1© The Author(s) 2020
O. Seliktar, F. Rezaei, Iran, Revolution, and Proxy Wars, Middle
East Today, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-29418-2_1
CHAPTER 1
Exporting the Revolution and Building
Hegemony
Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini arrived in Tehran on February 1, 1979. His
tumultuous welcome was the crowning touch of the revolutionary turmoil
which swept away the Pahlavi dynasty from power. The Islamic Republic of
Iran that Khomeini established was destined to send shock waves throughout
the Middle East and the world. Its subsequent politics have never left
the headlines. In the name of exporting the Islamist revolution, Iran used
assorted Shiite militias to carve out a sphere of influence known as the
Shiite Crescent. These revolutionary foot soldiers engaged in terrorism and
other forms of violence to destabilize neighboring countries and strike out
against real and perceived enemies of Khomeini’s brand of Islamism.
As in other cases or revolution regimes, underpinning the lofty rhetoric
of revolutionary export were more pedestrian concerns of regime survival
and national interests of Iran as a nation-state. These tangled imperatives
could be best understood by analyzing the peculiar duality of Iran.
The Duality of the New Regime: Iran as a State
and an Exporter of the Revolution
There was nothing in traditional Shiite theology to indicate an inclination
to partake in political activism. In the conventional Shiite jurisprudence,
the issues of governance and government have rarely been mentioned.
Known as quietism, this tradition stipulated that the leadership of the
­society rests solely with Imam Mahdi, the 12th Imam believed to be
2
hidden in the Major Occultation. Until his return to bring justice to the
world, Muslims must tolerate the government and the concomitant idolatry
and oppression. Because of this stipulation, the religious class, the
ulama, remained largely apolitical and never proposed an alternative to the
ruling system.
Shiite quietists justify their stance by referring to a hadith of Imam
Jaafar al-Sadeq, the sixth Shiite Imam who asserted that raising any flag
before the return of Imam Mahdi was idolatrous. According to this hadith,
Shiites should avoid imposing their true belief on the government, no
matter what its nature is, to give them a chance to live under adversity
imposed by the unjust rulers.1
Grand Ayatollah Seyyed Hossein Borujerdi, the marja-e taghlid (the
Source of Emulation), who founded the Qom Seminary—the central religious
authority in the Shiite world—was a strong advocate of clerical quietism.
Borujerdi explained that politics is a highly complex issue, which the
ulama were ill-prepared to tackle. For instance, he repeatedly noted that
“the Constitutional Revolution in Iran taught me not to get involved in
political affairs if I did not have a clear idea of their origins and outcomes.”
During the tumultuous period of Mohammad Mosaddegh2
rule and the
debate about nationalizing Iran’s oil industry, Borujerdi forbade clergy to
interfere in political affairs. Because the Grand Ayatollah was universally
revered, quietism officially prevailed in Iran until his death in 1961.3
For all his influence, Borujerdi encountered opposition from activist
clergy associated with the teaching of Ayatollah Abulqassem Kashani, a
left-leaning clergy closely involved with the anti-colonial movement in
Iran. Kashani, who opposed, capitalism, colonialism, and imperialism, was
only of the clergy to defy Borujerdi to support Mosaddegh. Although he
subsequently had a falling-out with the nationalist leader, Kashani has
been considered a true leader of the activist camp. Indeed, to demonstrate
the synergy between religion and politics, Kashani went on to serve in the
Iranian parliament in the 1950s.4
1
 As-Sahifa Al-Kamilah Al-Sajjadiyya, published by Moasesat AlElmi Al-Matboat, Beirut,
pp. 26–27.
2
 Mosaddegh was Iran’s prime minister from 1951 to 1953 when his government was
overthrown by a coup d’état orchestrated by the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and
the United Kingdom’s MI6.
3
 Marjaeyat va Syasat: Ayatollah Boroujerdi Political Biography, www.broujerdi.ir/index.
php/2016-03-25-16-38-40/2016-03-25-16-40-41/393-2016-03-26-07-11-50.
4
 Nasrullah Shifteh, Relationship between Mosaddegh and Kashani, Islamic Studies Center,
http://iscq.ir/?part=menu&inc=menu&id=308.
