Iranian Revolution: Visualizing the Aftermath

Iran's less-than-lethal Insurgency is in the news again, when the college students mounted another protest and clash on Monday. At this point, it is clear that the Revolutionary Council does not have the political power to suppress the student insurgency. If this status quo holds, we will soon see the fall of the current Revolutionary Council, probably within 2 to 5 years. Whether it takes the form of a coup, a constitutional convention, or a violent revolution, however, is an open question. I will briefly explore the policy options to the US, then describe the possible end states.

At this time, there is little for the US to do, that it is not already doing. The current nuclear confrontation with the US is holding back the Revolutionary Council in manpower terms. The need to guard the various nuclear refinery sites, and to mitigate an air strike on the sites, prevents the Revolutionary Guards from moving these guards to Tehran to help with the crackdown. The manpower shortage of the IRGC allows the students to continue protests. The on-going economic embargo and maritime interdictions similarly limit the ability of the IRGC to operate against the students. Therefore, it is vital that we continue our peacetime confrontations and containment against Iran.

I will re-iterate my call for an American Embassy in Tehran, though. Such a move will head off the Hardliners' characterizing the protests as an American conspiracy.

Similarly, the US should refrain from material support of the student protests, other than refugee protection. There is plenty of light weapons in Iraq, should the protesters take up arms. And the Israeli Mossad is likely already aiding the insurgency.

Right now, the IRGC is being pulled in multiple directions. It has to continue supporting Hezbollah and possibly Hamas by sending out weapon shipments. Following the terrorist attack in Eastern Iran, IRGC has to step up security across the Persian empire to confront the ethnic separatists. The ongoing nuclear crisis means that they have to maintain the security posture at the nuclear sites. The possibility of an air strike means that all of the IRGC air defense sites (in addition to the Air Force air defense sites) need full manning. American stealth bombers and Israeli cruise missiles means the listening sites (where people listen for jet and missile sounds) need full manning, too. And they have to deal with the student insurgency. The IRGC is running out of people.

The Revolutionary Council is politically constrained, as well. Most of the college students are the sons and daughters of Iran's middle and upper class, many of whom working in the government bureaucracy. If the Revolutionary Council starts shooting protesters indiscriminately, they are bound to kill the children of senior government workers. Such a move would turn the bureaucracy, the machinery of governance, against them. In addition, the military has not taken a side in this insurgency. The military has to uphold the Iranian regime, but the children of the senior officers are marching in the streets. The council cannot afford to alienate the military.

So the status quo is leading toward a regime change in Iran. If the students keep on protesting, the protests will highlight the political constraints of the council, its limitations. The Revolutionary Council, like all totalitarian regimes, operates on the perception of its omniscience and omnipotence. People report on their neighbors because they are afraid of the reach of the secret police. If the Iranians find out that the IRGC has political limits, they will be less likely to report their neighbors and more likely to keep on testing the behavioral limits. The ethnic separatists will operate more openly. The black marketeers will be more brazen in hawking their wares. The decline of social controls will bring about more social disruptions. The protests will get closer and closer to the government buildings. At some point, the IRGC will have a showdown with the protesters, trying to restore its perception of control. If the students succeeds in embarassing the IRGC, that's when regime change will take place.

The critical question for the US and the West concerns Iran's nuclear program. If a revolution occurs, hopefully the nuclear program stays above the fray, and enters a conservatorship awaiting a legitimate government. A renegade IRGC commander may transfer nuclear material to a terrorist organization, although that possibility is slim due to the bureaucratic nature of a government entity like the IRGC. The military may take over the nuclear program during the revolution because it is a vital strategic bargaining chip for Iran as a state.

The nature of the student revolution remains unclear, because students operate on emotion. The last student revolution in Iran led to the current theocratic regime. The students today coalesced around the opposition to government oppression, but there is likely much disagreement on the endstate, of the revolution. Various politicians are trying to hijack the movement, with Mousavi and Rafsanjani being possible examples. A hijack is possible if a politician can bring a bureaucratic entity or a guild (the merchant or clerical guild, say) into the protest movement. This politician can ride the resulting goodwill all the way to the top. We will hear his name as soon as the IRGC kidnaps him.

Ideally, this revolution would lead to a new constitutional convention to re-write the constitution. This is a likely outcome because of the neutrality of the military and the government bureaucracy in general, so far. These entities serve as moderating influences on both the Revolutionary Council and the students, barring further radicalization and escalation. As neutral actors, they have the authority to strike a bargain, hopefully allowing the clergy to save face and take on a lesser role. Their governmental nature make them invested in the current form of government and resistent to radical changes. Minimizing change would minimize social upheavals and human suffering.

