Sunday’s lethal drone assault on US forces alongside the Jordan-Syria border attributed to an Iran-backed militia underscores the dedication of the Iranian regime and its Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) to drive the United States out of the Middle East.
Iran and the IRGC, Naval Postgraduate School professor Afshon Ostovar, tells me within the newest episode of The Pivot podcast, are emboldened by a string of successes within the area, together with in Iraq and Syria, the place they really feel they defeated not simply the US, but additionally a broad coalition that features different Western and Gulf Arab international locations.
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Iran’s will to win stems from a strategic tradition of “us in opposition to the world,” Ostovar says, that was shaped within the Islamic Republic’s first decade after the revolution, amid the Iran-Iraq struggle. Iraq, which invaded Iran in 1980, was backed by Gulf Arab states and the US, partly to comprise Iran’s “Islamic revolution” inside its territory. With nice resolve, Iran survived — although at nice value and involving nice folly.
Inside the IRGC
Loyal to Iran’s Supreme Leader, the IRGC is tasked with guarding Ayatollah Khomeini’s revolution from inside and lengthening the Islamic Republic’s strategic depth past Iran’s territorial limits.
The IRGC, because the group can be identified, was born within the cauldron that adopted Iran’s 1979 revolution. As Ayatollah Khomeini sought to impose hegemony over a various motion that overthrew the Shah, the brand new Islamic Republic discovered itself at struggle after it was invaded by Iraq in 1980.
For the IRGC and Qassem Soleimani, the longtime and now slain chief of its exterior operations wing, the Quds Force, this was a baptism by hearth.
Today, the IRGC is concerned in conflicts in Gaza, Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, and elsewhere. And it additionally performs an ever-growing function at house.
The IRGC, as Ostovar explains within the podcast and his guide “Vanguard of the Imam: Religion, Politics, and Iran’s Revolutionary Guards,” is a “multifaceted” group with attain into the financial, intelligence, social, and cultural domains. Its financial empire, in accordance with some estimates, equals roughly 30 p.c of GDP. But it “is foremost a army group.”
The IRGC is no longer solely one of many two strongest establishments in Iran, it is usually among the many strongest within the Middle East.
Ostovar discusses that path to energy in a brand new guide, “Wars of Ambition: The United States, Iran, and the Struggle for the Middle East,” which can be out this August.
Episode Description
Afshon Ostovar an affiliate professor on the Naval Postgraduate School, joins the host Arif Rafiq to debate how Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) remodeled from being a ragtag militia to a preeminent exterior pressure in Iraq, Syria, and elsewhere within the Middle East. They discover the IRGC’s community of companions, together with the so-called Axis of Resistance, and consider the strengths and weaknesses in how IRGC leverages these teams as a part of its technique of uneven warfare in opposition to its adversaries and rivals, together with the US and Israel.
Guest Bio
Dr. Afshon Ostovar is an affiliate professor of nationwide safety affairs on the Naval Postgraduate School. He was most just lately a analysis scientist within the Center for Strategic Studies at CNA, a not-for-profit analysis group within the Washington DC space. Previously, he was a Fellow on the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point and has taught at Johns Hopkins University.
Ostovar is a contributor to War on the Rocks and Lawfare, and his commentary commonly seems in Politico, Foreign Policy, Vox, The Guardianand different fashionable media corresponding to The New York Times, Reuters, Bloomberg, and National Public Radio. He earned a BA, summa cum laude, in Near Eastern Studies from the University of Arizona and a Ph.D. in historical past from the University of Michigan.
Books by Afshon Ostovar
Ostovar’s subsequent guide, “Wars of Ambitions,” which can be printed in August 2024, touches upon lots of the themes on this podcast episode, offering a historic narrative of the contestation of energy between Iran and the US for the reason that invasion of Iraq in 2003.
If you loved this podcast, you will positively wish to learn this guide. It’s out there for pre-order immediately.
Arif Rafiq is the editor of Globely News. Rafiq has contributed commentary and evaluation on world points for publications corresponding to Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, the New Republic, the New York Times, and POLITICO Magazine.
He has appeared on quite a few broadcast shops, together with Al Jazeera English, the BBC World Service, CNN International, and National Public Radio.