The War Against the Mullahs
This past weekend’s monster explosion at a Revolutionary Guards base outside Tehran has attracted the usual assortment of speculation and “informed information,” most of it sucked from the thumbs of pundits who feel they must write quickly. There is still a scarcity of hard information, but I’m reasonably confident that:
–There were two explosions at the RG base at Bidganeh, one smaller, the other very large.
–At almost the same time, there was an explosion at another military base in the west, in Luristan. The explosions seem to have been coordinated.
–The area around Bigdaneh is a military zone, with various facilities including two air fields, thus questions like “was it a munitions depot or a missile base?” are best answered “yes. Both.”
These attacks on the Guards — the symbol of the regime’s intensifying repression and slaughter of the Iranian people — are part of a pattern that includes explosions at refineries and pipelines. At the same time, strikes have been spreading (and no wonder; up to 30,000 retired teachers have been waiting for their pensions for many months). In short, people have lost patience, and the smaller of the two explosions at the RG base was aimed at Major General Hasan Tehrani Moghaddam, one of the most brutal of the country’s military leaders.
Contrary to the inevitable suspicions of the thumb-suckers (the Americans did it! no, the Israelis did it! no, it was an accident!), the operation was planned and carried out by Iranians from the opposition-that-does-not-exist. They intended to demonstrate that no leader is safe from the people’s wrath (if that base can be penetrated, any place can, and if that man can be assassinated, anyone can), and that the opposition knows its gravediggers.
The second, larger, explosion was not planned, nor was the extremely high number of casualties (I am told that hundreds of people, including some “very important foreign dignitaries,” were blown up). That second blast was apparently from a quantity of liquid fuel designed to extend the speed and accuracy of Iran’s Shahab-3 missile, the one the mullahs hope will some day carry a nuclear warhead. My sources claim that the fuel caused the big white plume seen in the photographs. The cloud may well have caused respiratory problems for the survivors.
There is another, fascinating report, that right after the explosions, the two main Green Movement leaders, Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi, were taken from house arrest, leaving their wives behind. This bespeaks a high level of anxiety within the regime, suggesting that they feared an all-out assault was under way, and under those circumstances they would take vengeance on the two Green leaders. Whether or not the rumor is true, its existence suggests that Khamenei et. al. take a more serious view of the opposition than some of our own expert analysts.
What this all means is clear enough. As I forecast some time ago, it was only a matter of time until the opposition abandoned its commitment to non-violence. We are now in a new phase. A French analyst, Jean-Jacques Guillet, understands the situation very well, and has called for a Western policy to intensify the pressure on the Iranian regime in order to bring it down. “If we press the regime strongly,” he said, “there could be an implosion. The real objective these days should be the regime’s implosion, not more talk.”
Instead, we have leaders who still believe in the talking cure, and who seem not even to know what the Iranian opposition wants, even when it’s delivered to them in black and white. As it was, at the height of the turmoil in 2009.
That story is still untold, but it’s coming out. Soon, I think…stay tuned.
Talking with the Iranian regime has always been wrong and immoral. It only extends the regime’s life span.
The only Iranian opposition group with the knowledge and expertise for carrying out targeted hits within the Islamic Republic is the MEK. It serves us well to remember that the first generation MEK learned their trade from groups such as Baader-Meinhof, Brigatta Rossi, PFLP and other such terror groups. Surely they have passed down their knowledge to the current crop. I would be very surprised if any of the Monarchists had either the capability or the desire to engage in domestic terror. I also do not believe that rank and file greens are morally given to acts of assasination as they have clearly embarked on a non violent path of resistance resembling the roads taken by Ghandi and Martin Luther King. One hopes the these acts of violence against this evil bunch will ultimately flower into a non violent democracy. But that, of course, is a tall order.
Insofar as the current crop of Western leaders embracing the talking cure, I can oly speak for our president from what I observe. Philosophically there are many similarities between Messrs. Obama and Khamenei. They both embrace elitism as the model for good governance, one in the form of Ivy League intellectualism (of the pseudo kind) and the other in religious totalitarianism. To that end they both advocate reducing ever more the power of the common man by grabbinng more power for the governemnt. These schools are both inherently evil. So, clearly one does not wish to overthrow the other. God forbid if popular democracy takes hold and the ignoramuses actually have say in shaping their own future through the excercise of free will.