  O. SELIKTAR AND F. REZAEI
3
More consequentially, Kashani did not limit his activities to legitimate
politics. He joined up with Navab Safavi, a devotee of the Sayyid Qutb,
the founder of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood who advocated political
violence. Kashani and Safavi believed that the Muslim regimes needed to
be “purified,” and it was up to the true believers to get rid of “corrupt”
government officials by assassinating them. They founded the first Islamist
terrorist group in Iran, the Fadā’iyān-e Islam (Fighters of Islam). The
Fadā’iyān-e Islam was involved in several assassinations and assassination
attempts. On December 25, 1955, Safavi and three other members of the
group were executed. Ayatollah Borujerdi, who expelled the Fadā’iyān-e
Islam from Qom in 1950, refused to intervene on his behalf.5
Sayyid Ruhollah Mūsavi Khomeini, a rising start in Qom, however, was
far more sympathetic to the cause of the Fadā’iyān. Although loyal to
Borujerdi, the young cleric felt it was imperative for the ulama to get
involved in the political realm. Indeed, Khomeini was well acquainted
with both Kashani and Safavi who visited him in 1943 and 1944. It was
also through Safavi that Khomeini became open to the Muslim
Brotherhood idea of Muslim ecumenism. In one of his early writings,
Kashf al Asrar (Uncovering of Secrets), Khomeini revealed his predilection
for engaging in the political arena. The pamphlet was a radical denunciation
of the secularization of the society and a thinly veiled attack on the
anti-clerical activist and historian Ahmed Kasravi. Khomeini decreed
Kasravi to be a Madhur-al-Dam (one whose blood needs to be shed by
believers). On March 11, 1946, two members of the Fadā’iyān, Hoseein
and Ali-Mohamed Emami murdered Kasravi and his assistant. Khomeini
intervened with the Shah to spare their lives.6
If the Kasravi murders were an early indication that Khomeini was willing
to embrace political violence, his subsequent history revealed a radical
transformation in personality and ideology. Following an unsuccessful
effort to derail the Shah’s White Revolution, an attempt to modernize and
Westernize Iran, Khomeini was exiled to Turkey in 1964. Less than a year
later, in November 1965, Khomeini was allowed to move to Najaf, the
center of Shiite learning in Iraq, where many of his students followed him.
Despite the shared faith, Khomeini found Najaf less than congenial, often
referring to it as a “den of snakes.” What bothered Khomeini the most was
5
 Con Cochlin, Khomeini’s Ghost, HarperCollins, e-edition, p. 106.
6
 Amir Taheri, The Spirit of Allah, 1985, 98, 102; Con Cochlin, The Ghost of Khomeini,
104.
1  EXPORTING THE REVOLUTION AND BUILDING HEGEMONY 
4
the fact that senior Iraqi Shiite leaders were quietists who frowned on
his activism and especially his evolving notion of a theocratic state.
Instead, he surrounded himself with a handful of like-minded activist
clerics such as Ayatollah Mohammed Bakr al Sadr, the founder of the
Dawa Party, and Musa Sader who became part of the so-called Najaf
circle. Khomeini’s former students in Qom who attended classes in
Najaf noted the change in his demeanor: “In Qom he wanted to be a
religious leader; in Najaf he wanted to be a political leader” in the
words of one of them.7
Khomeini first articulated his political vision in a series of lectures in
Najaf, “The Islamic State,” which appeared in a 1970 book published in
Beirut. In a radical departure of historical Islamic practices, Khomeini
used post-Occultation theology to postulate that a proper Islamic order
needed to be based on a principle of velayat-e faqih, the rule of a capable
jurist. The government of the faqih was essentially a form of guardianship
awaiting the arrival of the truth ruler, the Hidden Imam. While the theocratic
feature captured much of the popular attention, a deeper analysis of
Khomeini’s teaching revealed that it amounted to a radical revision of
Shiism, known as neo-Shiism or Khomeinism.
It is not entirely clear how many of participants in the anti-Shah revolution
realized that the rule of the monarchy would be replaced by an all-­
encompassing neo-Shiite philosophy. However, shortly after the arrival of
Khomeini, decisive steps were made to turn the velayat-e faqih theory into
practice.8
Although Khomeini received a tumultuous welcome, his top advisers,
Ayatollah Mohammad Beheshti and Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, realized
that the democratic fervor which toppled the Shah needed to be acknowledged.
To satisfy the democratic impulse without undermining too much
of the rule of the faqih, the Khomeinists created a complex system of representation.
The Majlis (parliament) members and the president were
elected by popular vote, albeit from a list of names approved by the
7
 Con Coughlin, Khomeini’s Ghost: The Iranian Revolution and the Rise of Militant
Islam, Harper Collins Publishers, 2014, pp. 151–154.
8
 Ruhollah Khomeini, Velayat-e faqih, The institute for compilation and publication of the
works of Imam Khomeini, 2005.
  O. SELIKTAR AND F. REZAEI
5
Council of Guardians. The Council was also in charge of making sure that
the Majlis legislation was compatible with the Koran. The Constitution of
November 1979, which codified this peculiar “theocratic democracy,”
stipulated that an 86-member body known as the Council of Experts
would choose the faqih, elevated to the position of a Supreme Leader.
