|
Trending Topics
|
President Bush and the Qods Force Controversy: Lessons Learned
[Institute for Contemporary Affairs/Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs] Dan Diker - President Bush, Defense Secretary Gates, and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman General Pace have not been willing to say that the U.S. has specific intelligence indicating that Qods Force operations in Iraq have been approved by the Iranian leadership. The debate over the nature of the Qods Force and its links to the Iranian leadership may benefit from an analysis of Israel's experience battling the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps' (IRGC) Qods Force and Iranian proxies like Hizbullah, Hamas, and Islamic Jihad, whether in Lebanon, Gaza, the West Bank, or elsewhere. Senior Israeli military and intelligence officials have with a high degree of certainty linked Iran's senior leadership with direct involvement over the past fifteen years in Qods Force operations against Israel. The Qods Force carries out these types of military operations across the Middle East, to export the revolution and establish an "Iranian Shiite crescent" through which Iran could assert regional hegemony. Khomeini's strategy was to set up a separate military command structure linked tightly to the new Islamic leadership in Iran, whose loyalty to the revolution would not be in doubt. The IRGC came to be entrusted with operating the regime's most sensitive forces and weapon systems, including weapons of mass destruction, Iran's ballistic missile program, and its foreign insurgency operations. Since Ahmadinejad's 2005 electoral victory, he has appointed former IRGC officers to the most important senior positions in the Iranian government, further tightening the relationship between the IRGC, its foreign operations units, and the Iranian government. The IDF identified a Qods Force presence in southern Lebanon during the second Lebanon war in the area of Baalbek, where there has been an IRGC presence since it established the Hizbullah there in 1982. During the war, up to 250 Qods Force trainers were in Lebanon assisting Hizbullah units. Since the second Lebanon war, Iran has increased its direct support for Hamas, pledging $250 million in Oct. 2006, including $100 million to pay PA government salaries for six months. Hamas and Islamic Jihad members have been shuttled to Iran for training at IRGC camps. The Qods Force has also reportedly set up training camps in Gaza.