“Please allow me to introduce myself
I’m a man of wealth and taste
I’ve been around for a long, long year
Stole many a mans soul and faith
And I was round when Jesus Christ
Had his moment of doubt and pain
Made damn sure that Pilate
Washed his hands and sealed his fate
Pleased to meet you
Hope you guess my name”
Beggars Banquet, The Rolling Stones
I think I’ll go with Ledeen’s analysis over yours. Quoting a drugged out English musician from the ’60s as if it somehow sheds light on the situation in Iraq makes me wonder about the level of your own drug consumption.
Peace, man.
Too funny and cute (minimally). Not sure if you are inquiring into the level of my drug consumption now or in the late 60′s? Well, don’t matter. In both cases it was and is daily. Only now its name has changed to Lipitor. Great high. Mellow. Almost as good as Humboldt County.
Second, anyone with a minimum understanding of the continuum of intellectual though will know, should know, that the three historically giant philosophers are Plato, Emmanuel Kant and, but of course, Mick Jagger.
Third, did y’all say Iraq? Was that a Cain Libya moment or a Perry Energy moment?
Fourth, show me anywhere in my post that I disagreed with the author. In fact, show me in any of my postings that I am not sympatico with Dr. Ledeen.
A baggie is waiting for you as a prize. Yum Yum.
Attacking military facilities and even critical infrastructure that supports a murderous regime is far different than blowing up a subway.
Since these explosions seem so targeted and complex, I wonder if members of the military had something to do with it. If members of the military who are NOT part of the Republican Guard are starting to sabotage the current regime, then that would be a huge development. It would also mean that the country is teetering on the brink of civil war, which is a good thing. The regular military (Army, Navy, and Air Force) have always resented the Republican Guard and do not like the Republican Guard openly keeping an eye on them, like the way the Soviet Party kept tabs on the regular Army and Navy. If you see more of this in the near future, this could be the beginning of the end, although a lot of people are going to die in the process. The Iranian people are not dumb. They see dictatorial regimes falling all over the Middle East. Maybe they finally think it’s their time to throw the mullahs out.
Typo: “Republican Guard” should be “Revolutionary Guard”.
I just saw a documentary about a Persian Dwarf bootlegging banned American movies on the streets of Tehran. Watching his adventures, it occurred to me these young Iranians are pro-American and will spend money and risk punishment to enjoy Western Culture…
60% of their population is under 30, many of them hate their quasi-Islamic Overlords. Why don’t we do some recruiting, some training and send their own kids after them?
Structure the cells like the popular role-playing games on American campuses, like TAG or ZOMBIE. Have some fun with it. Send the kids to assassinate “The Modesty Police.” Assign points and cash rewards for the best hits, encourage them to videotape and post their attacks.
The cells will be independent and compete with each other to create the most (focused) damage.
When they become adept at ambushes and assassination, send them after mid- and low-level Republican Guards. Grind down the Iranian power structure from the ground up. Deprive them of their ability to govern their cities, to rule they own children.
It’ll be like MODERN WARFARE 3 meets BATTLE OF ALGERS.
Oh hell yes! It’s clear they don’t love their kids if they encourage them to go blow themselves up to destroy their enemies. Using your own kids as “smart bombs” isn’t loving them. If we make a concerted effort to win the kids affection, we can make the country our friend too. It will take awhile and yes, a lot of people are bound to die but that happened when our country started too and what would this be but a rebirth of the country. I say “Good Luck to them”.
Michael,
I want the unraveling to be true in the worst way, but the opposition will need rifles, explosives, training and monumental will power to destroy the mullahs. Our CIA and Green Berets could supply training and weapons, but you have to have a Commander in Chief who wants to throw in with the forces of freedom.
Our President is at best indifferent and is at worst a fellow traveler. Want proof? Al Queda now controls Benghazi Libya thanks exclusively to the dupes in NATO and Barak Obama. Talk about aiding and abetting.
