In March 2003, Iranian General Ali Jafari has since observed Tehran the fall of Saddam Hussein and the annihilation of his centralized command in just three weeks. At the time and unlike some of his colleagues in the Iranian army, the fate of the old Iraqi enemy, the one who caused so many martyrs in the Iranian ranks during the 1980 war in which he took part, did not make him jump for joy. The Iranian government is already anticipating the fact that the disappearance of Saddam will soon benefit it to increase its power by taking control of the country via its Shiite militias. Ali Jafari is more cautious. He knows that in the United States, neoconservative ideology is on the rise.
After invading Iraq, its zealots now promise to apply the “domino theory” to the entire Orient. And Iran, in fact, is one of these dominoes. So, Jafari would spend the next four years designing a military architecture within the Revolutionary Guard’s Center for Strategic Studies that could never be destroyed. In September 2007, he was appointed commander of the guards. He wasted no time restructuring the entire Iranian military command, creating 31 independent units within Iran’s 31 provinces. Each has its command center, its missiles, its speedboats, soon its drones or its basidjisauxiliary guardians responsible for putting society under regulated control. Its doctrine is based on a single scenario: the death of the Supreme Guide.
On February 28, during the first Israeli strike on Tehran, this scenario occurred. And since then, the plan has been put into place, methodically, step by step. The plan is also in perfect accordance with article 110 of the Iranian Constitution of 1979 which grants military powers to the Supreme Leader alone. And it is very clear: fight with what you have, for as long as it takes, without waiting for instructions. It was not designed to defeat an enemy. It was designed to make Iranian defeat impossible. This doctrine strangely echoes that of American general David Petraeus, the inventor of modern counter-insurgency, and who, in the American soldier’s manual written in the 2000s, indicates that“in the absence of orders, imagine this order and act by applying it”. In this case, this means that if Iranian officials were to agree to a ceasefire, they would not be able to apply it to the 31 provinces whose commands operate completely independently. It is undoubtedly for this reason that the Iranians chose continuity, by appointing Ali’s son, Mojtaba Khamenei, as the new Supreme Guide. He might have the authority to stop all this.
Hormuz, a thorn in Trump’s side
We are far from it. Listening to his first message read on Thursday by an Iranian television presenter, everyone will have noted that he is adopting a hard line with his first directive being to continue the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz. This choice made by Iran to only allow its ships to pass through the strait is unprecedented. THE Wall Street Journal also reports that, while having closed it, Iran transits a quantity of oil greater than that which it exported before the conflict. During the eight years of war between Iran and Iraq, let us remember that the strait had never been blocked, even if certain areas had been mined. This time, Iran hesitates. Placing floating mines will undoubtedly have the effect of frightening shipowners and insurers, and keeping their ships at bay. On the other hand, the floating mine does not ask a tanker his nationality before sending him to the bottom. The subject is thorny especially for Donald Trump. In its command center, its missiles, its speedboats, soon its drones or its basijs, auxiliaries of the guards responsible for putting society under regulated control. Its doctrine is based on a single scenario: the death of the Supreme Guide. On February 28, during the first Israeli strike on Tehran, this scenario occurred.
And since then, the plan has been put into place, methodically, step by step. The plan is also in perfect accordance with article 110 of the Iranian Constitution of 1979 which grants military powers to the Supreme Leader alone. And it is very clear: fight with what you have, for as long as it takes, without waiting for instructions. It was not designed to defeat an enemy. It was designed to make Iranian defeat impossible.
This doctrine Iran’s allies are unfailingly devoted to it, putting pressure on the strait, in parallel with the progressive torpedoing of the economies of the Gulf countries, Tehran is playing cash with Trump on its own territory: that of oil and gas. The latter has since continued, in his interventions, to affirm that the objectives have almost all been achieved, that the American army is even ahead and to announce the victory by chaos of Iran, going so far as to ask the captains of the merchant navy to have the courage to cross the strait to save the world economy. In 2014, Barack Obama told the cadets at the West Point military school: “It’s not because we have the best hammer that we say we see every problem like a nail. » Donald Trump doesn’t see things that way.
Iran’s allies are unwaveringly devoted to it
The blockade of Strait of Hormuz is a solid thorn in the side of the tenant of the White House. Especially since it is coupled with another lever for Iran which is its capacity to cause harm in neighboring countries. Capacity widely demonstrated by the destruction wrought by Iranian missiles and especially the famous Shahed drones whose manufacturing costs are ridiculous compared to those of the air defense batteries supposed to intercept them. But it is the impact on the ground of international markets which most surprised Americans and Israelis in the Iranian response.