Even with the added constraints of Islamist theocracy, Iran could have
passed as a conventional nation-state. As in other countries, the
Constitution provided for a hierarchical power structure in which a higher
level indicates a more significant measure of power and control over the
lower levels and the chain of command extends from top to bottom.
According to the Constitution, the executive branch—that is, the president—the
government, the state bureaucracy, and the security forces were
in charge of the political and economic system. The Majlis and the duly
elected officials were called upon to uphold the national interest of the
state within the limits of international law and partake in the community
of nations. Since the international community operated within the framework
of the Treaty of Westphalia which elevated the principle of the sovereign
state, the Islamic Republic was expected to refrain from interfering
in the affairs of other sovereign nations.
However, Ayatollah Khomeini and his followers were not content with
creating an Islamic Republic in Iran alone. Velayat-e faqih asserted that the
mandate of the religious ruler extends beyond Iran to include the entire
Ummah, the universe of Muslim countries. Indeed, according to
Khomeini, the nation-state was a Western construct, and part of the
imperial-­colonial design considered heresy (kufr) in Islam. Liberating the
mustazafeen thus required propagating Islam (tabligh-e eslam) and exporting
the revolution (sudur engilab). For instance, on January 14, 1980,
Ayatollah Khomeini stated: “We are at war against the infidels…, I ask all
Islamic nations, all Muslims, to join the holy war. There are many enemies
to be killed or destroyed. Jihad must triumph.” In a New Year message on
March 21, 1980, he announced that “we must strive to export our revolution
throughout the world and must abandon all ideas of not doing so.”9
Khomeini was hardly alone in espousing revolutionary export. If anything,
Grand Ayatollah Hussein-Ali Montazeri, a one-time heir to Khomeini,
9
 Yossef Bodansky, Target America: Terrorism in the U. S. Today, S.P.I. Books, 1993, 167;
Richard J.  Leitner and Peter M.  Leitner, Unheeded Warnings: The Lost Reports of the
Congressional Task Force, p.  193; Shmuel Bar, Iranian Terrorist Policy and Export of
Revolution, Institute for Policy and Strategy, Working Paper, 2009.
1  EXPORTING THE REVOLUTION AND BUILDING HEGEMONY 
6
emerged as the most enthusiastic booster of a global Islamist revolution. In
his words, exporting the revolution meant “supporting the oppressed
[Muslim] nations.” Montazeri noted that the Prophet said “a person who
spent one night while he does not care about the affairs of the Muslims, is
not a Muslim, and a person who has heard an oppressed voice which calls
for help from Muslims, but he does not answer to him, he is not a Muslim.”
On another occasion, he stated that under Islamic ethics, it was the responsibility
of Muslims to help each other and that this help should extend to the
realm of foreign affairs.10
While highly enthusiastic, Khomeini and his fellow exporters faced considerable
opposition from the government of the moderate politician
Mehdi Bazargan. Even some stalwarts of the Islamic Republican Party
(IRP), such as Ayatollah Mohamed Beheshti and Ali Akbar Rafsanjani
who represented the landowning clergy and the merchant class, had little
appetite for an immediate revolutionary push. Realizing early on that this
kind of foreign policy adventurism would hurt the national interest of
Iran, they tried to tamper the “Trotskyites.” With neither side holding the
upper hand, the bitter debate about “the logic of the state versus the logic
of the revolution” had underlaid the functioning of the regime and would
periodically break public. In what was the most conspicuous display of this
struggle, the hard-liners were forced to agree on the nuclear negotiations
leading to the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). A
study of the nuclear project revealed that the international sanctions created
a profound crisis of legitimacy and persuaded the embattled Supreme
Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to side with the moderates.11
However, the lesson that foreign policy adventurism could bring punishing
costs was still in the future. In the meanwhile, even those worried
about the potential damage stemming from “Trotskyite” impulse with
Khomeini agreed that to safeguard the revolution, a set of dedicated institutions
outside of the purview of the state needed to be created.
On April 22, 1979, Ayatollah Khomeini announced the foundation of
the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), known popularly as the
Revolutionary Guards. Ostensibly, the IRGC was limited to domestic
10
 Hossein Ali Montazeri, Islam Dine Fetrat, Nashr-e Sayeh, 2009, p. 400; Afshon Ostovar,
Vanguard of the Imam: Religion, Politics, and Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, Oxford
University Press, 2016, loc. 2435.
11
 Ofira Seliktar and Farhad Rezaei, Iran, Israel, and the United States: The Politics of
Counter-Proliferation Intelligence, NY: Lexington Books, 2017.