It’s going to be a long winter in America, but a longer winter in Tehran. I am not optimistic Michael. We have to get rid of the forces of darkness in Washington DC so we can get rid of them in Iran.
Samizdat, Well said but dont forget to send Clinton, Holder, and a slew of others packing too. Iran would be a good spot for them, being that they want to NEGOTIATE with the Mullahs so much. Take Terita and his NIAC cronies, CASMII, CAIR, the leverett’s, Traitor Bob Ney and the rest of the lobby’s. Let’s charter an Iran Air flight for them, minus the illegal arms and drugs.
After the fiasco of Obama & Clinton listening to Parsi and the lobbies, instead of the protestors, I think a lot of Iranians would like to thank them up close and personal. Then again, Iranians are so disgusted with Washington’s lack of support, I don’t even think anyone would roll the ladder up to the planes hatch to let them off.
“very important foreign dignitaries,”
Condolences to any Russian families, but this is the consequence of following a too clever by half, too cynical foreign policy that eshews higher moral dictats, it will blow up in one’s face or the poor slobs one sends.
Obama’s disastrous foreign policy is jacking things up! Everyone knows this! The Muslim Brotherhood/Al Qaeda will take over key nations and that will be bad for everyone especially for the women as well as for religious minorities. Iran right now is the second worst country in the Middle East after let us say Yemen. Saudia is a hell hole but their people have a higher standard of living than the poor Iranians who are by their very nature quite progressive unlike the pigs who govern them. Obama is helping the Mullahs and there were allot of Iranians who had high hopes for him when he was selected….ooooooooopppps I mean elected and are now really angry at his betrayel of the Iranian nation. Oh well!
If the Muslims take over here at least we wouldn’t have to put up with Pelosi, Boxer or Feinstein, not to mention Patty Murray. I don’t know whether to cheer them on or oppose them sometimes. (sarc).
Michael, I have been reading your writings for a good while, and I am still waiting for the Iranian revolution you have been predicting is just around the corner. . . . I want to believe you, but I just don’t see the evidence for belief. Hoping does’t make it so. As long as the obozo is in office , nothing anywhere will change.
Covert operations are helping people to do what they want to do anyway, and now is the time for that.
It is cheap, easy and fun and we should move ahead. It certainly would be very easy to get resources to the people in need.
Soft power is good to a point, putting a crimp in the regime, but they are not going to risk their jobs by compliance.
If I were Ahmadinejad I would not be sleeping in the same bed two nights in a row, if I could sleep at all.
The mouse has roared too much.
Michael, I always enjoy your columns, but I think you misfired twice in this one. To wit:
Your first error is in the demonstrably false assertion that we have leaders. It’s true that there are some people who are (nominally) holding office right now, but that does not make them leaders.
Secondly, you assert that our current administration wants a cure. I submit that the evidence for that is entirely lacking.
Otherwise, great column.
#5 Doug Brown, I am in the dark as much as anybody in North America, but I have seen reports of unknown reliability that suggested some of the very important foreign dignitaries were North Korean. Speculative, perhaps, and I don’t claim that this report can be verified.
Very important and North Korean is not something I normally put together, but if that is the case then I guess the world got a twofer in setting back two rogue regimes suicidal pursuit of atomic weapons and their delivery systems.
Maybe Arsange can leak us the info?
That (Koreans) makes a lot of sense as the Iranian special-weapons program is joined at the hip with the NORK’s.
The rising opposition within Iran is encouraging. The younger generation there is not happy with the “Mullahs.” If a determined Republican Administration can be elected next year, then the Iranian resistance can be encouraged, and the destruction of Israel and U.S. influence in the Mideast can be averted. The 2012 “Occupy” operation will decline, and disappear, unless a sort of “Weathermen” is formed. (Remember, Bill Ayers, Bernadine Doern and Prof. Piven are still around.)
People routinely underestimate the power of social inertia. It is very difficult to get a society moving toward a common goal. But once it does start to move, do not make the mistake of trying to put it back.
