Iran’s Military-Industrial-Terrorist-Political Complex

National Review ^ | October 20, 2011 | Clifford May

[nuconvert]

The Islamic Revolutionary Guards soon could have nuclear weapons.

In 1979, journalists and diplomats reported from Iran on a revolution against the shah. They were mistaken. The Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and his followers were thinking bigger. Their goal was a global revolution — a revolution against the United States and other “oppressor” powers.

The ayatollah famously called America the Great Satan. This, too, was misunderstood. His intention was less to insult than to describe: He knew that freedom, the rule of (man-made) law, peace, and equal rights for both the servants and enemies of Allah are seductive ideas that could subvert the truths and laws revealed by the Prophet as interpreted by him. Promoting such ideas is what makes America Satanic.

With this in mind, Khomeini moved quickly to establish a militia, the Sepah-e Pasdaran-e Enqelab-e Eslami, the Army of the Guardians of the Islamic Revolution, also known as the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). It was designed to be the clerical regime’s “sword and shield against domestic opposition forces,” writes Emanuele Ottolenghi, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (the policy institute I head) in his timely new book, The Pasdaran: Inside Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps.

Owing allegiance only to Khomeini — who assumed the title of Supreme Leader, “God’s shadow on earth” — the IRGC grew into “a vital instrument of Iranian foreign policy,” promoting Islamic Revolution beyond Iran’s borders. The Quds Force, its “special branch dedicated to operations abroad,” became the point of the spear — organizing the assassination of the regime’s enemies; financing, training, and sponsoring terrorist groups including Hezbollah, its Lebanon-based proxy, Shiite militias in Iraq, and Hamas in Gaza; and providing assistance to both the Taliban and al-Qaeda.

[Army Air Corps]

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