Iran’s resilience meets Trump's miscalculations

Donald Trump’s Iran gamble repeats the fatal flaw of George W Bush’s Iraq war — ignoring the ‘unknown unknowns’

In the run-up to the United States invasion of Iraq in 2003, Donald Rumsfeld, then US defense secretary under President George W Bush, highlighted the categorisation of the matrix of knowledge and intelligence in a war. The ‘known known’, Rumsfeld said, are things we know; ‘known unknowns’ are things we know we don't know; and, ‘unknown unknowns’ are things we do not know that we don't know.

US President Donald Trump is operating in Iran almost entirely in the matrix of the ‘known known’ — and occasionally vetting his toes in an odd ‘known unknown’ — but is blank when it comes to the treacherous eddies of ‘unknown unknown.’ This was also the fatal flaw of Bush’s war that eventually turned out to be the nemesis of US power two decades ago culminating in an ignominious end to its occupation and exit from Iraq ordered by the parliament in Baghdad.

The mystique of the ‘unknown unknown’ should never be underestimated. The nadir was reached in Iraq when the Bush administration installed its favourite proxy Ahmed Chalabi as president of the Governing Council (prime minister) after overthrowing Saddam Hussein, but only to realise belatedly that he worked both sides of the street, and was an Iranian agent.

Simply put, it became difficult to segregate the friend from the enemy, and vice versa, as the US got entangled in an attrition war that cost hundreds of thousands of lives and trillions of dollars. 

If such a sordid outcome — being kicked out in civil war conditions — is improbable in Iran, it is because the known known here is that Trump is dead set against occupying that country, which is, of course, a much bigger country than Iraq, comparable in size to Europe in landmass, and of immense complexity. This is also the only ‘good part’ of the US aggression. 

Trump’s stated objectives to force a ‘regime change' in Iran are a bunch of variables, which he keeps airing in his stream of consciousness before TV cameras — the liberation of the nation from the repressive Velayat-e Faqih (Guardianship of the Islamic Jurist) system of governance; vanquishing a regime sponsoring terrorism, with a covert nuclear programme and a growing missile programme. Of late, Trump has repeatedly framed the conflict as essential to US national security, arguing that allowing Iran to strengthen militarily would endanger American lives and allies in the region. The lodestar is regime change.

Trump’s ‘known unknown’

The West’s understanding of how the Shia concept of Velayat-e Faqih works in actual practices as a system of governance is below par and permeated with religious, self-serving political prejudices. In reality, Iran has a fractious political system, which is endemic to Shia politics. The factions are seemingly locked in a struggle characterised by constant change, activity, or progress — depending on how one looks at the process — but in the final analysis, they accept the top religious jurists (Faqih) as guardians over the Sate (in the absence of the 12th Imam), which in effect serves as the foundational, absolute authority structure of the Islamic Republic of Iran, placing supreme political and religious power in the hands of a Supreme Leader.

Trump claims he has shortlisted three names to head a new regime in Tehran. Here, Trump is blithely entering the realm of the ‘known unknown’. Basically, he counts on the Israeli assessment predicated on a popular uprising in the wake of the power vacuum at the leadership level with the assassination of Ayatollah Khamenei.

Praetorian guards of the regime 

However, things are moving in an entirely different direction. There isn’t going to be an insurrection in Iran. This is for three or four reasons.

First, while years of economic decline as a result of US sanctions may have fuelled growing public dissent against the clerical system (which is also fuelled by the covert operations of Western intelligence and Israel), there is no co-ordinated challenge under a unified leadership. 

During the 1979 revolution, Imam Ruhollah Khomeini managed to unite liberals, nationalists, leftists, former guerrillas, ethnic groups, middle classes, and religious conservatives in a united front. There is no one of such stature or vision today. Trump and Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu do not understand that the Iranian opposition is seriously hobbled by its disunity. 

Second, the spectre of an insurrection leading to the collapse of the State structure and anarchical conditions (as in Iraq, Syria, Libya, or Lebanon) haunts the Iranian people. People put primacy on security and stability. Trump and Netanyahu hold no appeal to the Iranian on the street, when they promise ‘liberation from oppression’. In fact, most Iranians identify Trump with the cruel sanctions and his impulsive behaviour — whereas, he fancies himself to be a latter-day Noah leading Iran to the promised land.

Bad news and body bags

Even here, the first reports of US casualties seem to have unnerved Trump already. Trump said on Sunday that Pentagon projections indicate US casualties in the escalating conflict could climb beyond the three service members killed (as of 36 hours into the fighting.) “If you look at projections — they do projections — it could be quite a bit higher than that. We expect casualties,” he admitted.

