Read Iran's Deadly Ambition Online
Authors: Ilan Berman
29
.
See, for example, “Text of President Bush’s 2003 State of the Union Address,”
Washington Post
, January 28, 2003,
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/onpolitics/transcripts/bushtext_012803.html
.
30
.
See, for example, Mohammad Ali Kadivar, “To Participate or to Boycott? Challenges of the 2013 Election and the Iranian Opposition,”
Jadaliyya
, September 4, 2012,
http://www.jadaliyya.com/pages/index/7195/to-participate-or-boycott-challenges-of-the-2013-e
.
31
.
Munk School of Global Affairs at the University of Toronto and ASL19,
A 100-Day Report on the Observations of the Rouhani Meter and the Rouhani Presidency
, Rouhani Meter, December 2013,
http://munkschool.utoronto.ca/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/Rouhani-Meter-100_Day_Report.pdf
.
CHAPTER I: IRAN’S MANIFEST DESTINY
1
.
Middle Eastern government official, in discussion with author, Washington, D.C., October 2014. Interview conducted in confidentiality, and name of interviewee is withheld by mutual agreement.
2
.
Oliver August, “The Revolution Is Over,”
The Economist
, November 1, 2014,
http://www.economist.com/news/special-report/21628597-after-decades-messianic-fervour-iran-becoming-more-mature-and-modern-country
.
3
.
Walter Russell Mead, “The Return of Geopolitics: The Revenge of the Revisionist Powers,”
Foreign Affairs
(May/June 2014),
http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/141211/walter-russell-mead/the-return-of-geopolitics
.
4
.
Imam Khomeini,
Islamic Government
(Tehran: The Institute for the Compilation and Publication of Imam Khomeini’s Works, n.d.),
http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=7&ved=0CEgQFjAG&url=http%3A%2F%2Fkms1.isn.ethz.ch%2Fserviceengine%2FFiles%2FISN%2F125389%2Fipublicationdocument_singledocument%2Fc5044352-8f45-41a5-b670-3fbec28b479e%2Fen%2F8006_islamic-government.pdf&ei=3t-hVOyqCYSxggTGnYP4DA&usg=AFQjCNGTiVELJgSmR5mrHS55-lqxagLk6Q&sig2=a3OEPbUdrOuy8lhYZjz6EA&bvm=bv.82001339,d.eXY
.
5
.
Ruhollah Khomeini, as quoted in Robin Wright,
Sacred Rage: The Wrath of Militant Islam
(New York: Simon & Schuster, 1986), 21.
6
.
Constitution of Iran, adopted on October 24, 1979; amended on July 28, 1989. “Iran—Constitution,” International Constitutional Law Project Information,
http://www.servat.unibe.ch/icl/ir00000_.html
.
7
.
As quoted in Wright,
Sacred Rage
, 21.
8
.
Ibid., 21, 32–35.
9
.
See “An Open Letter: The Hizballah Program,” Council on Foreign Relations, January 1, 1988,
http://www.cfr.org/terrorist-organizations-and-networks/open-letter-hizballah-program/p30967
.
10
.
U.S. Department of Defense,
Annual Report on Military Power of Iran
,
April 2010
,
http://www.armscontrolwonk.com/file_download/226/2010_04_19_Unclass_Report_on_Iran_Military.pdf
.
11
.
Richard L. Armitage, “America’s Challenges in a Changed World,” remarks at the United States Institute of Peace Conference, Washington, DC, September 5, 2002,
http://web.archive.org/web/20020917202341/www.state.gov/s/d/rm/2002/13308pf.htm
.
12
.
See, for example, Daniel Byman et al.,
Iran’s Security Policy in the Post-Revolutionary Era
(Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2001),
http://www.rand.org/pubs/monograph_reports/MR1320.html
.
13
.
Edgar O’Ballance,
Islamic Fundamentalist Terrorism, 1979–95: The Iranian Connection
(New York: New York University Press, 1997), 42.
14
.
