Related: Notice that ever since Ahmadinejad took power in Iran, and made Mughniyeh his defense minister, Iran has been very actively founding Iranian-controlled terror groups in as many places as possible: AaFaA Brigades in Iraq, its old Hezbollah setup in Lebanon and Syria, its infiltration & takeover of Hamas in Gaza, etc. If I were running a government anywhere vaguely in that region that had a Shi'ite minority, I'd be keeping my eyes open for whatever satellite group Iran were setting up there. And note that this is an international network of professional terrorist groups with the systematic sponsorship, supply and control by a government that's trying to become a nuclear power: the worst hypothesis is confirmed.
Iran is gearing up for a major proxy war. If they set up these units in every Middle Eastern country with a Shi'ite population, they could effectively destabilize the local governments and install friendly regimes, or at least create friendly circumstances "on the ground:" the true creation of an Iranian sphere of influence. The other thing these teams are for is for fighting against the US/Israel alliance, which it views - quite rightly - as a competitor for geostrategic power in the region. Such a force would certainly back even non-Shi'ite groups to further its aims; (remember that Iran supplied weapons to the [Sunni] PLO for years) direct alliance with groups like al-Qaeda is less likely, since those groups have very strong ideological leanings which aren't that compatible, but these guys have the potential to be much more strongly unified.
The question of just how broad Iran's ambitions are is open: they want this network, they want ICBM's (they already have intermediate-range ballistic missiles, like the Shahab-3; once North Korea finalizes the Taepodong-2 ICBM, Iran will probably be the first customers), they want the Bomb. Do they want to take on China or India for regional power? Would they want to press engagement with US/Israel even beyond the scale needed to push them out of the area?
Another interesting question: How will Russia come down in this? They haven't decisively allied with either the US or Iranian side in this conflict, and have been willing to work with both. At some point it will probably become very difficult to do this. Which way it goes depends e.g. on how Iran decides to involve itself (or not) with Chechnya, but it could have a big impact on how much free rein Iran ends up getting in the Central Asian sphere.
July 20 2006, 16:57:23 UTC 9 years ago
July 20 2006, 17:31:07 UTC 9 years ago
July 20 2006, 17:34:18 UTC 9 years ago
I forsee this going rather poorly, really. I just hope that the US doesn't decide to do for Iran what they attempted to do for Iraq. That would just make things so much worse.
However, if Iran does go after more and more US troops in Iraq, I'm not sure what the response will be, or what response would be appropriate.
Zealots, in any flavor, really scare me.
It really feels like the US has stepped on a hornets nest with going into Iraq, and it's only going to get worse.
Even if we were magically able to leave the region, leave it fully with our money, we'd still be in a bad situation. I figure that the attacks would just move to our soil. We've pissed some people off, and I don't know what it will take to end it. Or, really, if we did anything more than give them more of an excuse, and now they've always hated us (thinking back to the plane hijackings of the 70s/80s).
We've created a lot of responsibility now in the region, and we're stuck with it.
July 20 2006, 21:41:27 UTC 9 years ago
July 20 2006, 20:19:47 UTC 9 years ago
July 20 2006, 21:35:42 UTC 9 years ago
Of course, we could just get people together to talk and have dinner, too. :)
July 20 2006, 22:12:45 UTC 9 years ago
July 20 2006, 22:15:38 UTC 9 years ago
July 21 2006, 05:01:45 UTC 9 years ago
July 20 2006, 21:31:08 UTC 9 years ago
July 20 2006, 21:37:16 UTC 9 years ago
July 20 2006, 22:11:58 UTC 9 years ago
I suspect that Iran would actually be more likely to infiltrate the fragile post-soviet democracies along Afghanistan's northern border, and then use the chaos of northern Afghanistan to support a taliban insurgency and to stir up more unrest in Kashmir. If they really want to harass India they could probably recruit for militant splinter groups in western China to act on the disputed China-India border. As it is though, until Iran is a nuclear power, I doubt very much if it will seek to directly implicate itself in conflicts with China or India.
July 20 2006, 22:15:18 UTC 9 years ago
July 20 2006, 22:27:43 UTC 9 years ago
July 20 2006, 22:29:07 UTC 9 years ago
July 24 2006, 03:13:29 UTC 9 years ago
I don't know what the implications are for Al-Q's long term planning are beyond the fact that there are some inside making long term plans, and that those plans are fairly ambitious. I'm also not sure what it means for potential conflicts between different radical groups, in the middle east and elsewhere, as Al-Q tries to build a larger power base outside their sphere of local influence. I thought you might have some insight.