However, if the IRGC escalates by massacring protesters, Marxist-type revolutionaries will have more followers among the students. The radicalization of the movement will lead to a post-revolution purge we've seen in France, Russia, China, and elsewhere. A violent revolution would be inevitable.

Factions of the IRGC may, in self-preservation, stage a coup against the Revolutionary Council. Such a move would allow the IRGC to bargain with the military and the rest of the government in the resulting transitional governance, over its future roles. This action would also preserve the income and fiefdom of much of the IRGC bureaucracy, while sacrificing few offenders to appease the students. For the IRGC, this is the most favorable outcome in a regime change, thus highly likely to occur. The Revolutionary Council may anticipate this and counter-move by purging the IRGC, but that would weaken their protection and force the Council to accept a compromise with the students.

Given that we in the public rarely hear about the bureaucratic machinations in Iran, it is unlikely for us to confirm any of these scenario until the last moment. For everyone's sake, I hope the Revolutionary Council compromises with the students through a constitutional convention, but there are too many entrenched interests in the IRGC to hope otherwise. The IRGC will probably survive in some form in the end, hopefully with more checks on its power. For the US we need to keep up the war rhetoric and nuclear confrontation all the way to the end, but ready to detente at the earliest opportunity.

Afghanistan & the Geopolitical Game

The recent suicide bombing on the Indian Embassy in Kabul and the attacks in Pakistan reminds us, that Afghani violence is not purely a function of American military input, ie, Violence != Function( American Soldiers, Talibans). The violence there is a combination of tribal vendettas, Taliban/Al Qaeda ideology, American/Western presence, and Indian/Pakistani/Iranian competitions. We need to keep this complexity in mind as we debate our strategic aims for Afghanistan.

One thing people may not know much is the presence of Indian and Pakistani contractors and NGOs in Afghanistan. India is spending quite a bit of money on Afghanistan, both in buying influence and assisting its merchants in making American military money. Pakistani vendors and ISI operatives are, of course, already on the ground in Afghanistan. So part of the violence there is this low intensity conflict between Indian and Pakistani factions. The Karzai administration is embroiled in this battle, as well.

Robert Kaplan has a nice opinion piece on China's efforts in Afghanistan as well.

Therefore, many anti-coalition militants may be fighting to kick the Yankees out, but the recipe is there for the fighting to continue, long after we leave.

Thoughts & Re-Thoughts on the Afghanistan Campaign

Since Afghanistan is in the news lately, with the McChrystal report to the President, everybody is talking about Afghanistan, again. I guess I need to join the fray, too. I do not have much new to contribute to the current strategic debate, other than my earlier proposal to focus on refugee camps as an alternative, economy-of-force, population-centric tactic. We do not have the resources to save every Afghan, not to the standards we want. We need to focus on the ones we can help, and build a refuge that people can turn to. A refugee camp, which is self-sustaining (a place that gives inhabitants the means to make money and feed themselves, and allows them to organize themselves to administer shared resources), will give the displaced Afghans a place to live, and oppressed Afghans a place to go to.

In addition, such a refugee camp will provide a wealth of human intelligence for the Coalition.

In 2007, I asked the commanding general of the Joint Contracting Command-Iraq/Afghanistan about their plans for civilian "internally displaced people"; he said there was none. It was a Department of State mission, and the US military is authorized only to assist when State asks. At the time, State didn't ask, so the military didn't prepare. Luckily for the Iraqi people, Iraq kind of sorted itself out. However, Afghanistan is still a wreck. If the military really wants to "win" Afghanistan, then they need to break down the bureaucratic walls and seize this mission for themselves. We can't wait for State to get its acts together.

[Perhaps, with Hilary Clinton in charge, the State Department will do something about this. However, they do not have the money in FY2010 to do this mission. The latest they can is FY2011, and we do not have a year to wait.]

The current Afghanistan strategic debate has two levels: Build the Country vs Disrupt the Insurgents, and Top-down vs Bottom-up. Obviously, we need to go with the Bottom-up strategy, which unfortunately has not been in vogue with the Nation-State-Centric Paradigm crowd. I personally would prefer that we build the Afghanistan state; but that's not realistic, so I'm settling w/ the Disrupt the Insurgent camp.