Julian Borger and Robert Tait, “The Financial Power of the Revolutionary Guards,”
The Guardian
(London), February 15, 2010,
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/feb/15/financial-power-revolutionary-guard
.
15
.
Kim Murphy, “Iran’s $12-Billion Enforcers,”
Los Angeles Times
, August 26, 2007,
http://articles.latimes.com/2007/aug/26/world/fg-guards26
.
16
.
Babak Dehghanpisheh, “Why Sanctions Won’t Hurt the Revolutionary Guards,”
Newsweek
, July 10, 2010,
http://www.newsweek.com/why-sanctions-wont-hurt-revolutionary-guards-74673
.
17
.
Massimo Calabresi, “New Sanctions Target Revolutionary Guards,”
Time
, June 10, 2010,
http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1995869,00.html
.
18
.
Mark Gregory, “Expanding Business Empire of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards,” BBC News, July 26, 2010,
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-10743580
.
19
.
Iran experts, as quoted in Borger and Tait, “The Financial Power of the Revolutionary Guards.”
20
.
Kasra Naji,
Ahmadinejad: The Secret History of Iran’s Radical Leader
(London: I.B. Taurus, 2008), 33–35.
21
.
Ibid., 258.
22
.
Ali Alfoneh, “All Ahmadinejad’s Men,”
Middle East Quarterly
(Spring 2011): 79
–
84.
23
.
Ibid.
24
.
Emanuele Ottolenghi,
Pasdaran: Inside Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps
(Washington, DC: FDD Press, 2011), 30.
25
.
Amir Taheri, “The Odd Guard,”
New York Post
, August 29, 2007,
http://nypost.com/2007/08/29/the-odd-guard/
.
26
.
See, for example, Ali Alfoneh,
Iran Unveiled: How the Revolutionary Guards Is Transforming Iran from Theocracy to Military Dictatorship
(Washington, DC: AEI Press, 2013).
27
.
“U.S. Seeks to Support Iran Democratic Forces—Clinton,” Reuters, September 8, 2010,
http://af.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idAFTRE6874ZR20100908
.
28
.
James R. Clapper,
Worldwide Threat Assessment of the US Intelligence Community
, Statement for the Record, Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, January 29, 2014,
http://www.dni.gov/index.php/newsroom/testimonies/203-congressional-testimonies-2014/1005-statement-for-the-record-worldwide-threat-assessment-of-the-us-intelligence-community
.
29
.
Mohammed Mohaddessin,
Islamic Fundamentalism: The New Global Threat
(Washington, DC: Seven Locks Press, 1993), 132
–
36.
30
.
Adam C. Seitz and Anthony H. Cordesman,
Iranian Weapons of Mass Destruction: The Birth of a Regional Nuclear Arms Race?
(Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger Security International, 2009), 26.
31
.
Daniel Lee,
Iran’s Naval Ambitions
, Iran Strategy Brief, no. 7 (American Foreign Policy Council, September 2013), 1–3.
32
.
Steven O’Hern,
Iran’s Revolutionary Guard: The Threat That Grows While America Sleeps
(Washington, DC: Potomac Books, 2012), 8.
33
.
Lowell E. Jacoby,
Current and Projected National Security Threats to the United States
, Statement for the Record, Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, February 24, 2004,
http://fas.org/irp/congress/2004_hr/022404jacoby.pdf
.
34
.
“Commander: IRGC Navy Can Sink US Warships in a Twinkling of an Eye,” FARS News Agency (Tehran), May 6, 2014,
http://english.farsnews.com/newstext.aspx?nn=13930215001625
.
35
.
Mohaddessin,
Islamic Fundamentalism
, 102.
36
.
Greg Bruno, Jayshree Bajoria, and Jonathan Masters, “Iran’s Revolutionary Guards,” Council on Foreign Relations, June 14, 2013,
http://www.cfr.org/iran/irans-revolutionary-guards/p14324
.
37
.
