While the Iranian regime cannot be changed from the outside, engagement with the Iranian people can help constrain the regime’s use of demagoguery to justify external aggression and internal repression. Penetrating or circumventing the regime’s restrictions to build relationships with Iranians can help counter the regime’s narrative. Although many foreign citizens of Iranian descent have been unlawfully imprisoned in Iran, communication and visits between the Iranian diaspora in the West and their friends and family is an effective catalyst for countering regime disinformation.10 Soon, technological means of bypassing Iran’s censors will be available. Satellite-based internet and other empowering technologies will make it harder for the Iranian regime to block communications and access to information.
Dialogue might also increase social pressure on the regime by reducing Iranian leaders’ ability to blame “the Great Satan” (the United States), “the Little Satan” (Israel), and others for the tragedy of the modern Islamic Republic. The United States and other nations should not take credit for the failing Iranian economy. Credit should go to those Iranian leaders whose corruption and militarism are preventing normal economic engagement and Iranian prosperity. Iran is a tragedy not only because of the devastation and suffering it has caused, but also because of its leaders’ failure to take advantage of the tremendous potential of its people and natural resources. During Ahmadinejad’s presidency, the kleptocratic regime wasted an estimated $800 billion in oil wealth.11 Historically, during periods of instability, the nation’s corrupt leaders hoarded even more wealth to bolster their positions of privilege.
The United States and other nations can also do more to expose the hypocrisy in the regime’s flawed ideology and claims to virtue. Parallels are easy to draw between the corrupt mullahs of Iran and the tyrannical Communist totalitarian regimes of the Cold War era. The statement that the Iranian revolutionaries issued to explain mass executions in the early days of the 1979 civil war echoed the language of the Bolsheviks who rationalized the Red Terror in 1918: “To destroy and kill evil is part of the truth and that the purging of society of those persons means paving the way for a unified society in which classes will not exist.”12 The Supreme Leader’s theocratic authority through the concept of velayat e faqih, or “rule of the jurist,” is not universally accepted in Shiism. Many see the corrupt authoritarian system cloaked in religion as heretical. Investigative journalists and analysts should expose the money wasted on Iran’s proxy wars, and the vast wealth of government officials and clerics associated with the bonyads, to show the Iranian people how their wealth is squandered. In public statements, foreign leaders should be careful to distinguish the Iranian regime from the Iranian people. Failure to do so only allows the regime to continue to deflect criticism away from its own failures to take advantage of the country’s tremendous gifts, including its educated population, geostrategic location, and natural resources.
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DESPITE THEIR failing economy, Iranian leaders feel emboldened because they perceive the United States and Europe as divided and weak in resolve. The IRGC’s successes are due not only to its unscrupulousness and talent for deception, but also to the lack of a sustained response. Khamenei saw the divisiveness and contention in the United States after the 2016 presidential election as a sign of political and moral decline, stating that the United States “is becoming hollow from the inside like what termites do.” Like the Chinese Communist Party leadership, he had regarded the 2008 financial crisis as an indication of weakness, stating that the U.S. economy “had declined astonishingly in recent decades” and “American power has declined in the area of politics as well.”13 The lack of a U.S. military response to Iranian attacks in 2019 fit what Iranian leaders view as a pattern of weak reactions to Iranian provocations. The European Union clung to a conciliatory policy even as Iran conducted escalatory attacks, working to circumvent reimposed sanctions after the U.S. withdrawal from the JCPOA.14 It is entirely possible that Iranian leaders concluded that neither the United States nor European nations possess the will to see through a military confrontation with Iran. In November 2019, IRGC commander Salami boasted to the United States that “you have experienced our power in the battlefield and received a powerful slap across your face and could not respond . . . If you cross our redlines, we will annihilate you.”15
The U.S. strike that killed Qasem Soleimani and Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis in Baghdad on January 3, 2020, must have come as a surprise. Just prior to the strike, the Supreme Leader, referring to the prospect of U.S. retaliation for Iranian proxy attacks on U.S. bases and the U.S. embassy in Iraq, had taunted President Trump, saying, “You can’t do anything.”16 The regime had clearly been conditioned to believe so.