In terms of strategic location, Afghanistan is in an interesting location. It borders Iran, Pakistan, and China, and close to India, all four states of interest to the US. A US presence in Afghanistan can thus influence nearby events. The only problem is that it is expensive to sustain our presence there.

Iran: A Less Than Lethal Insurgency

We're seeing the Iranian protesters again on the news, with the memorials for Neda and the ensuing melee.

Iran is an interesting case right now on the bureaucratic struggles during an insurgency. The fact that the protests have dragged on this long, one month plus and counting, means that the Iranian government does not have enough manpower to secure the streets. The counter-insurgency rule of thumb for manpower is 10 to 20 soldiers per 1000 residents. Obviously here Iran fails to have those soldiers to lock down Tehran.

The reason is simple. In the news videos we have seen thus far, there is a conspicuous absence of the Iranian army. Instead, the riot police and the Basij militia are the primary enforcers against the protesters. Without bringing in the rest of the Iranian security apparatus, the Basij is outnumbered by the protesters on the street. It would take a more rigorous analysis, but I suspect the Tehran metro police department is being kept out of play here as well.

The fact that Iran has not deployed the military means that the revolutionary council does not trust the military. The size of the protest population has backed the Revolutionary Council into a corner here: It can call in the Army, which would contain the current crisis, but which would leave the protesters to fight again down the line, as I described earlier. Or, it could stick with the Basij, and the current insurgency will continue like an open sore, sapping the Iranian security apparatus.

It appears that the Revolutionary Council is facing a lose-lose situation here, and the Iranian Insurgency has a genuine chance of success, my previous predictions not-withstanding.

Intelligence Production

Marc Ambinder noted an interesting video by Chris Rasmussen about Intellipedia. It would certainly improve intelligence quality if the products emphasized the differences within the Intelligence Community rather than the current concensus production process. The differences would call attention to what we do not know, helping us target the follow-on collection efforts. The differences would also promote competitive intelligence.

Of course, the implementation of this reform requires the leadership to commit to good intelligence. As COL(ret) Lang has noted repeatedly, the current intelligence system is not interested in producing good intelligence. The focus on failures of intelligence has produced a bureaucracy with all of its worst traits. Our current intelligence vacuum on Iran has only highlighted the incompetence of the Community. Without commitment from the very top, Rasmussen's idea will become just another footnote in our sad intelligence history.

Iran: Preparing for the Aftermath

New and old media report violent suppressions in Iran at this time. How this will turn out depends on the bureaucratic analysis I presented in the previous article: The Reformers need the Iranian Army on their side. The reformers have already lost this round, but the Army might still come in to minimize the bloodshed. In this article, I will explore what we, the US, can do to minimize the humanitarian disaster likely to follow, because that is all we can do now. I will also explore how the Iranian Army might help the protesters.

About the only action we can take right now, is to set up refugee camps for the current-protester, future fugitives, on the run from the authorities. Obviously we cannot invade Iran to set up these camps, but we can do so in Iraqi Kurdistan and in Afghanistan. As Kurdistan has a history of supporting Iranian dissident movements, they are a natural ally. Afghanistan's western provinces have a large Persian population, so that is an ideal site as well.

As the Revolutionary Guards have started fighting the people, we have moved past the opportunity window for enacting the policies I laid out in my previous post. Now we can go on with our democracy talk. A Persian Voice of America should start broadcasting. We should also convince the EU to join our economic embargo against Iran. We can still set up an embassy in Tehran, but the embassy's mission is not to normalize relation with the regime, but rather to provide books and media to the Iranian people through its on-site library and cultural programs.

Arming the dissidents and training them is not an option, though. As I said before, if the 2nd Iranian Revolution is to succeed, it needs the Iranian Army's backing. Our arming the dissidents would erase the maneuvering space for the Iranian Army. Besides, there are plenty of light weapons available in Iraqi markets if the dissidents are looking for guns.

Possible Outcomes of Current Clashes

It is still possible that the Iranian Army will come to the aide of the people. However, the Army cannot openly side against the Guardian Council. The Army could unilaterally move into the cities to "assist" the Basij's riot control efforts. Infantry units could race ahead of the Basij to take control of the streets. Then, they can turn the Basij away and shelter the dissidents.

Another possibility is to send in the medical units to set up mobile hospitals or to beef up the current hospitals. Obviously, because of the dangerous rioters, the Army doctors need their own Army escorts as well, to secure the hospitals. The militarization of the hospitals would also protect the patients from all intruders.

