Iran's "trump card" against US sanctions is not the nuclear weapon

Source
China Military Online
Editor
Huang Panyue
Time
2019-06-18 17:09:28

By Wu Jian

Purely from the perspective of military strength, the modernization of Iran’s armed forces is very close to the degree of Saddam’s army that was destroyed by the US troops in the Iraq War. However, it should be noticed that Iran has a population and land area several times that of Iraq.

Moreover, after three decades of tireless efforts after the Iran-Iraq War, Iran has not only achieved preliminary industrialization and independent national defense, but also established a strong influence network in the Middle East. Just as its enemies once said, “Today there are four Arab capitals listening to the voice of Tehran.”

Objectively speaking, Iran adopts a defensive national defense strategy. General Ahmad Vahidi, former Iranian defense minister and Head of the Strategic Center of the General Staff of Iran’s Armed Forces, said that the primary mission for Iran’s armed forces is to resist invasion and subversion of the Islamic Republic of Iran by hostile forces and crack down on unconventional security threats such as the “color revolution” and terrorism.

He once stressed that terrorism is only a “tool” for the US and Zionism (namely, Israel) to seek their interests. They call those in favor of their interests “resistance movements”— such as Syrian rebels and the People’s Mujahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI); and those against their interests “terrorism” —such as Lebanon’s Hezbollah and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps.

This determines the instability of the Middle East, which is trapped in structural violence and continual confrontation between interest groups. In this context, it is impossible for Iran to carry out self-disarmament and give up the development of national defense capacities that is not restricted by the United Nations.

Based on existing information, Iran’s “trump card” that the US worries the most isn’t its specious nuclear weapons, nor the overall backward armed forces, but the formation of an “axis of resistance” (or the Shia Crescent as often called by Western scholars) through the counter-terrorism war in the Middle East.

According to Ali Alfoneh, a senior fellow at the US-based Atlantic Council, more than 400 consultants from the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps have been killed in the fighting in Iraq and Syria, and over 1,200 pro-Iran Hezbollah militants have died in Iraq over the same period of time. What has Iran obtained at such a cost?

The country has established its presence in Iraq, Syria and even Lebanon, where a special regime network under Iranian influence was formed. Shiite militias who are grateful for Iran’s assistance have controlled local governments, transferred and coordinated large numbers of cross-border military operations as Iran wishes.

“Simply, this is a Middle East replica of NATO’s regional reinforcement, in which Iran plays the leading role,” said Kheder Khaddour, a researcher from the Carnegie Middle East Center in Beirut. Iran’s influence and dominance in this region, has not only firmly pinned down the US and its allies to act rashly against Iran, but also contained the intensity and scope of armed conflicts in the Middle East to some extent.

Just as mentioned above, the confrontation between the US and Iran is more than just a military conflict, but a “mixed war” blending various elements.

The US defines the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps as a “terrorist organization” and aims to cut off its “business lifeline.”As we all know, the Revolutionary Guard Corps has established itself in both military and civil sectors, and has extensive commercial interests especially in the Middle East and Europe. The US intends to further devastate the action capacity of the Revolutionary Guard Corps through imposing sanctions against related business entities.

However, we shouldn’t ignore that Iran has survived 40 years of sanctions and embargoes. It has developed a mature system in terms of both regular economy and underground economy. The country has established close trading networks with neighboring nations as well as Europe and Africa, some of which even the US and its allies cannot be separated from.

Just after the US announced its sanctions against the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, Iraqi prime minister visited Tehran and vowed that Iraq would not participate in any sanctions against Iran. Countries like Turkey also declared that their trade relations with Iran would not be ended.

As long as such connections are not rebuffed by US sanctions, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, despite the isolation in form, will quickly recover its strength on the basis of its intensive business connections radiating to other countries and its profound secret trade networks.

The following figures clearly show that the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps is very hard to be stifled. Even in 2011 when Iran was facing the worst security situation, its national defense expenditures accounted for only 3% of its GDP, while the figure was 10.4% for Saudi Arabia and 5.8% for Israel. Today, Iran remains at a similar ratio, but the influence of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps has gone beyond the country. This indicates that as a military-political organization with strong resilience and rationality, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps cannot be defeated by sheer US sanctions.

Richard Haass, president of the US-based Council on Foreign Relations, pointed out that it would be a wise choice for the Trump administration to accept the legitimate presence of Iran and hope it to develop towards a more open direction. The sanctions and regime change that Trump declared to impose on Iran are actually a kind of political indulgence, which is against the interests of the US.

Disclaimer: This article is originally published on Xinmin News Net, one of the biggest mainstream news network based in Shanghai City. It is translated from Chinese into English and edited by the China Military Online. The information, ideas or opinions appearing in this article do not reflect the views of eng.chinamil.com.cn.

 

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