Absent demonstrated American resolve to impose physical and financial costs on Iran, Iran’s proxy wars will intensify. The ability of the Islamic Republic to modernize its military and wage its proxy wars is partially dependent on the success of the overall Iranian economy. From 2008 to 2018, Iran spent nearly $140 billion on its military and combat operations abroad. Between 2017 and 2019, the United States sanctioned approximately one thousand Iranian individuals and organizations. In 2018, the rial declined fourfold against major currencies, and oil exports, which generate most of the regime’s income, dropped to 1 million barrels a day from a high of 2.5 million. Sanctions, a decrease in GDP, and high inflation resulted in a 10 percent reduction in military spending. In spite of these economic constraints, Iran continued to draw on foreign currency reserves to fund its proxy wars.17
Until the regime ends its hostility to the United States, Israel, the West, and the Arab world, the United States and its partners should improve defenses against Iranian capabilities. Iran’s proxy wars have grown more dangerous because they have expanded both geographically and in the number of participants. Other nations have joined in the conflicts to protect their interests in Syria, Yemen, and in the waters of the Persian Gulf and the Bab-el-Mandeb strait. From 2012 to 2020, Iran’s use of the Levantine air and land bridge to increase the threat to Israel prompted the Israel Defense Forces to intervene in Syria.18 In 2019, Israel increased strikes in Lebanon and Gaza to disrupt Hezbollah, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and Hamas capabilities and leadership while Iran continued to support those organizations with weapons and cash. Between 2015 and 2020, Iranian proxies in Yemen launched more than 250 missiles into Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates and attempted dozens of attacks on ships in the Bab-el-Mandeb.19 As a result, Saudi Arabia threatened to retaliate directly against Iran. In a November 2017 interview, Prince Mohammad bin Salman called Supreme Leader Khamenei “the new Hitler of the Middle East” after stating in May that the kingdom would make sure any future struggle between the two countries “is waged in Iran.”20
The proxy wars are also more dangerous because of the destructive weaponry Iran provides its militias. Hezbollah and Houthi rebels have both demonstrated an ability to hit ships with guided missiles. Iran’s use of cyber and drone attacks, as well as ballistic missiles, serves as a warning to nations in the region and beyond. Increased U.S. and European defense cooperation with Gulf states in areas such as missile defense, air defense, and long-range fires might convince Iran’s leaders that they cannot accomplish objectives through the use of force. As Iran’s efforts spread geographically, its span of control and logistics became stretched. A multilateral effort should exploit existing weaknesses in the IRGC and proxy network, including its broad geographic scope and overstretched logistic capabilities.
Meanwhile, defensive measures in Arab nations must extend beyond military means. Political and governance reforms to address grievances and meet the needs of non-Sunni citizens will reduce Iranian influence and the numbers willing to aid and abet Iranian subversion, especially in countries with Shia majorities, such as Iraq and Bahrain, and in those with significant Shia minorities, such as Kuwait, Lebanon, and Saudi Arabia.
In particular, strengthening governance in Lebanon and weakening Lebanese Hez
bollah should be a top priority. Lebanon was the site of Iran’s first proxy war. The Revolutionary Guard took advantage of a brutal multi-sectarian civil war that began in 1975 by portraying themselves as patrons of the poor Shia community. They began forming and training Shia militias that coalesced into Hezbollah after Israel invaded in 1982. Members of Hezbollah and other Iranian-controlled militias went on to launch a series of devastating terrorist attacks, including the 1983 bombing of the U.S. embassy in Beirut. In the 1970s, anti-Shah Iranians who would later become leaders in the Iranian Revolutionary Guard received training and support at Lebanese Palestine Liberation Organization camps. After the revolution, the newly formed IRGC maintained its militant relationships.
