Welcome to the final excerpt of Empire of Terror, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, written by Mark Silinsky and published by Potomac Books, an imprint of the University of Nebraska Press. This is presented by Kensington Security Consulting, which brings education to national security. This excerpt comes from chapter eight and concludes Empire of Terror.
The Mullahs’ Enemies at Home
As of this writing, Major General Salami commands the Guards and boasts that the organization can meet any domestic threat. The claim is dubious. Protests shook the streets in 2019 and early 2020. Moreover, this “sedition” is deeply rooted in grinding poverty and the fatalism of today’s generation. Some Iranians feel they have little to lose by trying to dismantle an Islamic regime under which they have known little but gloom. The persecution of Christians remains rampant, though a handful of imprisoned believers sentenced for holding illegal church meetings have been released. According to a Christian advocacy group, Iran ranks among the top ten worst nations for Christians, where they experience extreme abuse.
The 2,500-year-old Jewish community has shrunk to about twelve thousand members, down 90 percent from its prerevolutionary size. Some Iranian Jews emphasize, “We’re not an entity outside of the Iranian nation. We are part of it.” Others fear fetishized anti-Semitism and being whisked away to prison on false charges of espionage for Israel. They pray in the shadows, as do Christians and Baha’i. Khamenei calls for a “new Islamic-Iranian civilization,” and his blueprint for achieving it is similar to Khomeini’s. Once state institutions are firmly Islamized, the duty of citizens and government agents alike is to foster the creation of an “Islamic country,” which will then serve as a template for a broader “Islamic civilization.” In March 2017, Major General Jafari promised, “We are on the path that leads to the rule of Islam worldwide.” His successor, Major General Salami, has reiterated Iran’s goal of exterminating Israel, promising to destroy both Israel and the United States if either country makes the “slightest mistake.”
Personal Reflections
The following comments are the views of this author and not the official or unofficial views of the U.S. Department of Defense, the U.S. Intelligence Community, or any other agency or department of the United States government.
The twentieth century saw states with totalitarian ideologies built to last indefinitely. Among them were the Soviet Union, Nazi Germany, and the Islamic Republic of Iran. Only one of the three remains. That is the Islamic Republic of Iran, which will be judged on the cold dais of history.
Is it likely that Iranians will overturn their government in the next five years?
This author has no reason to believe the current regime will lose power in the next five years. As of late 2020, the Guards are firmly in control, and there are no signs of large-scale, sustained, coordinated, externally supported, and active resistance capable of overthrowing the government. The fate of the Guards is inextricably tied to the mullahs’ influence in Tehran; they need each other to survive. It is likely that if the mullahs are driven from power, the Guards will follow. If the Guards are substantially weakened, the mullahs’ rule will falter and possibly collapse.
Some observers are optimistic about change. Nobel Laureate Shirin Ebadi has opined, “It seems to me that we are witnessing the beginning of a big protest movement that can go well beyond the Green wave of 2009. It would not surprise me if it becomes something bigger.” Perhaps she is right, but other observers of Iran are less optimistic. Sanam Vakil and Hossein Rassam noted that for thirty years, Khamenei has been building a vast intelligence and military structure and has larded the foreign bank accounts of the Guards leadership to keep them fiercely loyal. He has developed a “deep state.” They note, “When Khamenei dies, the deep state will ensure that whoever replaces him shares its hardline views.”
As of 2020, the Iranian regime has restricted mobile internet access in several provinces. The Guards still kill protesters openly in the streets, secretly in the shadows, and in the prisons. Some observers have speculated that in late 2019, the Guards and police killed over two hundred protesters. Many unpopular and despotic regimes have survived for decades, despite catastrophic collapses in living standards and widespread despair. For example, the Soviet economy could not generate enough revenue to sustain government operations. However, this did not prompt a national uprising.
Cuba and North Korea hold their citizens in desperate conditions, yet their leadership remains in power. Many Iranians would be delighted to rid themselves of the Guards, but they understand the risks of organizing to do so. Organized and effective resistance is unlikely for years. However, anecdotal and passive resistance to the Basij sporadically occurs.
If public sentiment against the regime escalates, what will be the likely direction of the Guards?