Michael Ledeen’s observations are not wrong. It’s just that there is no way he can estimate how much inertia has to be overcome before this this thing will break loose. Religious societies in particular are very subject to this inertia. In a secular society, this would be the warning shot across the bow. In this case, not so much.
What it will take is a leader to emerge with enough charisma that the military will refuse to engage against him or her (the latter is unlikely in a society such as this). That person has not emerged yet. We can’t predict when and how such a leader will gain sufficient traction to push this thing over. But it can and does happen…
“Instead, we have leaders who still believe in the talking cure.”: Not hard to ascertain which side the Obama administration is rooting for here.
“It was only a matter of time until the opposition abandoned its commitment to non-violence”.: We’re waiting,……
Barack Obama had the opportunity to get America on the right side of this. Alas, I think now it’s too late. Eventually, the mullahs will fall, but Iran will still hate us for not helping them.
But …. the Iraqi’s were NOT grateful for the USA helping them get rid of Saddam’s brutal regime. And will the Libyans be all that grateful to NATO, without which they would still be under Khadaffi’s thumb?
The argument has been made often that interfering by the USA in an Islamic nation will backfire, because it will give “ammunition” to Islamic fundamentalists for accusations against the USA for all sorts of calamities after the intervention. And the fear is that intervening in Iran will rally too many Iranians and even many other Muslims, leftists and even countries behind the Mullahs.
It seems the US is damned if they and damned if they don’t in this case.
Strange how all this unrest began during the current administrations reign. As if they knew if we had anyone else in charge none of this could have happened. Obama’s policies have enabled the worst of the worst to make their power plays all over the Middle East. I have been hoping against hope that the people would come out on top but the more it goes on the less likely that appears.
In Iran there is still hope though. I don’t see how they could get a worse bunch in as they have now. The problem is they have no organization. Most want peaceful change but then there are those that are for forceful overthrow. The MEK/MKO are one but I don’t see them as having as much power as people give them credit for. And even if they did have, they would be just as bad as those in power now, just a different type of dictatorship.
The Kurds are great fighters but are just fighting for themselves. They would join any armed rebellion but then would go on to continue their efforts to form their own State. They don’t want anything to do with the countries they are living in now, they want their own.
Mousavi and Karroubi are distractions. They don’t want a free nation. they are just preaching less of what is already there. Let the people think they have more power, let their vote count in lesser elections, give them a little better life and they will shut up. Their biggest “crime” is that Kahmeini feels threatened by them. They threaten his hold on power.
If the opposition ever does get organized and gets the backing they need, you won’t see any of those anywhere near the head of a new government in Iran. As to the Monarchists, they are just a joke. I see no way the people of Iran are going to accept a Kingdom again. They may find a place in the new government, maybe even as a leadership position, but never as a kingdom.
Now we are back to the real problem. In Iran, just as in the rest of the Middle East. Islam and the Mullahs. They are going to be the hardest to defeat. They will lie, steal, cheat and kill their way to power any way they can. So long as Islam is the religion and Mullahs control the Mosques they hold a pretty pat hand. Even the most secular government, as we have seen in Turkey, must remain forever watchful of this group. It looks like it’s too late for Turkey but hopefully the people of Iran are watching and will learn from it.
Michael, hasn’t this been in a violent phase for a while? I recall attacks on the IRGC by Kurdish, Baluchi, and (IIRC) Azeri groups. Or do you mean that this is a new phase for the urban cores and ethnic Persians?
Notwithstanding the ‘Faster Please’ criticism of the Obama Administration’s Syria policy, there is a good chance that Assad may fall in 2012. Certainly an earlier Assad fall would have meant fewer innocent lives lost but the outcome will, at least in part, be seen as vindication for that policy.
The same might be said of the Administration’s Iran policy (or lack of policy or policies).
Michael, will it make any difference if more countries were to designate the IRGC as a terrorist entity?
http://c-catcanada.org/Policy/Ban_the_IRGC/Summary.htm
Iran seems to have gone back to it’s Zoroastrian roots. People no longer pay much attention to muslims clerics and they celebrate Zoroastrian festivities such as Iran’s official new year’s more than muslim festivities. The spate of bombings and sabotage was probably carried out by different elements of the military and opposition and not just the green movement.