If the Army had a military exercise right outside Tehran, they could create a sanctuary from the Basij.

So these are some possible, low profile ways for the Army to rein in the excesses of the Revolutionary Guards and minimize the bloodshed. Hopefully the Iranian Army has enough bureaucratic latitude to carry them out.

Iran: Time for an Embassy

We need to can all this talk about Supporting the People's Will in Iran. Paradoxically, our outpouring of support for the protesting students and people in Iran is making things worse. We are cutting them off from the military support they need. Instead, we need to initiate a military and diplomatic rapprochement with Iran, to allow the Iranian military to support the people.

The Iranian people are protesting and counter-protesting over their presidential election results. The unrest is similar to the protests of the Ukrainian Orange Revolution, the Tiananmen Square event, and the Berlin Wall. (Or the Israeli and Indian independence movements.) What happens next will depend very much on the bureaucratic actors in Iran. The American response therefore needs to shape and influence these bureaucratic actors.

As Mao Zedung famously observed, "Political power comes from the barrel of a gun." Political transition cannot occur without military power. It is all fine and good that people are marching in the streets, but they cannot change the government if the military balance is against them. For example, in Ukraine and in East Germany, the military sat out on the protests, neither embracing nor opposing the marchers. The people could march in peace and effect change. In Israel and India, the independence movements attacked the British colonial administration with sabotage and assassinations. The British government decided to stop fighting and withdrew. In Western democracies, the military protects the political transitions of elections. Without a military component, protests will cry unheard.

Therefore we need to look at the military dimension in Iran right now. The military opposition in Iran is very small. For example, Michael Totten visited some Iranian Communist Party militia in Iraqi Kurdistan in 2006 [Correction: 2007], and they numbered in hundreds at most. We hear about ethnic separatist violence in Iran from time to time (Iran is an empire), but they were few in number and limited in effect. The student protesters do not seem to have a military wing, judging by my perception that there have been few assassinations of the secret police officials in Tehran. For the Iranian protest to become an Iranian revolution, we will have to look toward the government bodies.

Iran has several militaries. There are the usual Iranian Army, Navy, and Air Force. There is also the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, which has ships and planes of its own. There is the Iranian National Police, which shares the paramilitary and law enforcement portfolio with the Revolutionary Guards. How will they respond to the protest and possible constitutional crisis?

Ahmadinejad came from the Revolutionary Guards, so the Guards will probably side with Ahmadinejad. More importantly, however, the Guards exists to support the Iranian Guardian Council, so they will do what Khamenei says. The Iranian military, on the other hands, competes with the Revolutionary Guards on military matters, so may be inclined to support the students. On the other hand, the Iranian military probably views the current unrest as an American/Israeli conspiracy. Therefore, we need to give the Iranian military the breathing space to make up its mind.

We need to signal the Iranian military that we are not going to take advantage of their current political weakness. We can employ confidence building measures such as officer exchange programs and military visits. These things take time to set up, but by starting the planning process for them, we demonstrate our intentions to the Iranian military. Further, we should decrease the military tension when possible. Our forces in the Persian Gulf can stand down their tempo of operations, such as decreased patrols and training flights. The US Army can minimize its patrols near the Iraqi-Iranian border.

Furthermore, we need to tell the Iranians what we are doing. President Obama can put his mega-watt smile on TV and tell the Iranians that we are standing down militarily to show them we harbor no ill will toward them. He can make a historic announcement to normalize our diplomatic ties with Iran, such as setting up an embassy in Tehran. He should tell them that, regardless of who ends up being president of Iran, the United States will continue the rapprochement. We need to show respect for Iran's constitutional process so that the Iranian military can stop focusing on us and start focusing on their constitutional crisis.

Many commentators in America are saying that we need to "Show our solidarity with the Iranian people and support their democratic dreams." That, in my opinion, is precisely the wrong thing to do. Our support will only feed the Iranian conspiracy theory that the protest is an American/Israeli plot. Instead, we need to back off on the aggressive democratic talk, and demonstrate our respect for Iran's institutions. We need to do what we can to let the Iranian Army support the students.

Edited: The Stimulist looks at the next step here. Anne Applebaum wants to up the democratic rhetoric. Patrick Lang looks beyond the current protest stage, toward the possibly next stage of armed revolution. Adam Silverman analyzes revolutions in general.

Edited for format and inserted links.