Ending Iran’s Sanctions: Impact on Tehran, Baghdad and Syria
Middle East Briefing/MEB/January 24/16
To be able to assess the impact of lifting Iran’s sanctions, it may be helpful to examine the relevant regional context on the implementation day.
Three particular areas deserve to be examined. One relates to the impact of lifting sanctions on the internal political rivalry inside Iran. The second and the third focus on this impact on the current situation on both Iraq and Syria.
* Iran:
Scrapping sanctions will give the moderates in Tehran a needed lift during the count down to the Presidential and general elections. The hardliners and the IRGC have always opposed the nuclear deal. What they fear most is that normalization of relation with the external world will create a momentum that targets not only their interests, but potentially their very existence.
Hardliners, who consider the IRGC their “political party”, accumulated a lot of economic muscles during the long years of isolation. They also expanded their regional role that fitted perfectly their sense of threat and their plan to protect the national security of “the revolution”. Their aggressive regional methods were not only a way of reflecting their religious fever but also a convenient road to grasping more power and political space in Iran.
But it was also an objectively needed mechanism of self-defense and an ideal policy to keep the political grip of the regime internally. “Victories” achieved in the Middle East were invaluable tools of propaganda as they represented to the public a picture of a regime that is moving forward somehow.
Usually, in similar situations, the perception of threat, real or imagined (and in this case of Iran it was real), creates the objective ground for the continuation of post-revolution totalitarianism and the expansion of the security states. This in turn elects centralized economic policies. We have this phenomena going through different phases in Iran until it reached, during the years of Ahmadinejad, a point where it obtained an independent life for itself. In other words, the quantitative shift during the years of the former President could be summarized roughly as a moment when the IRGC reached the point of relatively coherent independence from the political state.
This was mainly due to a very rapid expansion in economic control and the usefulness of the IRGC regional and global moves. In a way, the IRGC turned to be a kind of “state within the state”. In similar cases, that means a degree of political immunity protecting it against attempts, by the political state, to reduce its role or reform the sectors which host his interests.
In realizing that the nuclear deal will entail an overture to the external world in all fields, the IRGC was skeptical of the accord. It expected, correctly, that its economic grip will be relaxed as the need for all shadow trade activities, dictated by sanctions, will be reduced. It also expected that its aggressive security policies, externally and internally, would be challenged as there will be less objective need for these methods. And it expected that the overture towards the external and different world will dilute the “purity” of the fanatical revolutionary ideas which represent its ideological backbone.
But in this case we should not be optimist. The moment of shift in Iran is characterized by very particular features which belong uniquely to its case. The Iranian IRGC, and the hardliners in general, base themselves on a popular base that other political groupings in similar cases lacked. Furthermore, the ideology here is religion, or a version of it. This ideology relates to the general popular culture and has centuries old historical roots. With a chain of Mosques everywhere and favorable cultural base, the IRGC has a long way before we see it shrinking.
Furthermore, the reformists are not unified and they lack a well-organized influential political force which enjoys the same wide presence in all communities. The nuclear deal will lead to further crystallization and intensification of the conflict between different views about the future of Iran. One camp will call for normalizing the role of Iran to adapt to its overture to the world, hence end the perpetual economic hardship, while the other will call for preserving the “purity” of the revolutionary principles and the status quo. In similar cases the first camp has a better chance to win the day. But Iran maybe a little different.
The problem in Iran’s case is that the reformist camp does not possess strong tools to make full use of the objective shift that has occurred with ending Iran’s isolation, even when it has sufficient base particularly among the urban middle class. This is coupled with the expected defensive reaction of the IRGC. Using its strong accumulated power base, the IRGC and hardliners read the situation, with its risks to them, correctly.
The nature of the moment points out that what we should expect is an intensification of the internal Iranian power struggle. In very general terms, the fight usually ends with a victory to the moderates, mainly due to objective and economic reasons. But the question is: How long will that take in the case of Iran? And at what price to its internal stability?
Ayatollah Khamenei is sick and he has strong hardline views as well. To which extent would he be able to play the role of a statesman not a perpetual revolutionary?
Though the economic impact of lifting the sanctions would be limited in the long run as oil prices are not expected to recover anytime soon, the released funds would be theoretically helpful to the reformists. One factor seems evident right now, however. The popularity of the reformists has skyrocketed after scrapping the international sanctions. This factor will playout largely in the next elections due next month, if the reformists are allowed to run, particularly that the time left before the elections is too short to allow public disappointment in regard to the unrealistically positive expectations of the Iranian voters. The Parliament will elect the Assembly of experts which will certainly re-elect Khamenei, unless the Supreme Leader abdicates for health reasons.