Michael Eisenstadt,
The Strategic Culture of the Islamic Republic of Iran: Operational and Policy Implications
, MES Monographs, no. 1 (Marine Corps University, August 2011), 3,
http://www.mcu.usmc.mil/MES%20Monographs/MESM%20No1,%20August%202011%20’The%20Strategic%20Culture%20of%20the%20Islamic%20Republic%20of%20Iran’.pdf
.
38
.
“Iran-Iraq War (1980–1988),”
GlobalSecurity.org
, n.d.,
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/war/iran-iraq.htm
.
39
.
Ibid.
40
.
United Nations, Office of the Secretary General,
Report on Iran’s Reconstruction Efforts in the Wake of the Conflict between the Islamic Republic of Iran and Iraq
, December 24, 1991, 48.
41
.
Hooshang Amirahmadi, “Iranian Recovery from Industrial Devastation during War with Iraq,” in
The Long Road to Recovery: Community Responses to Industrial Disaster
, ed. James K. Mitchell (Tokyo and New York: United Nations University Press, 1996),
http://www.unu.edu/unupress/unupbooks/uu21le/uu21le00.htm#Contents
.
42
.
See Joost Hiltermann, “Deep Traumas, Fresh Ambitions,”
Middle East Report
, no. 257 (Winter 2010),
http://www.merip.org/mer/mer257
.
43
.
See, for example, Robin Wright,
In the Name of God: The Khomeini Decade
(New York: Simon & Schuster, 1990).
44
.
See, for example, Byman et al.,
Iran’s Security Policy in the Post-Revolutionary Era
.
45
.
Tehran Radio
, June 25, 1989, as cited in Mohaddessin,
Islamic Fundamentalism
, 31.
46
.
Eisenstadt,
The Strategic Culture of the Islamic Republic of Iran
, 8.
47
.
U.S. Department of Defense,
Annual Report on Military Power of Iran
,
April 2010
.
48
.
U.S. Department of Defense,
Annual Report on Military Power of Iran, April 2012
,
http://fas.org/man/eprint/dod-iran.pdf
.
49
.
U.S. Department of Defense,
Annual Report on Military Power of Iran, January 2014
,
http://freebeacon.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/Iranmilitary.pdf
.
50
.
See, for example, David Horovitz, “For Iran’s Regime, the Prime Concern Is Survival, Not Eliminating Israel, Says Stuart Eizenstat,”
Times of Israel
, July 2, 2012,
http://www.timesofisrael.com/for-irans-regime-the-prime-concern-is-survival-not-eliminating-israel-says-stuart-eizenstat/
.
51
.
See Arash Karami, “Ayatollah Khamenei Urges Iran to Prepare for ‘New World Order,’ ”
Al-Monitor
, September 5, 2014,
http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2014/09/khamenei-new-world-order.html#
.
52
.
As cited in Hamid Algar,
Islam and Revolution Writings and Declarations of Imam Khomeini (1941–1980)
(North Haledon, NJ: Mizan Press, 1981), 286–87.
53
.
For a broader discussion of how Iran views its place in the Muslim World, see Vali Nasr,
The Shia Revival: How Conflicts within Islam Will Shape the Future
(New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2007).
54
.
For a review of Iranian thinking in this regard, see Graham E. Fuller,
The Center of the Universe: The Geopolitics of Iran
(Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1991).
55
.
“Transcript: Read Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s Speech at the U.N. General Assembly,”
FoxNews.com
, September 26, 2012,
http://insider.foxnews.com/2012/09/26/transcript-read-mahmoud-ahmadinejads-speech-at-the-u-n-general-assembly
.
56
.
Stephen Graubard, “Lunch with the FT: Henry Kissinger,”
Financial Times
, May 24/25, 2008,
http://www.henryakissinger.com/interviews/FinancialTimes240508.html
.
CHAPTER II: SUBVERTING THE ARAB SPRING
1
.
“Lawmaker: Uprisings in Region Promising Birth of Islamic Middle-East,” FARS News Agency (Tehran), February 5, 2011,
http://english.farsnews.com/newstext.php?nn=8911161168
.