The lady opposing Scott Brown for re-election in Massachusetts declared that we need a more nuanced conversation with the Iranians. There will be no regime change in Iran until there is regime change in the US.
Mr Ledeen identifies the targeted military figure as a Major General yet in the NPR report he’s called a Brigadier General. Who’s right?
It is absolutely clear that there were more than one explosion. Shahriar’s (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shahriar) representative has announced this publicly.
I hope you find the following report amusing. Iran News Agency reports for ‘Azerbayjan News’more interesting claims about the facility, anything but an ‘ammunition depot’, based on satellite photography using Google Earth!!
I am not kidding!(http://www.ajancirankhabar.com/index.php/report-interview/gozaresh/gozaresh/6812-report-a-survey-of-corps-barracks-bombing-shocking-details)
I have one question. I have not seen any reports about an explosion in Luristan. Do you have any evidence?
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It’s not likely this was a result of anti regine terrorists.
Not only were there two near simultaneous explosions, but the attack killed Brig. Hassan Moghadam, a leading figure in Iran’s missile and nuclear program. The arrest of dissidents is certainly no proof they were involved. Iran’s security forces arrested several nuclear scientists after the stuxnet attack, yet it continued to reappear and a second version is now reported.
Each nation’s intelligence services have certain fingerprints. The US is most adept at finding and exploiting sensitive sources and spiriting them out of the country along with their families. And no one comes close to our technical capabilities. But these explosions and the top level assasination have all the fingerprints of Mossad. There was too much coordination for this to be an amateur operation.
Mossad’s hallmark of waxing senior figures, mob style, has been showing up more and more often in Iran. 4 or 5 years ago Iranian aircraft, most often with missile engineers or senior miltary figures aboard, kept falling out of the sky. More recently, two nuclear experts were attacked by motorcycle riders who attached magnetic explosive devices to their moving cars. One was killed and the other injured. In another incident a senior academic in nuclear research was found dead after inhaling UF6 gas in his apartment. And that’s not a recreational drug. Just like the mob, there was no claim of responsibility — just a dead body. In Iran the top political figures know who did it, even if American writers don’t.
There’s a lot going on in Iran right now. And the Israelis are into it right up to their eyeballs. As they sould be.
“…only a matter of time until the opposition abandoned its commitment to non-violence.”
And a long time that has been. I have a hard time understanding people who are willing to be gunned down in the street or be hauled off and tortured to death for the cause of freedom, but unwilling to give as good as they get and kill the SOBs who are doing it to them and their friends. It is one thing to die for freedom, but a better thing to fight for it. Is this just an American attitude or what?
Exactly, time to take it to them and give the IRI a taste of its own medicine, to hell with all this appeasement & negotiation. Take them all out at one of their Friday Pray** oops, I mean Friday USA bashing sessions. Then there will be a scramble for power in which the freedom seekers of Iran will gain control.
excellent article as always
I read that there was also a fire at a military facility in Tehran. That all of these things happened within a space of two days strongly suggests that there is a common cause. Since these events were far separated, there seem to me to be only two plausible ways this could happen. One is an anti-government conspiracy that includes widely dispersed military men; the other is some sort of computer worm capable of generating explosions, something like the stuxnet. Is there a third explanation that makes sense?
If the key man killed was a target, inside information would have to be involved, and that suggests the conspiracy. But could it really develop such widespread successful destructive capacity while remaining undetected? The massive unpopularity of the government in 2009 has had no reason to dissipate, so the development of such a conspiracy is not impossible.
A stuxnet type worm could cause quick explosion inducing destruction just as easily as slow invisible destruction, so, if present, could cause such damage. But it could not know about the comings and goings of important targets.
OK then, what did cause all these events?
Time to find a Siddur with a prayer for the Iranian opposition.
I was just reading a book on the history of rocket fuel chemistry (no seriously). It sounds like the second explosion was likely a big tank of some sort of fluorine compound (ClF5 maybe) or an acid.
