” of conciliation that President Obama offered in his June 2009 speech in Cairo. The lie that the cash payment and the hostage release were disconnected encouraged Iran’s long practice of using hostages for coercion to extort favorable terms, and the revolutionaries in Tehran portrayed the ransom payment as an admission of American guilt and weakness. Hossein Nejat, deputy intelligence director of the IRGC, stated that ransom payments demonstrated that “the Americans themselves say they have no power to attack Iran.”43 In the months that followed the payoff, in addition to multiple missile launches, the regime boasted about its nuclear stockpiles, awarded a medal to an IRGC commander with American blood on his hands, and seized two U.S. Navy vessels, arresting ten sailors and parading them in front of cameras before releasing them fifteen hours later. Iran even failed to refrain from hostage taking, detaining Princeton graduate student Xiyue Wang in 2016 while he was conducting research on the Qajar dynasty and learning Farsi for a PhD in Eurasian history. As in the past, conciliation had led to Iranian escalation, not moderation.