Trump sounded as if he’s preparing the American public for some really bad news as the body bags start arriving. To be sure, US opinion militates against another Middle Eastern war. Also, with the midterms due in November, Trump is aware that his political opponents have no reason to show mercy. 

Yet, Trump sounded sanguine while speaking to ABC News that “it's [air strike] done such damage already. It's like, they [Iranians] are incapacitated.” Shades of ‘unknown unknown’! The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) was originally created by Khomeini in 1979 to function as a crucial internal security apparatus. It has since acquired an expanded social, political, military, and economic role with an estimated 200,000-strong fighting force. 

The Basij

The IRGC also controls the Basij (Organisation for Mobilisation of the Oppressed), which is a major paramilitary volunteer force numbering around one million, used for domestic internal security, which operates as a key branch of the IRGC at local levels to protect the regime from internal threats. The Basij serves de facto as a massive reserve volunteer force to bolster regime security, acting as the ‘eyes and ears’ of the regime, protecting it from both internal and external enemies.

The Basij is deeply rooted in ‘Khomeinism’, Shia Islamism, jihadism, Mahdism, pan-Islamism, social conservatism, anti-Zionism, anti-anarchism, etc. So long as this massive security architecture indoctrinated in a radical ideology does not splinter, the regime’s writ will run large in the country, and the concept of justice, fairness and resistance will give ballast to the latent springs of Iranian nationalism. The 22 million people who gathered voluntarily to celebrate the anniversary of the revolution recently testify to the vast social base of the regime.

The clock is ticking

Nonetheless, Trump exhorted the Iranian people: “When we are finished, take over your government. It will be yours to take. This will be, probably, your only chance for generations. For many years, you have asked for America’s help, but you never got it. No president was willing to do what I am willing to do tonight. Now you have a president who is giving you what you want. So let’s see how you respond.”

It is a plaintive cry in the void. Trump is on a learning curve. The lesson of Iraq and Afghanistan is that regime change is the easy part, but what follows thereafter is unpredictable, once the ‘unknown unknown’ begins to surface. Meanwhile, Trump is sending his son-in-law Jared Kushner to re-establish contact with the Iranians who may be in Vienna to attend the IAEA Board meeting on March 2. The clock is ticking.

Make no mistake that Iranians will not forgive or forget the cold-blooded murder of Ayatollah Khamenei. President Masoud Pezeshkian, who is a non-cleric and a moderate reformer, called Khamenei’s killing a “declaration of war against Muslims”.

“Iran considers it its legitimate duty and right to avenge the perpetrators,” Pezeshkian said. Even Ali Larijani, the powerful head of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council (whom the US regards as open to their influence) warned, “Today we will hit them with a force that they have never experienced before”.

Khamenei’s successor 

(From Left to right) Ali Eshraghi (Ruhollah Khomeini's grandson), Ruhollah Khomeini, Hassan and Ahmad Khomeini

Where the US-Israeli calculation is going horribly wrong is about the institutional resilience built into Iran's clerical system when it comes to an orderly succession to the mantle of the supreme leaders. Evidently, core pillars such as the IRGC remain intact and operational, providing continuity and a firewall to allow the 88-member Assembly of Experts, the deliberative body empowered to appoint, supervise, and discharge the Supreme Leader — somewhat like the College of Cardinals in the Vatican to elect a new Pope.

There is much speculation that the name of Khamenei’s successor will be announced in ‘one to two days’. Not many would know that succession in Shia clerical traditions must be passed from fathers to their oldest or most able sons, and through them to their male progeny. The institution of kingship in Iran is a 2,500-year-long tradition, which follows the same pattern. Both notions — kingship and Imamate — are highly resonant in Iranian culture, and it was the ingenuity of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the founder of the Islamic Republic, to combine these two powerful cultural strands of Iran’s civilisation in his theory of Velayat Faghih.

To my mind, therefore, the choice of the Assembly of Experts narrows down to two figures. There will be an animated discussion within the Assembly of Experts behind the scenes between the two main contenders, Mojtaba Khamenei (son of Ayatollah Khamenei) and Ayatollah Ali Khomeini (grandson of Imam Khomeini.) To my mind, the mantle of the Supreme Leader may well fall on Ayatollah Ali Khomeini who has an impeccable Islamist pedigree, and enjoys the reputation of being a highly astute and effective politician.

M K Bhadrakumar is a former diplomat.

(Disclaimer: The views expressed above are the author's own. They do not necessarily reflect the views of DH.)