Dan,
There have been unverified reports on various websites that the NORKS are involved in the Iranian program and they have been providing material and “advice” along with the rogue Nuclear scientists of the Khan ilk from Pakistan.
I know nuclear weapons deployment well enough to tell you that nuking Israel would have fallout all over Jordan, Iraq and most of Iran in a short time. I don’t think their anger and primordial hatred of Israel will lead to self imolation through fallout. The situation begs the question: If not Israel, then who in the sam hill are they planning to use that thing on? The answer is the US. If we don’t quash this scheme, we will have a US city disappear in the next five years with the associated large amounts of land uninhabitable from radiation.
I don’t understand why this wasn’t bombed into a vast smoking crater five years ago when it was first discovered…possible PC diplomacy toward Islam?
There’s a covert sabotage operation strike into IRGC, they do highly skilled operation. Their intention is frustrate the power of missile lunching and power of invading. This is the first step of decapitating of this evil regime. The erasing of this regime will do in multi clean and accurate steps, their network is in correlation with other sources, inside Iran and outside.
Multiple near-simultaneous attacks are said to be a favored tactic among Mohammedans. Hmmm.
Sorry, but the US under the Obama Junta is on the side of the Mullahs. It is evident that the two communists in charge of our forenign policy, BHO and HRC through whom their masters act, want a unified Muslim world in opposition to the West. There will be relative peace in the Middle East between now and the US Election as the Muslim Brotherhood/al Queada considate their positions and quietly murder their opponents. While they’re doing this they’ll do everything they can to make sure no ME situation might damage their US champion’s re-election. When, and I think when is more apt than if, Obama is re-elected, all Hell will break out in the ME as they move to formally re-establish the Caliphate. After the US elections if Comrade Obama is re-election, and maybe even if he isn’t, the very moment the Iranians can launch a nuclear attack on the “Zionist Entity,” they will. A few million casualties from Israel’s dying gasp retaliation will be a small price to pay, and the US will not lift a finger or utter a discouraging word.
Indeed. A unified and totalitarian Islamic super state will be reasoned by those elitist elements in the West, of which Mr. Obama is but only one example, as to requiring an equally centralized and totalitarian “western” system to combat the dangers of the eastern super state. We are seeing the nascent stages of Oceania and Eastasia, not in 1984 but in 2011. In that line of reasoning, supported by propaganda outlets disguised as main stream media, public opinion will be shaped in a way that the average man will gladly surrender his/her individual rights and freedoms in exchange for protection from the evils of the east. The boys of the Cosa Nostra run similar, but smaller, rackets in neighborhood circles. Chaos can affect logical judgement. Remember how the chaos of 2007-2008 made even the brightest of us beg for government intervention without thinking where such intervention would lead us to?
The great white plume:
Typically, explosions produce black smoke. White smoke is something else altogether. Rocket fuels, when they burn, typically do not emit carbon particles, unless they also cause something else that does to burn, as a collateral fire. A huge white plume seems consistent with an untypical explosion, as an accidental ignition (which may not need much provocation, in some cases, shaking will suffice) of a large reserve of rocket propellant, not necessarily liquid.
If you watch footage of the space shuttle on take-off, you may notice that the hardly discernible bluish flames out of the main engines (in the middle) do not produce any smoke. That’s because these engines are burning pure oxygen and pure hydrogen, the combination of which produces water vapor, that will stay transparent until it cools off enough to condense, far behind the spaceship. In contrast, the booster’s engines (on the sides) emit a thick white smoke.
That does not prove that the white plume was produced by rocket fuel, but it is consistent with it.
Once again, in less than a century, the world looks and does nothing while the Jews are singled out for genocide.
The totalitarian ideology of the statists, deeply rooted in nihilism, leads to the Fall of human kind.
I hope Israel will attack soon, will attack with everything it has, in as many ways as possible, and hitting all the targets of a possible counter-attack too (Hizballah, Syria).
Crap, I cannot seem to get images to load properly on this website. I’m using firefox 3.6… yes, I know I really need to upgrade, but a few of my add-ons are not capatable with FF8. Anyways, just inform you of the ptoblem. Late.