History offers a confusing predictive picture. There have been instances in which palace guards switched sides and took up arms against the ruling regime. This occurred in earlier revolutions, such as in France in 1789, Russia in 1917, and Iran in 1979. Much has been written about the defections of leading Iranian military personnel to Khomeini. In the desperate final days of the shah, some military and intelligence personnel defected to the revolution, and in a future revolution, the Guards could switch sides. Patrick Clawson and Michael Rubin argue that “much to the chagrin of the ruling clerics they (Iranians) root their national identity in their pre-Islamic
past.”
The Guards might follow the ss’s ride or the KGB’s path. Many Germans fought a “Death Ride” for Hitler. Defeat was all but certain after summer 1944, but Germany fought tenaciously for nine more months. Of Hitler’s closest lieutenants, only Albert Speer refused to enforce the “Nero Order,” to torch Germany to deny it to the Red Army. In the Battle of Berlin, virtually every street was contested, and the ss put up a particularly stiff defense. The ss fighters, particularly the foreign divisions, feared retribution by the Red Army and were driven by devotion to Hitler and what remained of his cratered Nazi empire. They were dead-enders with little to lose by fighting to the end. If Iran’s regime is pressed for survival, its Guards could follow this near-certain suicidal devotion to their national leadership.
However, there is another model. The Soviet Union was never militarily defeated. Instead, it decommissioned itself and transitioned into a temporary, quasi-democratic state. Many KGB leaders positioned themselves to benefit from privatization, and some moved into criminal activities. It is possible that today’s Guards will continue to engage themselves in the business world and relinquish their security role. However, there is currently no evidence that this will occur soon.
Are Iran’s leaders sincere when they hint at Western-style reform?
There is no reason to believe Iranian leaders will moderate their rule. Many of the current reforms are temporary and anodyne. There have been few enduring, liberalizing, and meaningful reforms over the forty years of the mullahs’ rule. Most changes, such as the 2019 declaration that women can attend soccer matches, have been cosmetic. Only months earlier, a young woman was sentenced to prison for waving her hijab on top of a stick: “My sentence has been issued—twenty years for protesting against an unjust law.” Philip Luther, Amnesty International’s Middle East research and advocacy director, remarked that “2018 will go down in history as a year of shame for” Iran.”
““The staggering scale of arrests, imprisonments, and flogging sentences reveals the extreme lengths the authorities have gone to suppress peaceful dissent.” In December 2019, a Tehran revolutionary court sentenced nine Christians to prison for practicing their faith. Prisoners are still tortured on the blood-slicked floors of Evin prison. Iranian leaders are adept at information operations and taqiyya, or deception. Khamenei approved the presidential candidacy of Mohammad Khatami, a supposed moderate, in June 1997. Khatami’s charm offensive emphasized a “dialogue of civilizations” at a time when many intellectuals were concerned about a clash of civilizations. Iranian leaders temporarily toned down their sharp anti-Western rhetoric and smiled in conversation with the Clinton administration. The president lifted some sanctions, and Secretary of State Madeleine Albright formally apologized for the 1953 coup. This did not lead to enduring reforms, and Iran is still developing nuclear weapons. It did not liberalize its politics or economy.
The privatization of the economy was driven less by market forces than by the Guards’ opportunism. For years, Western observers have highlighted the rift between the traditionalists and reformers among the political and religious leadership. Iran’s bureaucracies are riven by infighting and backbiting. Yet the leadership has not signaled any intention to liberalize Iran’s economy or culture.
All those in power today adhere to the basic principles of Khomeinism, just as all Nazi leaders followed Hitlerism to the end. Hitler’s inner circle had diverse backgrounds and priorities. Some were professional soldiers and capable planners. There was an economist, a career diplomat, a vulgar propagandist, and several theoreticians and lawyers. Nonetheless, they were all committed Nazis, ideologically bound together by the principles of National Socialism and by devotion to Adolf Hitler.
In contrast, the Soviet Union experienced reforms. Pronounced doctrinal and strategic rifts among leaders in the Soviet Politburo led to economic and cultural changes after World War II. There were some “Red Woodstocks,” or controlled Western musical festivals, and by the late 1980s the economy was partially opened to small, private enterprises. This led to a systemic reworking, or perestroika, of the Soviet Union. It is possible that Iran’s regime will adopt the Soviet model of gradual reform and decommission itself. But as of late 2020, there is no evidence that Khamenei intends to allow any political opposition. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared: “Presidents of Iran have come and gone. Some presidents were considered moderates, others, hard-liners.”