Assuming that all things will go as planned, and Khamenei will not prevent most reformists from running,, the reformists may achieve considerable gains in the elections. Somehow, all depends upon a strategic decision taken from Khamenei and some other powerful figures in Tehran to let them win a decisive majority. If it is deemed necessary to implement a gradual shift in the strategic direction of the state, Khamenei, who happens to be the most powerful political figure of all in Iran, will guarantee a smooth shift performed in an organized fashion.
But knowing the leader’s inertia and system of thoughts, this is not going to happen, if it does at all, in any rapid manner. Any abrupt shift in the direction of the country led by the reformists after their assumed expected gains in the next elections will cause a backlash from the hardliners in a moment when they still enjoy a very powerful role in the structure of the state and the economy. The objective trends will take time to erode their base particularly because of the absence of an equally powerful opponent (in terms of political organization not unorganized “popularity”).
The key in this delicate moment in Iran’s political history is how prudently the country will be led in the direction of the wind all the while avoiding any big mistakes that may put it again against this direction. For if the hardliners succeed in overruling the reformists, based on big mistakes or rushing things by the reformists, we will be heading to a period of protracted instability inside Iran and in the Middle East. It will be difficult for the hardliners to quell the aspirations of the public in a moment when this public believes they soon will be achieved.
* Iraq:
Recent incidents in Diyala were indicative of how ISIL may exploit the explosive charge of sectarianism to derail any attempt to improve the general atmosphere in Iraq. Several Sunni Mosques were set on fire by fanatic Shia members of the Popular Mobilization Force (PMF). The attack came after suicide attacks by some ISIL members.
As usual, we will find either of the two groups, ISIL and PMF “completing” the half circle drawn by the other. But the real objective of the attacks against the Mosques was to repel the original Sunni inhabitants from going back to their homes. The preferred game of both ISIL and PMF is sectarian cleansing. Additional Sunnis left Meqdadiah in Diyalah after their Mosques were burned.
While Qassem Suleimani is rumored to be clinically dead in Tehran after targeting him last November near Aleppo in Syria, the PMF seems to have been losing its tactical edge. It is up to Tehran to rein in the PMF, accept the new Abadi plan to restructure its leadership structure and enable him to implement this plan.
Baghdad officials debated some new ideas about including most of the militias in the armed forces parallel to also absorbing the Sunni tribal forces into the national armed forces. The idea emerged as an alternative to the National Guard which was rejected by the extremist Shia political groups for fear of creating an independent Sunni force.
While the project of building the National Guard should not be announced dead yet, the alternative proposal must be explored further and developed along acceptable lines. But the crux of the problem in Iraq remains in Iran taking a strategic decision to allow a real national unity government and to control the seemingly uncontrollable PMF. This will not happen without instructions from Khamenei to the Quds Forces to change its objectives in Iraq and to focus only on protecting the South of Iraq.
Left to its own device, the IRGC Quds Force and its Iraqi allies will simply continue blocking any national solution in Iraq. The head of the IRGC, General Mohamed Ali Jafari, bragged January 14 about the Corps presence in the neighboring countries. “We have 200 thousand men ready in Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, Yemen, Afghanistan and Pakistan. But we still have to attract more, particularly young people. We should focus on training the third generation of the guards of Velayat-e Faqih (the Iranian political system)”. The statement was released by Mehr news agency owned by the government.
The one single most important factor to end Iraq’s political crisis is the position of Iran. As sanctions were lifted just few days ago, it is not clear yet if Tehran will content itself with the South in return for guarantees related to Central Iraq and a non-aggression assurances with the Sunni tribes and their regional backers.
* Syria:
The situation in Dair Al Zour is indeed worrying. ISIL achieved some major progress there and we have seen once more this cult of death in one of its most shocking moments. Yet, the macro-trends of the crisis remain the same. It is impossible to reach a solution that keeps Assad on top of the future regime. The main organizing principle should be a Syria free of all foreign presence and all terrorist organizations.
A regionally neutral Syria will have two decades or more to rebuild the destroyed country and regain its internal cohesion. These objectives would be impossible to achieve while terrorists are acting freely in the country. We share the assessment that if a reasonable solution is reached in Syria, it will take a relatively short period, counted in years not in months, to defeat ISIL.
This may be a favorable moment to push forward a comprehensive plan to pacify the Middle East. We see the ball now in Iran’s playground. The direction it will kick it will define the nature of the coming phase in the regional conflicts. In the case of Syria, for example, a regional deal coupled with international agreement on a road map would play a decisive role in reaching a deal for a future Syria free of the dictatorship of Assad, the terrorists, and all armed foreigners unless deployed by the UN with the full approval of Syrians. It is a moment to use the nuclear deal to achieve what was supposed to be achieved before signing it. But it is not too late yet.
