The Father of All Bombs
Iran has become a primary threat to American interests in the greater Middle East. If armed with a nuclear arsenal, it could threaten America itself. For nearly forty years, the Guards and the MOIS have sponsored and commanded anti-Western terrorist organizations. Indeed, the Guards’ reach has expanded into the heart of the Middle East and into South America. Iran’s enemies list includes the United States and Israel, both of which Tehran threatens to annihilate. Rhetoric aside, until recently, Iran did not pose an existential threat to any Western country. But in the last decade, Iran has built a menacing arsenal of missiles and warheads that imperil cities and civilizations, sparking debate in Western capitals about how to confront Iran’s aspiring, but not yet proven, nuclear weapons capability.
In addition to the missile threat, the Guards have an elite conventional army, navy, and air force, just as the German SS and the Soviet NKVD/KGB did in World War II. In the last two years of the war, the SS order of battle totaled nearly one million men. NKVD soldiers fought alongside Red Army troops and were sometimes deployed as independent units. Similarly, the Guards have independent services that, like the SS and the NKVD, are more prestigious and better supplied.
Some observers compare elements of contemporary Iran to those of the early Third Reich. Michael Oren, an Israeli statesman, has noted that in the 1930s, Western states were drained and nearly insolvent. Only belatedly did they confront the growing menace posed by Germany and Italy, both of which aspired to regional and global domination. Like the Nazis, Iranian leaders have built their military capabilities to advance their policy ambitions. The Guards are the primary means of achieving these goals. The scope of their power continues to grow. When Iranian-sponsored and Guards-supplied
Houthi rebels captured the Yemeni capital in September 2014. An Iranian parliamentarian boasted that it was “the fourth Arab capital on its way to following the Iranian Revolution.” Some American observers believe Iran is already at war with the United States. Andrew McCarthy, the former assistant U.S. attorney who prosecuted the 1995 World Trade Center attackers, said, “If we are not going to win, we are going to lose.” Maj. Gen. Mohammad Ali Jafari, former commander of the Guards, has bragged that the Iranian juggernaut is prepared to meet any military challenge the United States might present. Amir Ali Hajizadeh, another Guards general, claims the Islamic Republic has developed the “father of all bombs,” a ten-ton bomb with the blast power of America’s “mother of all bombs.” The head of Iran’s navy, Rear Adm. Hossein Khanzadi, has promised to “fly the Iranian flag in the Gulf of Mexico.”
As of this writing, leaders of the Guards are concerned that social unrest and restlessness in Iran could escalate into near-rebellion. The economy could tip into free fall. Ten years ago, the Guards were deployed to quell unrest that had devolved into open riots. In terms of domestic challenges, 2020 may be the most significant year of threats to the regime since 2009. In early 2018, crowds chanted in Persian, rhyming “Reza Shah, bless you.” Reza Shah was the shah of Iran from 1925 to 1941 and the father of Mohammad Reza Pahlevi, the shah who was overthrown in 1979, as discussed in chapter 1. Other rhymes included “Not Gaza, Not Lebanon, my soul for Iran.” The protests in Iran escalated in 2019. Interior Minister Abdolreza Rahmani Fazli claimed that by fall 2019, as many as 200,000 people had participated in demonstrations that year. Today, Iranians take to the streets in support of and in protest against the ruling government and the Guards who support it.
Trump vs. Iran
During his first term as president, Donald Trump despised Hassan Rouhani, who, in turn, despised him. They despised the political system that the other leads. President Trump has called Iran’s government a “corrupt dictatorship” that “exports violence, bloodshed, and tears” and called upon the world to isolate Iran. In his judgment, those who suffer the greatest are the Iranian people, who are denied a comfortable standard of living because the country’s oil Revenue funds are given to international terrorist groups: “They’re a nation of terror. . . . I’m not looking to hurt that country, but they can’t have a nuclear weapon; it’s very simple.” In 2020, President Trump put muscle behind his words when he ordered the assassination of the charismatic leader of the Qods Forces. The Pentagon explained that Major General Soleimani orchestrated attacks on coalition bases in Iraq in late 2019 and added that the killing was “aimed at deterring future Iranian attack plans.”
The president, then, threatened to hit fifty-two Iranian sites if the country retaliated. In turn, the chairman of the Iranian parliament’s National Security and Foreign Policy Commission promised that “we will hit a number of U.S. targets that will be as many as the number of the verses (6,236) of the Holy Quran, and we will target 124,000 of them that stands equal to the number of 124,000 prophets.” All this has panicked some young American men. The United States Selective Service website crashed the day after the strike amid fears that young men would be drafted for a war against Iran. As of this writing, there is no ongoing armed conflict with the Islamic Republic. But hostilities loom, and the Guards are active around the world. This is the subject of future readings of Empire of Terror.