But they have all served that same unforgiving creed, that same unforgiving regime, that creed that is espoused and enforced by the real power in Iran, the dictator known as the supreme leader, first Ayatollah Khomeini, and now Ayatollah Khamenei.
Are Iran’s leaders serious when they speak in apocalyptic terms?
Yes, they are. There is every reason to believe that the leaders are sincere about hastening the return of the Twelfth Imam and about using nuclear weapons to do so. The Iranian leadership is committed to Khomeini’s goals and traditions, and for forty years they have reasserted this zeal. Iranian leaders mean what they profess. Western powers dismissed the homicidal oratory of the Soviet and German leaders in the twentieth century only to fight them in hot and cold wars. Professor Michael Howard has observed that “people often of masterful intelligence, trained usually in law or economics or perhaps in political science, who have led their governments into disastrous decisions and miscalculations because they have no awareness whatever of the historical background, the cultural universe, of the foreign societies with which they have to deal.”
In the twentieth century, Western leaders were naive about the ambitions of totalitarian leaders and discounted their militant rhetoric and rantings. After Lenin took power, he instituted the “dictatorship of the proletariat” and began killing his opponents, which he called “revolutionary terror.” Stalin escalated the killing. Both Soviet dictators courted Western leaders with promises of tolerance and peace. In Mein Kampf, Hitler openly talked about annihilating entire races and creating an Aryan empire in the east. National Socialism was rooted in the conviction that it was natural and right for the Germans to rule over lesser people.
However, to Western leaders, Hitler appealed to building natural frontiers and jettisoning the harsher terms of the Versailles Treaty. If some Westerners dismiss the mullahs’ fatwas as cloying rhetoric, the Guards live by them. Iranian leaders are committed to world conquest. They could use nuclear weapons against Israel or the United States to create conditions for the return of the Mahdi or out of blind hatred. According to plan, the Twelfth Imam would return as the Mahdi in a world convulsed by death, blood, and fire.
Will there be war between Iran and the United States?
Some observers fear escalating hostilities between Iran and the United States. Trita Parsi, a former director of the National Iranian American Council, has opined, “We’re on our way towards a new cold war with Iran or, even worse, a military confrontation. Will anyone stop Trump?” However, the United States is already at war with Iran. Iran supplies the Taliban with weapons that kill U.S. forces and subsidizes terrorist organizations globally. As of this writing, Iran likely lacks the capability to annihilate American cities. A deployable nuclear weapon would change this equation.
Some observers, such as Trita Parsi, assert that “whatever (nuclear) danger exists . . . there’s really no solution that is superior to a diplomatic (one) based on inspections and verification.” In my view, however, there is no alternative to using military force to destroy Iran’s nuclear production sites before they become fully operational. A successful attack on Iran would also signal to would-be nuclear nations that they could be destroyed. Israel destroyed Iraq’s and Syria’s nuclear-weapons facilities, and the world is a safer place for it. These were raids that did not lead to generalized war. Should Iran acquire nuclear weapons, the world will change forever, and not for the better.
For years, Iranian leaders have shown contempt for what they see as American weakness and a lack of resolve to attack Iran. Ayatollah Khomeini flamboyantly derided President Carter. He and the Iranian hostage takers of 1979 posed with caricatures of American President Jimmy Carter, snickering that “America cannot do a damn thing.” Toward Iran, the United States continued to vacillate between policies of disinterest and conciliation after Ronald Reagan’s presidency. Appeasement reached its apotheosis with the JCPOA of the Obama administration. This brought time and resources for the Islamic Republic to develop its nuclear weapons program. It did not bring Iranian respect for the United States.
Military historian Victor Davis Hanson has written about the futility and self-delusion of appeasement in the twentieth century. British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain was toasted as a great peacemaker after the 1938 Munich Agreement. But this was a deceptive peace that invited the bloodiest war in history. Iranian leaders estimate that once they obtain nuclear weapons, the United States will be unable to do a damn thing to stop their global ambitions.
How will history speak of the Guards?