Over the years, Iran strengthened the bond between Hezbollah and its Shia base through the provision of social services and the political power Hezbollah exercises in the Lebanese government.21 Hezbollah was first legitimized as a defender of Lebanese Shia by its ongoing resistance to the Israeli occupation of Lebanese territory and later by initiating war with Israeli forces during Israel’s 2006 invasion of Lebanon. Sunni jihadist sectarian violence has allowed Hezbollah to continue to portray itself as a protector of Shia Muslims and their sacred sites, such as by fighting ISIS in Syria since 2013. Indeed, Hezbollah has a reach far beyond Lebanon, with strategic goals in Syria and Israel, and a demonstrated ability to conduct terrorist attacks in Europe, South America, and the greater Middle East. Iran uses Hezbollah to provide an “Arab face” to its subversive efforts across the region.22
The U.S. government must do far more to target Hezbollah and other Iranian proxies, using its full range of financial, military, and law enforcement authorities. We should monitor and sanction Hezbollah-linked companies and bonyads, support countervailing forces in Lebanon, and cooperate with the European Union and regional partners.23 Exposing Hezbollah’s corruption and use as a tool of the Iranian regime can help galvanize the Lebanese people against the organization. It is important to understand the depth of the challenge, as Hezbollah is militarily strong, and Lebanon is politically fragile. Weakening Hezbollah requires a powerful appeal to the Lebanese people. The suffering that Hezbollah inflicted on the Syrian population and the costs the Lebanese people bore on behalf of the Iranian regime might boost anti-Hezbollah sentiment. More than 7,000 Hezbollah fighters were injured and 1,139 killed in Syria between 2011 and 2019, including more than 600 from heavily Shia southern Lebanon.24
In October 2019, the Lebanese people’s frustrations with their dysfunctional government overflowed. Much of their ire was directed at Hezbollah for defending the government and the corrupt status quo, tarnishing the image of the party as above the fray. By November, hundreds of antigovernment protestors were chanting “Hezbollah are terrorists!” and “Here is Lebanon, not Iran!” in a significant break from the past.25 In early 2020, the Lebanese financial system was in free fall and its government had collapsed. As Haider al-Abadi once told me, sectarianism and corruption go together.
Lebanon remains Iran’s primary front in its proxy war against Israel. Even as its economy falters, Iran will continue to prioritize its aggression toward the “little Satan.” It is possible that, despite efforts to deter another war, Iran will use Hezbollah to precipitate a crisis with Israel as it did in 2006. That war proved inconclusive, but Hezbollah claimed “divine victory” over the Israel Defense Forces. Despite the casualties suffered, the group promoted a resilient survival narrative in which its leaders boasted of their courage and appealed to anti-Israel sympathies. Hezbollah remains committed to Israel’s “total annihilation,” as do Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, two other organizations Iran sponsors. Since 2017, Iran has funded both groups, amounting to a combined $100 million annually. Just as Iran increased Hamas’s rocket supply during the 2008 Gaza War, Khamenei offered Hamas weapons and increased funding in response to Israeli airstrikes in July 2019. There is no reason to doubt Iran when it simultaneously emboldens these forces and makes threats, such as when the deputy commander of the IRGC warned Israel in 2018, “Listen! Any war that occurs will result in your annihilation.”26
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UNLIKE IN China, where the ideology of “communism light” and the narrative of national rejuvenation are meant to preserve the party, the Iranian state exists to spread its ideology. The leaders of the Quds Force, the element of the IRGC that directs unconventional warfare and intelligence activities, believe they are protecting the “purity of the revolution.” After suffering more than a million casualties and losing nearly $645 billion during the Iran-Iraq War, those leaders committed to extraterritorial operations under the theory that the best defense was a good offense.27 The IRGC oriented its “forward defense” strategy on two principal enemies: Saudi Arabia and Israel.
Israel has responded much more forcefully to Iran’s threats than have Western nations. In 2019, as Iran attempted to complete its Levantine land bridge across Iraq and Syria and place a proxy army on the border of Israel, IDF strikes targeted nodes in the Iranian network in Syria, Lebanon, and reportedly even Iraq. Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu hinted that this offense is only the beginning, stating that “Iran has no immunity, anywhere.”28
Obstacles may remain insurmountable, but mediation between Israel and the Palestinians as well as between Israel and its neighbors would diminish Iran’s ability to portray itself as a patron of the Palestinians as it pursues its objective of destroying Israel. Many factors concerning the prospects for peace between Israel and the Palestinians depend on the Palestinian people, such as whether an alternative to Hamas will develop in the Gaza Strip or if the Palestinian Authority will evolve in a way that produces not only a renewed desire to negotiate final status, but also the ability to enforce an agreement. Other factors depend on the Israeli people, including whether the highly personalized Israeli political landscape allows the sincere pursuit and eventual approval of an agreement. Progress also depends on the United States’ ability to pressure Israel and the Palestinian Authority or mediate between the two, an ability dependent on whether both sides view the United States as an honest broker.