  O. SELIKTAR AND F. REZAEI
7
operations, but it was quite clear that spreading the revolution was also on
the agenda. As Montazeri put it in a talk to IRGC commanders, “You
Guardian brothers, should protect Islam and the Islamic Revolution, and
with your efforts, our Islamic revolution will be exported to other
countries.”12
He added that “We want people of the region, affected by
the essence of our revolution, to wake up and start their revolutionary
movement.” In due time, the IRGC described its mission in transnational
terms: “The Islamic Revolution does not have any borders… The Islamic
Revolutionary Guard Corpse does not have the word ‘Iran’ in its title. This
means that it seeks to defend the Islamic Revolution and its achievements
without regard to particular borders.” As one observer put it, the Guards
declaration was nothing short of “an assault on the Westphalian system.”13
Rhetoric aside, the IRGC was given considerable independent resources
to carry out its mission. The organization could count on a large number
of foundation (bonyads) and other “charitable” institutions such as the
Mustazafeen Foundation, Astan-e Qods-e Razawi Foundation, Martyr’s
(Shahid) Foundation, Imam Khomeini Emdad Committee, Setad-e Ejray-e
Farman-e Imam, known as Setad (the Headquarter for Executing the
Order of the Imam), among others. In due course, the Guards would create
a vast economic empire which made them largely independent from the
state, let alone accountable to it. As would be discussed in later chapters,
they used some of their assets such as the Khatam al Anbia Construction
Company to build terror infrastructure in Lebanon and Sudan.14
This separate parastatal structure posed a considerable challenge to the
statist part of the regime. Theoretically, the Supreme Leader was tasked
with settling the debates between the state and the parastatal, but in practice
the process was cumbersome and opaque, involving endless negotiations,
bargaining, strong-arming, and intimidation. Due to absence of a
clear hierarchical delineation of power, the complex negotiating political
order made tracking decision-making difficult, a feature which observers
have often complained about. As one of them noted, “decision making
remained secret … in a complex web of institutions and circles, constantly
in flux.” Another likened the “bitter and complex infighting” to a
12
 Hossein Ali Montazeri, the Memoir, Ketab Corp, 2001, p. 565.
13
 Nader Uskowi, Temperature Rising, Iran’s Revolutionary Guards and Wars in the Middle
East, Lanham, MD. Rowman & Littlefield, 2019, loc. 158; Montazeri, The Memoir, p. 565.
14
 Iran: The Rise of the Revolutionary Guards’ Financial Empire, National Revolutionary
Council of Iran, National Revolutionary Council of Iran, 2017, loc. 427–438.
1  EXPORTING THE REVOLUTION AND BUILDING HEGEMONY 
8
“kaleidoscope … [for] as soon as one pattern formed, it was quickly
shaken apart, only to reform in a different pattern.” Another lamented
that “Iran’s lines of power and authority are almost impossible to follow.
They seem to change between morning and night.”15
Whatever configuration
de jour had emerged, the unresolved tension between the interest
of the state and the interest of the revolution was always in the background.
As Henry Kissinger famously quipped, “Iran must decide whether
it is a nation or a cause.”16
Much as the international community hoped that Iran would revert to
a traditional nation-state, the “Trotskyites” developed a powerful narrative
against the West.
The Enemies of Islam: The Great Satan
and the Little Satan
For Khomeini and Montazeri, and the cohort which came of age during
the nationalist upheaval in Iran, the West was a primary enemy. In the early
twentieth century, it was the British Empire that epitomized in their eyes
the enemy that was aggressive and rapacious with imperialism and colonialism.
It was also the source of collective humiliation and shame that,
according to one historian, was growing since Napoleon smashed his way
into Egypt in 1798. Together with the British, the colonial project robbed
Islam of its dignity.17
By the early fifties, however, the United States had replaced Great
Britain as the arch-enemy of Iranian nationalist clergy like Ayatollah
Kashani. Khomeini had his reasons to oppose the United States which, in
his view, pushed the Shah into a process of modernization embodied in
the White Revolution. Anti-American sentiments were rife in the “Najaf
circle,” which exposed Khomeini to the writings of Ali Shariati, a leading
sociologist and philosopher who proposed a synthesis of socialism and
Islam. Shariati, in turn, was influenced by the anti-Western crusader Jalal
al Ahmad who warned his countrymen about the danger of gharbzadegi,
Westoxification, his term for Westernization.
15
 Ofira Seliktar, Navigating Iran: From Carter to Obama, Palgrave Macmillan, 2012,
p. 29.
16
 Quoted in Sean Durnes, “Forty Years of Misreading Iran.” Washington Examiner,
February 11, 2019.
17
 Ed Husain, The House of Islam, A Global History, 2018, 5.
  O. SELIKTAR AND F. REZAEI
9
Khomeini’s speeches and writings were rife with anti-American sentiments.
