Iran, an enemy we must know
Author: Robert Bauer
Translation: Seyyed Hossein Sohrabi
creator: International Relations Institute
Date of publication: 1/1402
Broadcast Center Phone: 09125645463
Price: 200 thousand tomans
cut off: minister
Number of pages: 179
International Relations Think Tank کتاب حاضر نوشته یکی از مأموران سابق سازمان سیا آمریکا است و بدیهی است قلم وی بر اساس دیدگاه رشد یافته او در جهان لیبرال و سکولار غرب به حرکت درآمده و درکش از فرهنگ ایرانی، اسلامی و انقلابی ما مبنی بر تلقی، شناخت و تحلیل شخصی او است. اما واقعیت این است که در جهان امروز افکار مردم در بند امپراتوری رسانه ها است و چیزی را میبینند و میپذیرند که سلاطین آن امپراتوری میخواهند. بدیهی است با تلاش گسترده دشمنان انقلاب اسلامی، ایران در چشم جهانیان، آنطور که هست نشان داده نشده است. اینکه آن دیدگاه مورد پسند ما هست یا خیر، بحث دیگری است اما برای برنامهریزی صحیح، علمی و واقعگرایانه، باید نظرات دیگران درباره خودمان را بدانیم تا بتوانیم با شناخت بیشتر دیدگاههای متعدد موافق و مخالف، گامهای بعدی ایران در مسیر پیشرفت را، محکم و متقن برداریم.
Author’s foreword:
The first time I visited Iran was October 1978. Only a few months before [Ayatollah] Khomeini returned from exile and took power. I was 24 years old; On the way to my first mission in the CIA [1] to India and about the Middle East, I had only a few vague images in my mind.
The taxi driver who took me from the airport to Tehran that night taught me the first lesson; “Iranians do not know how to drive”. Along the way he jumps up and down between army patrols; I’m sure he was trying to make me nervous; Was it legal to drive on the sidewalk to pass traffic? My one-week stay in Tehran did not help much to understand it. I left there without the slightest idea what [Ayatollah] Khomeini would do with this mess when he took over.
Less than four years later, Iran was at war with the United States. Tehran did not announce and was ignored by Washington. In the deadlock of the Cold War [2], who had time for that unusual Tehran and those clerics?
I served on the front lines of that war, hidden or perhaps overt. In April 1983, when the American embassy in Beirut was blown up, I lost some of my colleagues; Like many, I believed that the Iranian revolution would be drowned in its own blood and that this revolutionary fervor would disappear like other uprisings in Islam. Everyone saw this as certain during the Iran-Iraq war; But [Ayatollah] Khomeini’s regime survived and provided another lesson that I needed to learn before focusing on Iran.
The Iran-Iraq war ended, but not only was Iran still involved in the war, but it had also become smarter. Iran and its representative in Lebanon, Hezbollah, understood that by abandoning conventional battles and using a new structure in guerrilla warfare, they could always win. Roadside bombs, advanced guided and guided missiles, powerful smart bombs and suicide bombings; These are the same weapons and methods that have brought us to a dead end in Afghanistan and Iraq. During this period, Iran’s desire to establish a hegemony in the region has increased and it believes that it is so powerful that it can challenge America in dominating the Persian Gulf. Not only America’s control over Iraq, but control over the Gulf, where 55% of the world’s oil is located.
This is not a war that America has planned for. Iranians have not yet fought with all their strength, but they have won half of the battles. We must understand the secret of their mystery sooner; “Who are they? What do they want? How do they want to dominate us and get along with us?”. We need to figure out as soon as possible how to deal with the new superpower, Iran.
26 years after my first visit to Iran, I traveled to Tehran again. I was making documentaries with the UK’s Channel 4 and an Irish company. In April 2005, I participated in the celebration of the anniversary of the liberation of Khorramshahr, which was held near the shrine of [Ayatollah] Khomeini near Tehran. After the ceremony, outside the celebration, I reached the Chief of General Staff of the Iranian Armed Forces. I asked him how important martyrdom is for Iranian forces. He was surprised to be questioned by an American, especially in a place rarely visited by foreigners; But anyway he answered:
Martyrdom exists in all religions; even in Ireland there are martyrs. Anyone who lives and fights for peace, unity and human rights is like a martyr, and if his blood is shed in this way, he is called a martyr. In Islam, martyrdom is a reward. Warriors are in the way of God, and whoever sacrifices his life with a pure and conscious motive, the angels will welcome him and take him to heaven.
The same religious propaganda that we were dominated by for years. I asked him: But what should this mean for America in the real world? He said:
“America has probably realized by now that it should listen to us more carefully day by day. They should know that no army can stand against the way of martyrdom. The Islamic revolution has now reached a point where modern weapons are used.” He has achieved and has the experience of planning and implementing his strategies. America should know that if it attacks Iran today, it will lose its status and power.”