Washington Recalibrates anti-ISIL War: Plans Going Forward
Middle East Briefing/MEB/January 24/16
The Pentagon has revised its war plans against the Islamic State for 2016, based on a cold assessment of the state of combat, and lessons learned from the relative failure of the 2015 “Iraq First” strategy. The shift, which has been downplayed by the Obama White House, out of fear of conveying any admission of failure, has been quietly confirmed by Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter and by the new US commander for Iraq and Syria, Gen. Sean MacFarland.
The appointment of MacFarland, a seasoned conventional warfare veteran, in October 2015 as the first US flag officer in charge of both the Iraq and Syria military campaigns, speaks volumes about the shift towards more conventional ground combat operations versus Islamic State strongholds. Because of political complications in Baghdad, including the strong influence of Iran on the Abadi government, there are absolute limits on the size of the US military force that will be allowed in Iraq. Recent US offers to expand the number of American combat advisors, attached to Iraqi Army fighting units, and to provide close air support helicopters, have been rejected. Gen. MacFarland made clear that such added American support will be rushed in at the first point that Baghdad requests it.
In a speech to the 101st Airborne Division at Fort Campbell, Kentucky on Jan. 13, Defense Secretary Carter announced that 1,600 additional US trainers from the Division will be arriving in Iraq, boosting the total American military “footprint” to over 5,000 troops by the spring. He also made clear that the combined ground combat operations will be targeted in 2016 against Mosul and Raqqa, and that the US will be taking a back seat to Iraqi Army and Kurdish Peshmerga forces, who will be working to conduct coordinated military campaigns, targeting Mosul from the north, south and east.
One key to the more conventional military campaign is the severing of ISIL supply lines between Mosul and Raqqa, and re-establishing the traditional Syria-Iraq borders. Since November, Iraqi Peshmerga forces, with close US air support and with American embedded military advisers, have retaken Sinjar, a vital transit point between the two ISIL strongholds.
In late December, US Defense Secretary Carter was in Irbil, meeting with Kurdish leaders. He pledged to provide weapons and other military gear and vehicles to equip two combat brigades, totaling 4,400 Kurdish troops.
One key element of the new strategy is the acceleration of the decapitation operations, led by US Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) teams, which have been inserted on the ground in both Iraq and Syria. Those JSOC teams are now on the ground, operating, and this has already resulted in a series of successful targeted killings of “indispensable” ISIL figures (see last week’s MEB for details), even before the deployment was completed. In preparation for a future assault on Mosul, the JSOC teams have also made contact with Sunni Arab tribal leaders in the area.
While the appointment of Gen. MacFarland to oversee all US military operations in Iraq and Syria is the clearest indication of greater attention to conventional combat operations, the newly named Central Command head, Gen. Joseph Votel, also underscores the special role assigned to JSOC. Up until his appointment on Jan. 15, 2016 as the new Centcom commander, Gen. Votel was head of the Special Operations Command. He previously commanded JSOC. His expected replacement at Special Operations Command, Lt. Gen. Raymond Thomas III, is the current JSOC commander.
At the same time that the Pentagon has recalibrated the war plans for Iraq and Syria for 2016, the Obama Administration has concluded that the war against the Islamic State must be broadened to target ISIL’s new pockets of operations globally.
A new analysis by the US Intelligence Community, provoked by the Paris and San Bernardino terrorist attacks, attributed to ISIL, has warned about the spread of ISIL activities in Southeast Asia and North Africa. Local ISIL cells have emerged in Indonesia, which are believed responsible for recent suicide bombings in Jakarta. While these operations do not necessarily involve redeployment of seasoned Islamic State fighters from Iraq or Syria, they reflect local, indigenous jihadist cells formally affiliating with ISIL. The USIC study identified 20 countries where such expansion of ISIL operations has been identified.
In some cases, these local, home-grown jihadist cells have been “inspired” by the Islamic State, but have no formal ties to the ISIL leadership. This, the report warned, poses a special challenge, because normal communication intercepts will not always detect local ISIL operations, while they are in the planning phase.
Among the geographic areas highlighted in the study are Libya, Kashmir and Afghanistan. Germany, France, the United Kingdom and the United States are also identified as vulnerable, due to large Muslim populations (the Obama White House has sought to keep this study under wraps, for fear of fueling anti-Muslim rhetoric from Republican presidential candidates).
Secretary of Defense Carter is in Paris this week, discussing these intelligence warnings and revised military plans with key allies France, Britain, Australia, Germany, Italy and the Netherlands. One priority topic of discussion is the Islamic State expansion into parts of Libya, centered in the Sirte area. Carter will be sounding out the allies on a possible joint military expeditionary force, to be deployed into Libya, at the invitation of the newly established unity government. That force of more than 7,000 US and European troops would be commanded by Italy, and would involve special deployments of British Special Air Services (SAS) teams.