Iran on the Potomac

Washington Post ^ | Sunday, June 25, 2006; Page B05 | -- Laura Rozen

[humint]

As the Bush administration frets over Iran's nuclear program, Iranian dissidents are descending on Washington, seeking help in fostering regime change back home. Just one problem: The exiles can't agree on a strategy.

Iran's oppositionists are divided over what kind of government should follow the Islamic republic, who should lead it and how the United States can help them bring about regime change in Tehran. There is no Iranian equivalent to the Iraqi National Congress, and the exiles have yet to coalesce around a platform or leader. Herewith a brief guide to the leading Iranian activists in town:

[humint]

• THE MONARCHISTS' HOPE
• THE INSIDER-TURNED-DISSIDENT
• THE SECULAR DEMOCRAT
• THE PRAGMATIST
• THE MILITANT VOICE

[GSlob]

What a bunch. Khalk could be usable to singe the rectal beards of an ayatollah or two, and the rest ought to be sold to the Smithsonian, to defray expenses.

[jeffers]

I've been thinking about this, re-reading accounts of what worked and what went wrong in Afghanistan and Iraq, and while I'm far from a complete answer, there are some things that seem pretty obvious.

1. The government which follows the mullahs will obviously need to be some kind of coalition, no one entity is strong enough to run the whole country. Whatever final government results, they will need an army and police force capable of maintaining order, protecting the borders, preventing old grudges from being settled, etc.

One obvious candidate here is the current regular army. Reports abound of Pasdaran units being ordered to co-locate with regular army, the clear implication is that the regular army is lukewarm at best towards the extremist government now in power. These people might be engaged clandestinely, now, to help avoid the situation we saw after the Iraqi Army folded, scattered, and melted into the woodwork. Open offers of employment, along with a preplanned and publicized pay scale might go a long way in avoiding having disaffected military with no real options from turning to insurgency.

2. Clearly the Iranian Kurds will need a voice, and just as clearly they offer opportunities more easily exploited, now, than other groups further from the border. Ditto the Balochistan region, but care needs to be taken there, due to strong extremist influences from across the Pak border. Trust, but verify.

3. The students are already agitated, to some degree mobilized, and in some cases, clandestinely organized. Organization is a matter of secure communications in the beginning. Here, Al Qaeda's cell structure, even their training manuals, can be used against them.

4. The Afghan model, also used in northern Iraq, SOF plus indigenous forces, cannot be over exploited, but...timing obstacles, especially in the early stages, could be preplanned and prepositioned to achieve much more cohesive synchronicity than in the past. The choices here are 360 degree limitless, probably by design.

5. Obviously, certain objectives will need rapid and dominant security immediately after current regime influences are weakened in any given area. No need to wait for total regime collapse to get started here, time wasted is time lost. One early obstacle here will be credibility. Anyone willing to stick their necks out before the mullahs are even cold yet will feel exposed. The more they are reassured, the more cooperative they can be, and the more effective they will be. One option is to plan for significantly more garrison forces than would otherwise be necessary. Easy integration with a flowing start here.

6. There are geographic opportunities for strategic surprise available. Think outside the box.

7. We know where "it" is, cutting it off and killing it can be organized so that significant terrain obstacles work in our favor, not against us.

8. Don't overlook useful beachheads even if they are far from objectives. No matter how far, they can still be closer than Oman, lily pads, or Qatar.

9. Most important of all. Get Rove a goddam TS clearance. Cutting him out of both the planning and execution loop was perhaps the worst mistake to date, his ablity to shape disclosures with policy and objectives is not to be under-estimated. If one failing in both Afghanistan and Iraq stands out like a sore thumb, it was the near total lack of a coordinated PR strategy, sychronized with maneuver. Rapid Dominance is a brilliant doctrine, but it requires brilliant execution to fully succeed. Preplanned ascendency over information dissemination even ahead of tactical lines is a must. These attempts must be redundant, and should consider and obviate failings in this area in Iraq.

[johnny7]

Rosen's pissed-off... she don't see any Marxists.

[G. Stolyarov II]

The Iranian dissenters should cooperate on the basis of a shared foe; whatever their visions for a future government might be and however those visions might differ, they *all* want the current Iranian government out of power, and so do we. The current Iranian government is among the worst possible, and the dissenters should not see one another as greater threats than the present totalitarian theocracy.

I am
G. Stolyarov II
http://www.thebizofknowledge.com
http://www.panasianbiz.com
http://www.zhonghuarising.com
http://www.risingsunofnihon.com
http://rationalargumentator.com
http://rationalbusinessjournal.rationalargumentator.com

[sionnsar]

The exiles can't agree on a strategy.

LOL. The person who has to write this doesn't know Iranians: "Put two Iranians in a room and you have four opinions!"

