Iran's Military Doctrine of Expansion
The Fine Art of Pursuing Remote-Controlled War - "Jang-e Na-Motegharen", or Asymmetrical Warfare
Iran's fiery president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had his answer pat for Western politicians who believe dialogue will bring the Shiite revolutionaries round to seeing reason on their nuclear program and other issues. In a speech of one hour and three minutes, delivered last week to hundreds of clerics in the town of Mashhad, he said:
"We have to create a situation in the world for the establishment of divine government" There is no truth or goodness in the world other than the establishment of the Imam Mahdi's government on earth. If we do not connect ourselves to the Imam, we are nothing. Humanity has entered a new era; Imam Mahdi is managing the world nd the peoples of the world are rising up against the arrogant powers. For instance, Iran becoming a nuclear power is one of the Imam Mahdi' miracles.
Every issue with Iran is susceptible to dialogue, from uranium enrichment, to Lebanon and Iraq according to politicians like the US presidential hopeful Senator Barack Obama, his adviser Zbigniew Brezhinsky, ex-president Jimmy Carter's former national security adviser, and European opinion-shapers.
This approach is based on two suppositions:
First: For 200 years, Iran has never initiated a war or attacked a country. Therefore it is not reasonable to expect Tehran to go to war on any other country, including Israel.
Second: Iran's protestation that it is developing nuclear energy for purely peaceful purposes should be taken at face value note the National Intelligence Estimate of December 2007.
The Iran dialogue proponents support Tehran's bid for a nuclear bomb
The pro-dialogue factions run with this argument to claim that, even if Tehran is seriously planning a nuclear bomb, it is only to create a balance of deterrence with Israel's nuclear capability and the independent nuclear programs under development in the Persian Gulf and Saudi Arabia, who cast envious eyes on Iran?s territorial integrity and its natural resources.
While indeed Persia never started a war in two centuries, Iranian sources point out that, up until the mid-twentieth century, Persia was took weak to defend itself, let alone attack others, and was shorn of territory by more powerful neighbors like the Russian Tsars. It was only in the early 1960s that Iran began to build a strong army, joined NATO and felt strong enough to capture three Persian Gulf islands.
But in the 29 years since Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini's Islamic revolution, Tehran has emblazoned the sacred mission of exporting the Shiite revolution on its flag, whether by the sword or missionary indoctrination.
Although Saddam Hussein invaded Iran in 1980, he did so after Iranian artillery and tanks had blasted Iraqi border zones for many weeks in an effort to incite Iraqi Shiites to rise up against the Sunni regime in Baghdad. Khomeinei spurned the Iraqi dictator's appeal for a ceasefire one year into the war and kept going for another six until he too realized that Iran had no better chance of victory than Iraq. By the time he forced himself to drink what he called "the poisoned chalice" of a ceasefire, a million and a half Iranians and Iraqis were dead.
Having concluded that Iran is not strong enough to fight the big armies of his enemies, such as the United States and Israel, Khomeini developed an alternative doctrine of warfare, calling it Jang-e Na-Motegharen, the Iranian version of asymmetrical warfare.
A war doctrine that keeps combat far from Iran's borders
Taking his example from the Vietnam War, he developed a legion of armed guerrilla and terrorist groups to offset the advantage of regular armies and fight Iran's enemies far from its borders.
Still casting an eye on neighboring Arab regimes, which he deemed corrupt and vassals of Big Satan America, he turned away from classical military tactics and embraced the stratagem of "liberation organizations" and surrogate terrorist groups to encompass their overthrow and promote his Shiite revolution.
Today, without using its own army, Tehran is capable of simultaneously taking on the United States, NATO, Israel and any regime or group allied with the United States or the West.
These surrogates are fighting quite openly for their Shiite masters on four synchronous Middle East fronts:
1. Directed by the Revolutionary Guards al Qods Brigade, Shiite militias founded and funded from Tehran are fighting US troops and Sunni factions in Iraq.
2. Terrorist groups backed by Iranian money and arms are fighting US-led NATO forces and the Karzai regime in Afghanistan.
3. Through the largely-controlled Palestinian Hamas group and its subservient Jihad Islami, Iran is waging war on Israel.
4. In Lebanon, Hizballah and its Shiite partner Amal are tools in Iran's hand for purging the country of Western and non-Shiite influence.
Tehran's Islamic rulers have thus fully embraced the doctrine of indirect combat on several parallel fronts without exposing Iran to frontal war.
Iran's rulers are totally dedicated to jihad and martyrdom
The argument that even if Iran is developing a nuclear weapon it will not use it is as baseless as the contention that Iran has never fought a war in 200 years.
The Islamic rulers of Tehran avow that their mission is to bring the world under Shiite Muslim domination.
They will go to any lengths to achieve what they regard as their sacred mission for the Imam Madhi, by propaganda, spreading the faith through the Muslim world and by the use of military resources, up to and including the crowning achievement of a nuclear weapon.
To this end, Iran has not only developed the Shahab-3 surface missile whose range is 2,000 km. but also the Ashura ballistic missile, which is planned to reach targets at distances of 6,000km.
Why does Tehran need missiles capable of reaching West Europe? Certainly not to scatter leaflets or deliver conventional warheads.
Ahmadinejad's words are revealing: He is convinced that Islam will be the final victor and he explains why. First, because it is wish of the Mahdi; second, because he believes Islam is the most dynamic power on earth and the rising sun, while the West is ageing and dying.
The Iranian leader holds dear two values: Jihad and martyrdom. An atom bomb fitted onto the Ashura rockets is planned to instill such terror in Western hearts that Iran will have a free hand to impose Islam as the dominant world religion to prepare for the coming of the Mahdi Emam-e Zaman.
Ahmadinejad predicts the Shiite messiah's coming will happen in two years - that is in 2010, which is when he expects Iran to have attained a nuclear weapon. Up until then, Iran is bent on expanding the territory under its domination. Lebanon is its latest target. Its fall will tighten the noose around Israel's neck and bring its destruction closer.
Wednesday, May 14, the day President George W. Bush began a three-day visit to Israel to honor its 60th anniversary of statehood, Ahmadinejad declared:
"The Zionist regime is dying. The criminals (US and Israel) assume that by holding celebrations they can save the sinister Zionist regime from death and annihilation."
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