In the past, when time frames permitted, I had suggested psyops as a weapon of choice to undermine and weaken the Mullahs, followed by a government in exile - such as the one being adopted with the leading Syrian defector and some selective, dark Special Ops activity from perhaps Baluchistan to remove key individual targets.
I had hands-on experience with psyops when I tried to help deal with a dozen urban guerilla tacticians brought into the Soviet embassy in Tehran to destabilize the Shah and orchestrate the daily activities of the anti-Shah groups like the MEK, the Fedayeen and the pro-Khomeini Hezbollahs.
The overthrow of the late-Shah, in case someone still does not know, was initiated by the Soviets and assisted through Jimmy Carter, whom many in Europe called the best Soviet President the Americans ever had.
The Marxist-Islamist MEK and Fedayeen would have been in power today had it not been for the only organized structure left in Iran after the fall of the Shah being the hundreds of mosques throughout the country. Similarly to more recently in Iraq, the clerics took charge of neighborhoods, then towns etc., leading to the implacable hatred between the MEK and Mullahs we see today.
Seeing "their" revolution stolen out from under them, the MEK bombed, assassinated and otherwise killed the clerics at the highest levels.
They fought against Iran in the Iran-Iraq war, not as enemies of the Iranian populace but as foes of the Mullahs, in an effort to remove them.
Ever since they have been hunted down and abused even more stringently than Iranian students. Among whom they also numbered. And in turn they have used similar tactics to retain a following of what has become a counter-productive but virulently anti-Mullah personality cult of Massoud and Mariam Rajavi.
Note, however, that having the MEK in power would be as bad if not worse than the Mullahs, even under President AhmadiNejad.
Also, their becoming labeled a terrorist group, originated in an effort to negotiate with the Mullahs who fear and hate the MEK and offer them assurances that America would not back or support their staunchest enemy group.
To cut this short, there is no one-step solution I can think of, since there is no charismatic figure or leader, not even among the Monarchists, who can achieve step one - to eradicate the Mullahs. The young Shah cannot afford to spill the amount of blood needed for him to take over power without it coming back to bite him.
Nobody else has the military means or an adequate number of followers inside or outside Iran.
A drastic possibility, which might work, is a two step one. A government in exile that becomes recognized by the Wetern world and unleashes the MEK (no, I do not like them either, I'm being an analyst/tactician) into Iran.
They do the killing for everyone, demand and receive temporay power and then are removed in phase two, perhaps violently - as murderers for the blood they shed. Much easier to achieve than uprooting hte Mullahs. Unless Putin steps in with total backing of the new MEK government, then we have a problem as bad or worse as before.
Now, with Hojatieh driven AhmadiNejad at the helm and nuclear cabability perhaps emerging as soon as March, a virtual destruction of some 5,000 military and nuclear related targets in a single series of bombing raids seems the only option. Sounds horrible, is horrible. Got any better ideas?
Some collateral damage can be reduced if targets and sites built and hidden below towns and neighborhoods receive ample, early warning of being bombed and people are urged and told to leave - or stay at their own risk. No exact date needs to be given away.
Giving up these targets would not help Iran much as they do not have the means to defend so many sites against an armada of bombers.
Please don't label me a warmonger for laying out strategy that might, just might work to stop a lunatic regime from killing millions of us or sending us into financial difficulties that would make our lives resemble those in Iran - even if only for a while.
Wow, where we you a few months ago?
Recently, I was posting some articles for a friend who held similar views (He has some personal history on/in Iran) and some personal kowlege of these things.
We both postulated on the possible use of the MEK as part of a coordinated effort to oust the Mullah's controlled system in Iran.
Welcome aboard and how long have you been lurking??? :)
Interesting ideas.
I am very much anti-Marxist - as are most Freepers - but the Communists at least were not such flakes that their big aim in life was to die. Communism simply wanted to dominate us, but because it's a crummy system, it couldn't do so and collapsed.
The Mullahcracy of Islam, on the other hand, is much more dangerous. They want to die and take the whole world down with them.
I think the US is between a rock and a hard place. The Mullahs are bad, the MEK is bad, but there's nobody in between who seems to have the clout to mobilize the probably many Iranians who simply want to get on with their lives and possibly go to Europe or the US to study and come back and build a business and start a life in Iran.
I think that the only thing that is holding the US back is that there are obviously many folks in Iran who just want to get along and have a life (and not kill Jews, Americans, etc.).
I like to think of American Psychological Operations as spreading the truth. The truth has a very purifying and healthy effect on open societies. Alternatively, it has the opposite effect on elitist and isolationist governing bodies. Governments can and do keep secrets in the name of national security but what matters, with respect to positive social change in my opinion, are the collective knowns. That you personally “helped orchestrate various organizations from the Soviet Embassy to oust the Shah” is not collectively known and cannot be collectively known unless said operations have been declassified. Is there unclassified information available to FR about your personal experiences? It goes without saying that you should keep all classified information you have access to away from those of us without a security clearance.
Without a doubt, the Iranian revolution is a fascinating historical event and, year by year, more light is shed on it. As information like what you’ve shared here is verified and incorporated into analyses, the potential for good decision making in an open and democratic environment increases. That’s more than good, it’s great!
TRUTH OPS
As the truth takes hold in Iran so too does the potential for democracy there. Terrorism, nuclear noncompliance and habitual human rights abuse are symptoms of the Iranian government’s elitist and isolation self perception. Elitists and isolationists victimize themselves and thrive on iterations of blame and hatred only breaking the cycle to foment corruption and war. The architecture of power in Iran is truly sick. That sickness manifests itself in the great number of failures of the Iranian government and successes of the Iranian people, in spite of the Iranian government’s oppressive policies. Exposing these truths constitute truth ops. The truth is spreading naturally to Iran and that’s great news for democratically minded Iranians and Americans who long for the day when an American flag may fly beside the flags o other nations in Iran without degradation.
Performing truth operations need not require violence but may elicit violence from the Iranian government. The Iranian government already uses terrorist violence as a tool of foreign policy therefore the threat to society is that Iranian officials may order an increase in its violent foreign policy. So the free world is left to decide; remain in a situation where the Iranian government commits and supports terrorist violence and Free Citizens are required by their governments to accept the decimation of free men, women and children. Or will the free world hold the Iranian government accountable for the terrorism it supports with the explicit intent to end Iranian terrorism, risking a potential escalation of Iranian terrorism. Time has shown that every belligerent act the Iranian government commits, international consensus to confront the government of Iran for its crimes grows. The question is; will consensus grow fast enough to catch the Iranian government’s maneuvers to acquire the capacity to create nuclear explosives? Citizens of free societies can not be expected to tolerate the decimation of entire cities from the face of the earth!