I hope my Iranian friends won't score me too heavily for this remark. A couple of years ago one of them made the point to me when he pointed out an absolutely huge list (online) of the groups hoping to succeed a displaced mullahcracy -- and he and his group were but one of many.

I'll see one or two at a Republican fundraiser next week, after that is the 18 Tir demonstration where we get to annoy liberal Seattleites by standing on corners calling for freedom for Iranians ("Iran Azadi!").

[nuconvert]

"the regular army is lukewarm at best towards the extremist government now in power"

You're right. And many people feel they wouldn't turn on their civilian neighbors.
The IRGC is full of thugs (with a few exceptions), and the regime has and will hire outsiders to do the dirty work that Iranians won't do. Of course, the basij are all thugs, and from what I've read, they've recently been given access to weapons.

[nuconvert]

I think the most important thing this writer leaves out, (and she leaves out a lot) is that Reza Pahlavi has already been been gaining cooperation from different opposition groups. Something he hasn't been too successful at in the past. But the opposition is starting to see the writing on the wall, and realizing that they need to come together, because there's strength in numbers.
Maybe he'll do CSPAN - Washington Journal this week. I'll have to watch for him.

[LibreOuMort]

I hope someone in the state department and in the pentagon have read and are taking your suggestions seriously. I have little faith in the leadership there, in COngress and in the WHiteHouse to pull anything like this off as you suggested. For years I watched helplessly as those in positions of power just wagged their tongues for the press and did absolutlely nothing.. First sign of BIG trouble and President Bush takes a strong stand and goes out to meet the enemy. I don't particularly care how the job gets done, so long as it gets DONE.

[jeffers]

Well, first off, Condi's in and Colin's out at State. Condi's is Bush's closest adviser, and I think there's a whole new ballagme there, at least at the top.

When Tommy Franks was running Centcom, most of what I posted was standard procedure, and the Pentagon types were carefully and sometimes forcefully kept out of the decision making process.

Franks recommended the current Centcom CO, so I assume that Gen Abizaid and Tommy think alike, but beyond his mission statement, I don't have enough operational data points with Abizaid to extrapolate, it's just a gut feeling.

Bush plays his cards close to the vest, and historically, his PR efforts regarding matters military have fallen far short of the mark. The whole "No WMD in Iraq" started with France, as early as mid September 2001, when they understood that the sweetheart oil deals they cut with Saddam may have been erased by 9/11. Instead of nipping that in the bud, it was allowed to fester and grow until we ended up with what we have now. One extremely simple method to prevent this would have been to publish the ridiculous contracts Saddam signed with the French, Russians, Germans and Chinese. Another would have been to keep a tight lid on any Iraq reference until the PR campaign was planned out.

I don't believe a man of Rove's brilliance would have made these mistakes, and I know he has been bypassed in the military planning processes, so in my opinion, this is more of an oversight than a systemic error. There are good reasons not to include political advisers in military planning, but there are even better reasons for including them.

We work very hard to develop joint capabilities, air strikes supporting and advancing infantry objectives, armor cooperating with naval aviation, etc.

Information warfare is a vital part of the 21st century battlespace. Information warfare is written directly into the Rapid Dominance Doctrine. Cutting a master at political maneuver and information warfare out of the process falls far short of true jointness and need to be rectified, ASAP.

You almost certainly cannot avoid leaks, but you can and must make sure that your basic premises are at least presented, often, rationally, and frequently updated to reflect the dynamic political environment that surrounds any military conflict. Iran represents the greatest single military and political challenge of the War on Terrorism to date. The better we handle all areas of jointness, including information superiority, inbound and outbound, the lesser those challenges will end up being.

With Rove in the loop, I believe that Information Supremacy is a real possibility. If not Rove, then at the very least, his equal in ability, and his opposite in visibility. Then and only then will we be able to plan and execute information operations that would, for example, set up and perpetuate ethical disconnects between Al Jazeera and mainstream Islam. AJ types are not rocket scientists, they are subject to all the weaknesses everyone else is.

i don't know if you witnessed this, but just about the time Kerry painted himself fully in the corner with "Iraq was a mistake", news of 500 bona fide WMD found in Iraq leaked out. Now Kerry either repeats the claim that Iraq was no threat, looking foolish as he tries to vanish 500 gas shells, or else he is forced into a second, and fatal flipflop, turning back to "Iraq is a threat".

This is classic, vintage, Rove at work, and even if not, it's the kind of thing he executes all the time.

Were Rove or his equal to be included in planning sessions, and given a free hand, I believe Al Jazeera would be in receivership within a few months, a year at most.

[sionnsar]

I think the most important thing this writer leaves out, (and she leaves out a lot) is that Reza Pahlavi has already been been gaining cooperation from different opposition groups.

This is good news!