Typically, he would declare that “the biggest betrayal of America to
our nation is imposing Pahlavi regime on us and supporting it unconditionally
and this is only a part of America’s oppressing our nation.” He would
add that “America is the number one enemy of Islam and our nation
because it is supporting the Shah. America wants to humiliate the dignity of
mankind. It is the responsibility of all Muslims to stand up against and
eliminate America; otherwise, the world will remain corrupted as far as
America is alive.” Montazeri was in total agreement, writing in an open letter:
“It is the responsibility of all Muslims to stand up against America and
Israel. America wants to destroy Islamic countries by any possible means.
People should not forget that America is the number one enemy of Islam.”18
Seizing power only increased Khomeini’s motivation to challenge the
United States. To sacralize the struggle, Khomeini and numerous regime
representatives had begun referring to the United States as the Great
Satan. Chants of “death to America” were a routine part of every rally,
whipping up a public frenzy and motivating vigilantes who thrived in the
chaotic first year of the revolution. On November 4, 1979, one such
group, Students Following the Line of Imam (SFLI), attacked the
American embassy in Tehran and took the embassy staff hostage. Despite
efforts by the Bazargan government to free the diplomats, they were held
in captivity for 400 days. The unprecedented breach of international protocol
cemented the regime’s status as a revolutionary crusader and an
uncompromising foe of the Great Satan.
While tracing the logic of the anti-American animus was easy, the origin
of the hostility to Israel, the “Little Satan,” was not clear. There was nothing
in the traditional Shiite tradition to indicate an even passing interest in
the subject of Jerusalem, the Palestinians, or the Jews. Since the return of
the Mahdi was not conditioned on controlling any particular of real estate,
Muslim holy places were only marginal to the Shiite eschatology. Mecca
and Medina were worshiped sacred space where the revelation and the
writing of the Koran took place but had no intrinsic value in the process of
salvation through the coming of the Mahdi. To the extent that the clergy
referred to the issue of Israel, the topic was political and not theological.
For instance, in 1933, the Iraqi Ayatollah Sheikh Mohammad Hossein
Kashful-gheta, apparently influenced by the tension between Jews and
Arabs in Palestine, issued a fatwa urging Muslims to fight against Jews.
18
 Kayhan Newspaper, November 2, 1979.
1  EXPORTING THE REVOLUTION AND BUILDING HEGEMONY 
10
When the Shah recognized the State of Israel, Seyyed Javad Hosseini, an
influenced cleric in Qom, attempted to mobilize his cohorts against the
move. Ayatollah Borujerdi, however, banned him from public speaking.19
The lack of historical precedent did not bother Ayatollah Khomeini
who launched a full-throated attack on the Jews while in exile in Najaf. In
Velayat-e faqih, Khomeini quoted a passage from the Koran to claim that
“from the very beginning Islam was afflicted by the Jews. They established
anti-Islamic propaganda and engaged in various plots against the Muslims.”
Khomeini described the Jews as sinful and as being constantly reprimanded
by God for their wickedness. In his view, Jews plotted against Muslims
more recently as well, seeking to undermine the most important feature of
Islam to facilitate the imperialist penetration of the Muslim countries. As
Khomeini put it, “the Jews may God curse them are opposed to the very
foundations of Islam and wish to establish Jewish domination throughout
the Islamic world. They meddle with the text of the Koran and published
false translations that distort its meaning to slander Islam.” Echoing
Shariati and Al-e Ahmad, Khomeini describes the Jews as fifth columnists
in the Islamic world and as subversive agents of the West who attempts to
undermine Islam. Most specifically, he argued that the Shah was a “Jew in
disguise” who was subservient to Israel and used to destroy Islam in Iran.20
Harsh as these statements were, they could be viewed as part of a classic
anti-Semitic repertoire popularized by Al-e Ahmad and Shariati, an opinion
espoused by the extensive literature on the regime’s anti-Semitism.
However, to the surprise of many, Khomeini’s real radical innovation pertained
to the place of Jerusalem and Palestine in the Shiite theology. In
1979, Khomeini declared that the liberation of Jerusalem the central component
of Iran’s Islamic ideology. Following the 1979 revolution,
Khomeini declared Shiite Islam to be the new liberator of Jerusalem and
the Holy Land from the Zionist enemy, or Little Satan. Khomeini argued
that the Islamic Revolution in Iran was a prelude to the liberation of
Jerusalem and the revolution would not be completed until Jerusalem was
back in Muslim hands. He defined the conflict with Israel as the struggle
between good and evil, adding that it was the religious obligation of all
19
 Montazeri, the Memoir, pp. 145–147.
20
 Ruhollah Khomeini, Velayat-e Faqih; Hawzah, Zionism Waist Broke in Iran, Hawzah.
net, https://hawzah.net/fa/Magazine/View/5737/6768/80895; Katajun Amirpur,
Iran’s Policy Toward Jewish Iranians and the State of Israel,” Die Welt des Islam, 52 (2012),
370–399.
