Let’s get this straight up front … I want to believe. I really do. The best outcome for everyone would be for the IRGC’s leadership to climb on a jumbo jet and follow Bashar al-Assad into Putin’s embrace.
Late yesterday, Fox News offered a tantalizing scenario in which the regime collapses in a bug-out. Middle East expert Saeid Golkar told Fox News Digital said the signs are starting to emerge that confidence in the regime has shattered, and its figures want to get out before the up-against-the-wall phase of a popular revolt. That may not be good news, though, Golkar warns:
The apparent collapse of high-stakes U.S.-Iran negotiations has intensified fears that senior figures inside Tehran’s leadership could flee to Russia, seeking refuge to “continue their insurgency and undermine any new regime,” an analyst warns. …
“If the situation deteriorates further, some senior figures could potentially follow a path like Bashar al-Assad’s inner circle and seek refuge in Russia,” Middle East expert Saeid Golkar told Fox News Digital. …
While top commanders like Parliament Speaker Mohammad-Bagher Ghalibaf might head to Moscow, lower-ranking figures would more likely seek shelter in Iraq or Afghanistan, where the IRGC maintains operational connections, he clarified.
“For the most senior figures, Russia would probably be the most likely destination, again as we saw with Bashar al-Assad,” Golkar said, noting many officials have already moved wealth into “financial networks outside Iran.”
That would take an ironic page out of the playbook of the mullahs’ hated rivals, the Sunni-dominated regime of Saddam Hussein. The collapse of that regime, combined with the American occupation and aggressive “de-Baathification,” created a pushback that sent Sunni regime figures into armed insurgency.
The problem for the IRGC is that the situation isn’t entirely analogous, in part because of that Iraqi insurgency. That morphed into al-Qaeda in Iraq, and then into ISIS, both of which were Sunni-extremist claimants to a “caliphate.” Perhaps too much is made of Sunni-Shi’a antagonism in general, but it’s a real issue on the extremes, and ISIS and the Taliban are both Sunni extremist networks that want to claim the caliphate for themselves. The IRGC may have built some networks in Iraq and Afghanistan, but if they want to take over in either place or even run a substantive insurgency using either as a base, the governments of both (as well as ISIS) will make that a difficult proposition at best.
Also, I’m less than convinced that Ahmad Vahidi or the senior leadership of the IRGC will follow Assad into exile of any sort. If that’s an option, then Donald Trump’s deal to cough up the highly enriched uranium and return to status quo ante in the Strait of Hormuz makes more sense. That deal would keep them in power, at least for a while, and they are even more ruthless than Assad at suppressing popular revolts. They would have had their ears pinned back and lose some face, but they could rebuild in other ways and eventually try their hegemonic strategies again.
This misunderstands the nature of the regime in Iran, which its adherents see as an actual caliphate already. Their entire purpose is to extend Islam across the globe by accelerating their Shi’ite-cult eschaton of the Twelfth Imam, who will only appear at the apex of an Armageddon. The Twelfth Imam will then take over the world through the divinely granted authority of the Islamic Republic in Tehran.
Assad had no such pretensions; he and his father wanted power for power’s sake, much the same that Saddam Hussein did. (And even Hussein had to be physically dislodged in the end.) Once power had evaporated and Hezbollah could no longer protect him, Assad took the money and ran to Vladimir Putin. Assad never even aspired to Hussein’s conceit of following Nasser’s self-proclaimed position of pan-Arab nationalist leader, let alone cling to a cultish, messianic version of his rule.
Unfortunately, the IRGC won’t be so easily removed. Trump will have to push harder to get the regime to collapse, and he’s going to have to choose that soon.
Editor’s Note: For decades, former presidents have been all talk and no action. Now, Donald Trump is eliminating the threat from Iran once and for all.
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