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ALTHOUGH SOME analysts have described the relationship between Saudi Arabia and Iran as a cold war, it is actually more dangerous and destructive than a cold war because the escalating political and religious struggle drives the cycle of sectarian violence across the region. In 1987, the threat of the Iranian Revolution and its ideology to the Saudi royal family struck home during the Hajj, the annual pilgrimage to Mecca that all Muslims are expected to make at least once during their lifetime. Iranian Shiite pilgrims gathered for a political demonstration, chanting “Death to America! Death to the Soviet Union! Death to Israel!” Subsequent clashes with Saudi riot police left four hundred dead.29 In response, Khomeini asserted that “these vile and ungodly Wahhabis, are like daggers which have always pierced the heart of the Muslims from the back.” In 1991, the two countries reinstated diplomatic relations, but efforts to improve the relationship failed. Tensions grew as Saudi Arabia became concerned over Iranian influence in Iraq and Yemen, and relations were again suspended in 2016, when Iranians stormed the Saudi embassy in Tehran following the execution of Shia cleric Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr in Riyadh on terrorism charges.30 Efforts to mediate between Saudi Arabia and Iran started again in early 2020. Although prospects are dim, the alternative is the grim continuation of sectarian violence.31
There are continuities across the four-decade-long conflict, but new technologies are generating new dangers. For example, the 2019 attack on Saudi Arabia’s oil infrastructure was reminiscent of the 1987 failed commando attack on Saudi Arabian and Kuwaiti oil fields using a flotilla of fast boats, an attack interdicted by American helicopters. The 2019 attack was successful as it employed armed drones in an unprecedented swarm attack. Another successful attack, in 2012, was carried out through cyberspace as Iranian hackers shut down thirty thousand computers and ten thousand servers belonging to Saudi Aramco, causing syste
m damage that took five months to repair.32 Iranian development of ballistic missiles, a nuclear program, and chemical weapons would be unacceptable to Saudi Arabia, Israel, and other nations. Thus, a preventive war to deny Iran these destructive capabilities is a growing possibility, and given its potential to escalate into a devastating conflict, reducing Saudi Arabian and Iranian tensions is vital.
The United States and others should not take sides in the Shia-Sunni competition but can encourage authorities within those sects to isolate extremists who advocate for violence and fuel sectarian civil war. Gulf states such as Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Qatar must stop private and government support for jihadists, as those organizations allow Iran to claim that its support for the Houthis in Yemen, various militias in Iraq, and the proxy army fighting in Syria is a legitimate counterterrorism effort rather than an attempt to extend Iranian influence across the region. Enduring political accommodations among Sunni, Shia, and Kurdish populations in Syria and Iraq and between the Zaidi Shiites and Sunnis in Yemen are important steps toward curbing Iranian designs on the region.
Exposing Iran’s support for jihadist terrorist organizations hostile to both Shiism and its own people might place pressure on the Supreme Leader to end his cynical efforts to keep the Arab world perpetually weak. Iran, for example, has harbored Al-Qaeda leaders and eased the movement of Sunni jihadist terrorists. In a letter found in Osama bin Laden’s compound, a senior Al-Qaeda official reported in 2007 that Iran had “offered to some of Saudi brothers . . . to support them with money and arms and everything they need, and offered them training in Hezbollah camps in Lebanon, in return for striking American interests in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf.” Later that year, bin Laden chastised Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of Al-Qaeda in Iraq, for threatening Iran: “For as you are aware, Iran is our main artery for funds, personnel, and communication, as well as the matter of hostages.”33 All should condemn jihadist terrorist attacks against Iran such as the 2010 suicide attack on the Chabahar mosque that killed thirty-nine Iranians, the 2017 killings of twelve at the Iranian Consultative Assembly (parliament) and Khomeini’s tomb, and the 2018 murder of twenty-five Iranians at a military parade in Ahvaz. But it is also important to point out that, like Pakistan, Iran is vulnerable to those attacks because the regime’s reliance on religious oppression drives sectarian violence within the country.
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