  O. SELIKTAR AND F. REZAEI
11
Muslims to resist the profane Jewish entity. In other words, the liberation
of Jerusalem was not considered to a Palestinian responsibility alone, but
an undertaking of the entire Muslim world led by Tehran.21
Scholars who analyzed Khomeini’s narrative pointed out that elements
of it were adopted from the teachings of Qutab who considered the secular
Muslim leaders to be “crypto-Jews” bent on destroying Islam from
within. Indeed, Ayatollah Khomeini often charged the Shah of being a
“crypto-Jew.” However, others noted that the Islamic Republic of Iran
espoused “the most radical anti-Israeli or anti-Zionist position in the
Muslim Middle East.” In this view, the regime practiced “redemptive anti-­
Semitism,” a highly virulent form of anti-Semitism which considered the
physical annihilation of Israel to be the highest callings. There is little
doubt that redemptive anti-Semitism was an integral part of neo-Shiism.
Still, the obsessive focus on Jerusalem might have had a realpolitik purpose
as well. Since the Saudi Kingdom, the main rival of Khomeinism, was
the custodian of Mecca and Medina, Khomeini tried to even the playing
field by declaring the Muslim shrines of Jerusalem to be of equal value and
essentially appointing Iran as its custodian.22
Erecting the Infrastructure for Revolutionary
Export: Asymmetrical Warfare by Proxies
Although Khomeini declared America to be a “fake power” and boasted
that “our nation will defeat this fake power,” the new regime realized that
Iran could not win a conventional war because of the huge disparity in
power. Brigadier General S.K.  Malik, an Islamist who served on the
Pakistani General Staff, offered a solution to the quandary of power imbalance
in his popular book, the Koranic Concept of War. Malik argued that
unlike Western military strategy, Islamic warfare was rooted in jihad, the
holy war which was, by definition, asymmetrical. He added that jihad
allowed for terror operations, including suicide attacks on civilians. Malik
explained that terror operations create fear and panic among the target
population, lowering its morale and eroding its staying power in a conflict.
21
 A Quick Look at the History of Struggle Against Zionism by Shiite Ulama, http://revo-
lution.pchi.ir/show.php?page=contents&id=4928.
22
 Meir Litwak, “The Islamic Republic of Iran and the Holocaust: Anti-Semitism and antiZionism,”
Journal of Israeli History, vol. 25, no. 1, 2006; Ben Cohen, “Global anti-Semitism
Now Has a Leader,” The Tower, September 2015.
1  EXPORTING THE REVOLUTION AND BUILDING HEGEMONY 
12
As for Muslim civilians, Malik postulated they were bound by the Koran
to sacrifice their life for the jihad. To the individual volunteer, the title of
mujahid (holy warrior) gave meaning in life and bestowed greatness after
death. Not incidentally, this type of redemptive sacrifice was the only way
to avenge the Western-inflicted Karama, a notion that both the Shiite and
the Sunni jihadis have shared. To them, jihadi terror was “holy terror,” to
be used in the conflict between good and evil. Analysts subsequently confirmed
Malik’s assumption. As one of them put it, “terrorism—use of violence
by a non-state actor primarily against noncombatants,” creates a
political and psychological reaction “which is out of proportion to the
actual destruction it inflicts.”23
While neither Khomeini nor Montazeri was a strategist, they could rely
on a cadre of professional revolutionaries and guerrilla fighters led by
Mustafa Chamran. A physicist who lived in the United States, in 1965,
Chamran created the Red Shiism organization to train Shiite militants.
Chamran propagated his ideas during his travels to Egypt and Cuba, eventually
moving to Lebanon in 1971, where the Palestinians put him in
touch with an international terror network. In 1972, George Habash, the
head of the Popular Front of Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), organized a
conference in Baddawi, a Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon. The
Baddawi summit forged the International Center for Resistance of
Imperialism, Zionism, Racism, Reaction, and Fascism, a loose alliance of
Middle East terror groups which Chamran had joined. He established
close links with Yasser Arafat who offered him and other Iranian militants,
including the sons of Khomeini and Montazeri, to train with the elite unit,
Fatah Force 17.24
In 1979, these revolutionary cadres returned to Iran where they played
a leading role in the Revolutionary Guards and Sazman-e Enqelabi-e
23
 S.K. Malik, The Quranic Concept of War. Lahore, Reprint in India: Adam Publishers
and Dirtributors, 1979; Ed Husain, The House of Islam, A Global History, Bloomsbury
Publishing, 2018, 5; Daniel E. Price, Sacred Terror: How Faith Becomes Lethal, Praeger,
2012, 65, 183; Ronen Bergman, the 30 Year Old War: The Secret Struggle, 378; Nance,
Malcolm, Defeating ISIS: Who They Are, How They Fight, What They Believe, Skyhorse
Publishing, 2016, p. 12.
