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How the Mossad Infiltrated Iran
(Jewish Chronicle-UK) Saul Sadka - How is it that Israel, a country more than a thousand kilometers away, can operate so freely within Iran, one of the most tightly surveilled, repressive regimes in the Middle East - where any captured agent faces certain torture and death? In reality, Iran is a fractured state, holding together a volatile patchwork of discontented ethnic and religious groups under the banner of a decaying revolutionary ideology. Only about 48% of Iran's population is ethnically Persian. The remaining 52% is made up of Azeris, Kurds, Arabs, Balochs, Lurs, Turkmen, and others, many of whom harbor deep resentment toward the Persian-dominated regime. These groups maintain strong cross-border ties with neighboring populations, making them natural allies for foreign intelligence agencies and enemies of Tehran. Most people living in the border regions feel more loyal to their trans-border tribe or ethnicity than to the Islamic Republic. Iran's geography also aids infiltration: its vast mountainous borders are impossible to seal hermetically. The Revolutionary Guard, the regime's backbone, has become a retirement club for ageing, overweight men in their 60s and 70s. These are the original 1979 revolutionaries.