I now knew Iran enough to know the position of the Chief of Staff of its Armed Forces. Iran believes that it is against America; A state military power capable of neutralizing US power in the [Persian] Gulf. Iran believes that with a new form of battle that it has created in Lebanon, it can fight against this army that has a normal and conventional battle style. It also believes that it is now a world power; Because its advanced missiles are located along the Persian Gulf and can stop the export of oil from the [Persian] Gulf within a few minutes. In fact, the message of the Chief of General Staff of the Iranian Armed Forces was: “The game has changed!”
When Americans think about Iran, what images come to mind? Pictures of [Ayatollah] Khomeini with a black turban? Or the young Iranian boys who ran in the Iraqi minefields and shouted: “Allahu Akbar”? Or the staff of the American embassy in 1979 with their eyes and hands closed? The last two images are almost impossible to remember, and Ahmadinejad, Iran’s apocalyptic, anti-holocaust president, has not helped to change our mental image either.
We have convinced ourselves that Iran is a historical deviation; A throwback to the Middle Ages that irrationally hates the West. In the meantime, we have only settled on this childish hypothesis that one day the Iranian government will inevitably collapse under the burden of the 21st century, and the only thing we have to do is ensure that they do not get a nuclear bomb and also stop Israel’s Baran missile by The political and military organization of Lebanese Shiites is Hezbollah.
Iran is a safe, impenetrable and hostile society with a great geographical distance from America. It is not surprising how the United States has neglected Iran’s growth and development process over the past thirty years; How has it been modernized, grown and put aside revolutionary emotions? Iran is still riding a wave of Islamism that destroys the last remnants of a secular Middle East [3], but it is always a rational actor that pursues its national interests in a methodical and calculated manner.
If you scratch the surface of Islam, what you find in an Iranian is old nationalism; An inherent and permanent defiance of colonialism. Keep scratching and what you will find in the depths of Iran’s soul is a new taste of empire that exists in Iranian society, even among secular Iranians. But Iran is not a new Roman Empire that intends to conquer with violence, spread culture, dominate and change religion. What moves Iran towards empire is something else; Call it merit, destiny or even a right to exist. It is very important to understand that today Iran has an unshakable belief in the right of its empire.
It is not difficult to understand at what stage, rightly or wrongly, Iran has reached such self-confidence that it can defeat the West. Between 1982 and 2000, Hezbollah was able to defeat Israel’s army on the battlefield in Lebanon for the first time since 1948 when the state of Israel was formed; Israel declared that it was not defeated militarily in this battle, but that they no longer wanted to fight. But in the 34-day war of 2006, the Israeli army was really defeated and retreated with heavy casualties and without achieving any objective in Lebanese soil.
Iran’s star is rising and will grow even faster now that there is an allied Shiite government in Baghdad. On the other hand, the historical system of the Sunni religion (the basis of America’s interests in the Middle East) is collapsing. How long can Pakistan and Saudi Arabia resist? For the first time in the history of Islam, it is no longer unthinkable for the Shiites to dominate Mecca. The Iranian empire is not limited to the Middle East. Despite all this, was [Ayatollah] Khomeini correct in saying that Iran will finally defeat America, the great devil?
The subject of this book is to determine the movement of the Iranian empire. Our point of view is from the surroundings to the subject; Where empires can always be better examined and their character understood in the best way. The character of the Roman Empire can be better understood by examining Spain or Gaul than[4] by examining the center of the city of Rome. Accordingly, instead of Tehran, by examining Lebanon, Iraq and Afghanistan, we will better understand the map of the Iranian empire.
تماشای ایران در سی سال گذشته برای من مانند یک سفر طولانی بود. من آنقدر خوش شانس بودهام که در حوالی آنچه که درباره آن نوشتهام، زندگی کردهام؛ من شاهد تغییر اندک اندک ایران از یک آشفتگی محض به یک قدرت دولتی بودهام. من دیدم که ایران به یک قدرت نظامی متعارف تر تبدیل می شد؛ قدرتی که شاید نتواند ایالات متحده را در یک نبرد سنتی شکست دهد اما می تواند که با یک حضور طولانی مدت در خاورمیانه، آمریکا را تضعیف کند. آنچه بدیهی است و ما را به این نتیجه می رساند این است که: ایران قدرتمندترین و با ثبات ترین کشور خاورمیانه است؛ کشوری که ایالات متحده یا باید با آن وارد یک جنگ سی ساله دیگر شود و یا با آن کنار بیاد.
How Iran got here, where it will go from here, and what actions the United States should take in this regard, are the topics covered in this book. “The Devil We Know” is a book for studying the developments in Iran.
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