24
 MNA, The story of the most powerful Lebanese Student of Shahid Chamran,
Mashregh News Agency, June 23, 2014, https://www.mashreghnews.ir/news/320827/
‫;ماجرای-قوی-ترین-شاگرد-لبنانی-شهید-چمران‬ ISNA, Martyr Chamran According to Adel Aoun,
Iranian Students News Agency, June 21, 2015, https://www.isna.ir/news/94033117479/
‫.شهید-چمران-به-روایت-عادل-عون‬
  O. SELIKTAR AND F. REZAEI
13
Todehay-e Jomhory-e Islami-e Iran (SATJA). Mohammed Montazeri, son
of Ayatollah Montazeri, was in charge of SATJA, but after his death in
1981, Mehdi Hashemi, his close associate, took over the group, renaming
it Office for Liberation Movement (OLM). In 1984, OLM joined the
Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Ahmed Vahidi, the head of the intelligence
department of the Guards, co-directed the foreign operations group
SATJA and OLM, until in 1989 when he was appointed to head the newly
created Quds Force (QF).
Even before the revolutionary project was formally institutionalized
within the Quds Force, the IRGC launched a multipronged program to
carry out Khomeini’s mandate. At the theoretical level, the Guards
invested considerable efforts in developing the asymmetrical warfare doctrine
and tactics. Hassan Abbassi, a noted strategist, helmed the Center for
Borderless Doctrinal Analysis (Markaz-eBarresihay-eDoctorinalAmniyat-e
Bedone Marz), also called the Yaghin think tank (Andishkadeye Yaghin). In
2005, the IRGC’s Imam Hussein University founded the Center for
Asymmetrical Warfare. Ali Jafari, a future IRGC chief, served as the first
head and, in a testimony to its importance, virtually all top IRGC-QF
commanders either graduated or taught there.25
Asymmetrical warfare has been used throughout history, but four innovations
gave the Iranians a winning edge. First, the Guards networked
with both Shiite and Sunni proxies on a sliding scale principle, according
to network theory. Hezbollah and other Shiite militias enjoyed close and
intense contacts with the Guard. On the other hand, relations with Sunni
groups like Al-Qaeda were undertaken to achieve a narrowly defined goal,
and were minimal and sporadic. The resultant network made intelligence
work challenging. Terror network experts noted that “diffuse networks
and unclear sponsorship” resulted in failure to connect the dots. Parts of
the terror web could turn into the “dark network” with an “undetermined
amount of missing data.” With regard to Iran—proxy network in particular—“the
blending of jihadist groups Shiites and Sunnis is a hard target for
intelligence agencies and law enforcement to track and interdict due to the
fluid and sometimes short-lived nature of such alliances.”26
25
 Hassan Abassi, Soft Government and Doctrine of Asymmetrical Warfare, http://andish-
kadeh.ir/‫./حكومت-نرم-و-دكترين-اقدام-نامتقارن-در-جه‬
26
 Ian O. Lesser, et al. Countering the New Terrorism, Santa Monica: Rand Corporation,
1999; James F. Morris and Richard F. Deckro, SNA Data Difficulties with Dark Network,
“Behavioral Science of Terrorism and Political Aggression, vol. 5, 2013 issue 2, 70–93; Dave
1  EXPORTING THE REVOLUTION AND BUILDING HEGEMONY 
14
Use of proxies gave Iran deniability which “prevented the state actor
from being tainted by the actions, allowed it to negotiate in apparent good
faith by claiming they are not responsible for the actions of parties who are
merely sympathizers or avoid being accused of belligerent actions or war
crimes.” In the words of one commentator, these “connections were
largely circumstantial, buried in complex, poorly understood networks of
operatives, fundamentalist leaders and wealthy Arab donors.”27
Even when
linkage was suspected, the covert nature of IRGC’s project enabled the
regime to either strongly deny or obfuscate its role. For instance, the Quds
Force worked with cultural and philanthropic organizations to conceal its
input or send “volunteers” in civilian clothing, acting as advisors, or
removed markings from weapons and munitions. Financial contributions
were so well concealed, making estimations difficult.28
Second, by adopting suicide bombing as a weapon of choice, IRGC-QF
achieved “the best of both worlds: the precision and sophistication of the
most complex technology and the reliability and simplicity of delivery.”