So, last Thursday, Khatam al-Anbiya, the command center of the Iranian army, declared that any bank linked to the interests of the United States and Israel would now be a legitimate military target. Its spokesperson specified that each individual must move at least one kilometer away from banking centers in Dubai, Bahrain or Kuwait. The fact that there is a school, a shopping center or a mosque in this same area does not seem to move the Iranians any more. This decision follows an Israeli strike in the heart of Tehran on the Sepah bank, an institution linked to the Iranian Revolutionary Guards. But the Iranians also have Google, Amazon, Microsoft and Nvidia in their sights. By targeting oil, data centers and now banks, they are on the verge of wiping out the economies of the Gulf countries, all creatures of America at heart. The consequences, if the phenomenon continues, are at this stage truly incalculable.
To understand this asymmetrical war wanted and fought by Iran, we must go back to the 1980s. At the time, Tehran was at the heart of a very deadly conflict with its Iraqi neighbor. Hundreds of thousands of fighters are killed. The West helped Iraq massively, and for Tehran the lesson is painful. Iran then realizes that, if one day it has to confront a modern army like that of the United States or Israel, it will have no chance with conventional means.
From that time on, Iran therefore planned to avoid its enemy’s strong points in order to attack its weak points. Instead of investing in a substantial air force, capable of competing with American fighter planes and stealth bombers, Iran is engaged in the production of missiles, then drones. In 2003, using a North Korean Taepodong missile and a Soviet S-5, Tehran developed its first ballistic missile. For twenty years, the country has produced and hidden thousands in the heart of real underground cities spread across its entire continental territory of more than a million and a half square kilometers, a large part of which is made up of inaccessible mountains and arid deserts.
Target American bases
The effect of these two types of weaponry no longer needs to be demonstrated. The Iranian navy, which Trump likes to mock, was never designed to compete with American aircraft carriers. Its speedboats, however, are formidable when it comes to blocking Ormuz. What also seems incredible is that the United States knew perfectly well that from November 2022, the Shahed drones, revisited by Russian engineers, had pierced Ukrainian anti-aircraft defenses and allowed Moscow to deeply damage the country’s electricity network. How could we ignore that the Iranians would use the same weapon to target American bases in the region and now the slightest American or Israeli interest? Mystery…
Last point, and not least, Iran has built alongside its armament a solid network of regional allies in what has been called the “Shiite Crescent”. This one goes from Hezbollah in Lebanon to the Houthis in Yemen, including Hachd al-Chaabi in Iraq. These allies were trained and armed by Tehran. They are unfailingly devoted to him because a religious bond binds them. They now allow Iran to wage war, not on a single battlefield but on multiple ones. The death of French chief warrant officer Arnaud Frion in Iraqi Kurdistan is one of the consequences of the expanded nuisance capacity of Iran’s proxies.
Faced with the worsening threats to the Gulf countries, their emissaries continue to put pressure on Donald Trump. He explains that he has “all his time”. The Iranians, for their part, indicated that if there were to be negotiations, they would demand a halt to all strikes first. Russia and China are for their part very active, first because they helped the Iranians at the intelligence level, now to find a solution to the conflict. On two occasions, Donald Trump contacted Vladimir Putin. The latter was granted a lifting of sanctions on hydrocarbons for a period of one month. It is a safe bet that if he has to put pressure on his Iranian ally, he will try to link the resolution of this conflict to that of Ukraine. In the past, a proverb attributed to the Taliban made them say: “You have the watches. We have time. » It seems that the Iranians have adopted this proverb as their own.
Strikes on Kharg Island: Trump wants to regain control
An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. Taking stock of the enormous blow to the Gulf economies and global energy trade by Iran’s closure of the Strait of Hormuz, Donald Trump gave the order on Friday to strike the island of Kharg, a nerve center of the Iranian economy. An expeditionary force of some 4,000 Marines is on its way to the Gulf with the prospect, perhaps, of seizing the island. Iran, for its part, announced that it would retaliate “against installations in the region belonging to oil companies with American interests or cooperating with the United States”.
The strikes on Kharg took place at a crucial moment in the war. Washington faces widespread criticism for failing to anticipate the impact of the war on the Strait of Hormuz, as well as for having underestimated the repercussions. The American president intends to regain control. However, he specified that he had destroyed the “Kharg military targets” and not its oil installations, through which 90% of crude oil exports pass. Indeed, if these were destroyed, Iran would no longer be able to export a drop of oil. The quantity available on the world market would be reduced even further. Only one country would benefit: Russia.