If the Guards’ grip on power collapses, are they likely to be brought to trial? Perhaps. In the 1946 Nuremberg War Crimes Trials, former leaders of a vanquished Germany were judged by their conquerors. Prosecutors declared that entire SS units were criminal organizations. Several of those found guilty of major war crimes were hanged, some were imprisoned, and others were spared. The trials became part of world history and a legacy of international law. This was not the case with the NKVD/KGB. There was no singular event comparable to the Battle of Berlin that collapsed the Soviet Union. Instead, and rarely in history, the one-party state voluntarily transferred its power. There were no Nuremberg-style trials that shone a light on the Soviet concentration camp system and the Great Terror. Notorious camps such as Kolyma and Magadan never became museums and memorials, in contrast to Auschwitz and Dachau. December 20 continues to be celebrated as the “Day of the Chekist.”
If the Guards are forcibly removed from power and brought to trial, what charges are they likely to face? Will they be tried for crimes against peace; crimes against humanity; or war crimes? At Nuremberg, war crimes included “murder, ill-treatment and deportation to slave labor or for any other purpose of civilian population of or in occupied territory, murder or ill-treatment of prisoners of war or persons on the seas, killing of hostages, plunder of public or private property, wanton destruction of cities, towns or villages, or devastation not justified by military necessity.”
In Nuremberg-like trials, will the Guards be held accountable for the death and destruction they have inflicted on populations from Lebanon through Yemen? Will the assassinations of dissidents abroad be considered war crimes? Will the Guards be held accountable for training and funding its terrorist proxies in the Middle East, such as Hezbollah? Will leaders face a criminal court for the mass murder of U.S. Marines in Lebanon?
Will the Guards be held accountable for destroying Iran’s ancient Jewish and Christian communities and for the widespread persecution of Baha’i? And what of poisoning the minds of generations of Iranian children and raising teenagers to fasten bombs to themselves to kill themselves and others? Will the tortured victims of Evin prison receive restitution, and will the families of those murdered by the Guards receive an apology? They may. But this generation of Iranian children is raised to celebrate death, not to apologize for it. Children are raised to die as martyrs.
A Wicked Problem and an Epic Poem
Wicked problems are broad, intractable, long-term puzzles that involve many people; have vast economic, social, and security implications; and are interconnected with other problems. They are cumbersome for policymakers. Horst Rittel defines wicked problems as unique and without a definitive formula. The nuclear-weapons development program in North Korea shares traits with the program in Iran but differs.
The coronavirus of 2020 is a wicked problem that spawns myriad related problems that afflict the entire world. Poor countries face perennial wicked problems with no single solution. There are no universal templates for solving wicked problems. Iran is a wicked problem, and many subproblems—poverty, low educational levels, corruption, poor infrastructure, weak medical services—bleed into one another. Should Iran acquire nuclear weapons, the wicked problem of Iran would become an existential threat to its enemies. Only the physical destruction of nuclear sites can stop this, and it must be done soon.
However, Iran is more than a problem; it is an ancient and enduring drama. The story of Iran bears the hallmark of Scheherazade and the Thousand and One Nights. In the folktale, a Persian king marries a virgin each evening and has her killed at dawn to prevent any compromise of her sexual fidelity. However, a clever Scheherazade delays her death by spinning a new story each night for the king and leaving it unfinished. The mesmerized king waits each night for the next chapter, and Scheherazade continues her tales without end. Today, Iran is a saga seemingly without end, and the only certainty in this drama is change. What will become of Iran’s sword and shield—its Guards? President Trump said, “Oppressive regimes cannot endure forever, and the day will come when the Iranian people will face a choice.” Will Iran, like Scheherazade, begin a new chapter? Will it end as a heroic poem or continue as a wicked problem? Let history judge.
Welcome to an excerpt of Empire of Terror, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, written by Mark Silinsky and published by Potomac Books, an imprint of the University of Nebraska Press. This is presented by Kensington Security Consulting, which brings education to national security. This excerpt from Chapter 8 discusses leadership and other influential persons in the great Iranian drama.
Leaders
As of late 2020, Ayatollah Khamenei remains committed to his vision of Iran’s “new civilization,” regularly inveighing against alleged American-Jewish conspiracies. In September 2020, the aged ayatollah tweeted to the world that Arab states seeking peace with Israel are doing so under the pressure of “Israelis & filthy Zionist agents of the U.S.—such as the Jewish member of Trump’s family—with the utmost cruelty against the interests of the World of Islam.” In Iran, the media and the Guards refer to the supreme leader as the “guardian of the Muslim world.” He speaks of transforming the Guards into a large international force to implement Islamic law and destroy Western influence. United States leaders are concerned that Iran is doing just that.
In November 2018, U.S. envoy James Jeffrey warned that Iran would create a Shia version of the Islamic State to conquer Iraq if given the chance. In death, Soleimani still commands Olympian status among the world’s Shia. In late 2019, he told President Trump, “If you cross our red line, we will destroy you. We will not leave any move unanswered.” But he was destroyed several months later and received the martyr status he repeatedly requested. The Guards’ Enemies List. The United States remains atop Iran’s enemy list and is likely to stay there indefinitely.
Periodically, Iranian leaders assure Western audiences that they have no quarrel with Americans. Ayatollah Khamenei explained that “Death to America” refers to opposition to American policies, not a wish for the country’s destruction. “The aim of the slogan is not death to the American people. The slogan means death to U.S. policies and arrogance.” But some observers are skeptical and point to the often-repeated Guards-run press characterizations of Westerners as greedy, aggressive, unsophisticated, superficial, and intent on destroying Islam. Prominent Americans who disparage the United States continue to receive warm receptions in Iran. During a solidarity trip to Iran, Louis Farrakhan chanted “Death to America” and declared that “America has never been a democracy.” Academic leftists toast Hezbollah fellow travelers for the pursuit of social justice. Some speak of an American “neo-conservative” plot to take the United States to war against Iran.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has demanded that Iran abandon its nuclear weapons program, shutter its heavy-water reactor, and open all nuclear facilities to international inspection. Iran must also abandon its ballistic-missile program and end its support for Middle Eastern terrorist groups, including Lebanese Hezbollah, Hamas, and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad. It must halt support for the Houthi militia, pull out of Syria, and stop arming the Taliban. Iran must cease harboring al Qaeda leaders. As of this writing, there is no evidence that Iran will comply with the secretary’s demands. Former Guards leader Safavi has declared that the conflict between Iran and the United States is ideological and fundamental.
Some observers are convinced that Iran will continue seeking means and places to attack the United States. The Guards’ long reach extends worldwide, including the United States. In August 2018, two Iranian men were indicted for conducting surveillance at a Jewish facility in Chicago and gathering information on supporters of the Iranian opposition group Mujahedin-e Khalq. Iran continues to court the leaders of the Green-Red Axis, who offer sympathetic accounts of controversial issues. Code Pink announced it would send a “peace delegation” to Iran to help “move our two nations from a place of hostility and military threats to a place of mutual respect and peace with one another.”
The Guards and the moi also continue to engage in espionage abroad. In 2019, German prosecutors charged an army linguist with knowledge of German military operations in Afghanistan with passing secrets to what they called “Iranian intelligence.” In response to this and other Iranian intelligence activities, the European Union placed several Iranians on its terrorist list and froze their financial assets.
Israel and Saudi Arabia
In November 2018, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei reiterated that Israel was a “cancerous tumor” that must be “removed and eradicated.” Khamenei had previously branded Israel the “sinister, unclean rabid dog of the region.” He blamed “Zionists” for the anti-government demonstrations across Iran. Iranian leaders continue to promise to eliminate Israel from the map. Iran hopes to encircle Israel with proxies that control thousands of missiles and saturate its cities with bombs. In response, Israel’s defense chief has warned that his country will seek to “destroy any Iranian military presence” in Syria.
Iran has attacked Israeli and Jewish targets in the past, and some countries have warned Iran that they suspect the Guards have further lethal designs. Germany admonished Iran to stop surveilling individuals or groups, particularly Israelis. For example, the Guards were caught gathering intelligence on the former head of the German-Israel Friendship Society. Iranian leaders have not warmed to Saudi Arabia, and both countries compete for influence in the Middle East, notably in Yemen. Saudi Arabia severed diplomatic relations with Iran after the execution of a Shia cleric sparked outrage among Shia across the Middle East. Saudi Arabia welcomed President Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw from the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, but is less enthusiastic about his December 2018 pledge to pull U.S. troops from the Middle East.
This concludes Empire of Terror, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, by Mark Silinsky. If you enjoyed this reading, please consider subscribing. Dr. Silinsky’s latest book, “Cauldron of Terror – Hamas, Israel, and the World will be available for purchase in spring 2026. The content of Empire of Terror does not represent the official position of any agency or individual within the United States government. On behalf of Kensington Security Consulting, thank you for listening.