The Israeli military described this tactic as the “poor person’s smart
bomb,” a tribute to the ingenuity of the Guards. Because the Koran forbade
suicide, Ayatollah Khomeini had to break new theological grounds
on this score as well. Initially, Khomeini praised the collective sacrifice of
the teenage boys deployed by the Guards as human waves against the Iraqi
military. When one of them, Hossein Fahmideh, threw himself on a tank
in what was an act of suicide, the Supreme Leader declared him to be a
martyr. Sheikh Fadlallah, the spiritual leader of Hezbollah, used the
Fahmideh precedent to issue a fatwa declaring that suicide bombings are
equivalent to combat action which could also be perpetrated against
enemy civilians. Known also as “offensive jihad” or “martyrdom
­operations,” this so-called sacred terror became part of Islamist indoctrination
disseminated in pamphlets and brochures to battlefield militants.29
Dilegge, Iranian and Hezbollah Hybrid Warfare Activities, Small Wars Journal Anthology,
2016, 253.
27
 Assaf Moghaddam, Nexus of Global Jihad Understanding Cooperation Among Terrorist
Actor, New York: Columbia University Press, 73; John Miller, The Cell: Inside the 9/11
Plot, and Why the FBI and CIA Failed to Stop It, Simon & Schuster, 2002, 139.
28
 Austin Carson, Secret Wars Covert Conflict in International Politics, Princeton University
Press, 2018.
29
 Daniel Helmer, “Hezbollah Employment of Suicide Bombing,” Military Review, vol.
86, July–August 2006; Dilegge, Iranian and Hezbollah Hybrid Warfare Activities, p. 287.
  O. SELIKTAR AND F. REZAEI
15
Third, the Guards instructed their proxies to embed within the local
population whenever the occasion allowed. In the Guards parlance,
embedding meant hiding the militants and their assets in private houses
and in public spaces such as hospitals, schools, and libraries. As would be
discussed in Chaps. 2 and 3, this practice has been most popular in the
south of Lebanon and the Gaza Strip.30
Khomeini considered it a duty of
Muslim noncombatants to welcome embedding even at the risk of death
or injury; international law denounced using civilians as human shields. By
violating the laws of war, the Guards and their proxies risked international
censure and terror-related sanctions. In 1984, the State Department designated
Iran as a leading state sponsor of terrorism. In 1997, Hezbollah
was added to the list.31
However, the advantages of embedding, especially in densely populated
urban, have been considerable. Hassan Abbassi who was well versed in the
law of war noted that mingling with civilians would hinder the response of
regular armies bound by international conventions. Abbassi described
asymmetrical warfare by using an analog from a football game: “Consider
a football game, which has two half courts, our courts and theirs. We will
play in our half-court based on our own rule, and our rival arranges its
players based on its own rule. Then we will play in the rival’s half-court
based on our own rule, which is called positive asymmetrical. The court is
theirs, but we will set the game rule.” He took particular pride in the
Hezbollah war with Israel in 2006: “Hezbollah skillfully used different
places including the mixing of military forces with civilians rather than just
military bases. And it also stashed military hardware and communication
systems devices inside cities so that they could not be identified.”32
Fourth, lacking nuclear weapons, the regime had used the far-flung terror
groups as deterrence against its enemies, notably the United States,
Israel, and Saudi Arabia, or even domestic opposition. Officially, the ark of
terror organizations was known as the Axis of Resistance. Unofficially,
30
 Mohammad Mahdi Shariatmadar, Lebanese Hezbollah: Strategy, Past, and its Future,
Nashre Ettellaat, 2017.
31
 USDS, Chapter 3: State Sponsors of Terrorism Overview, Bureau Of Counterterrorism
Country Reports on Terrorism U.S. Department of State, 2014, https://www.state.gov/j/
ct/rls/crt/2014/239410.htm; USDS, Chapter 6—Terrorist Organizations, Country
Reports on Terrorism Office Of The Coordinator For Counterterrorism, U.S. Department
of State, April 30, 2007, https://www.state.gov/j/ct/rls/crt/2006/82738.htm.
32
 Hassan Abassi, What Does Asymmetrical Warfare Mean? https://www.aparat.com/v/
PNQ4c/29%_‫.جنگ_نا_متقارن_%82_دکتر_عباسی‬
1  EXPORTING THE REVOLUTION AND BUILDING HEGEMONY 
16
however, the militias played an important role in deterrence. As one
observer summarized the unspoken rule of engagement as “either we are
safe, or no one is,” meaning that attempts against Iran would trigger a
wave of terror in the Middle East and beyond. Interestingly enough, after
signing the nuclear agreement in 2015, threats to active proxy terror network
had increased, much to the dismay of the Obama administration
which hoped to convert Iran into a law-abiding member of the international
community. As the following chapters indicate, the regime used
terror threats and terror attacks against an array of its enemies.33
To train militants, the IRGC opened a facility in Manzariah Camp
(Shahid Bahonar Camp) in Tehran which Ayatollah Khomeini inaugurated
on February 11, 1982. The sprawling facility was a laboratory for
asymmetrical warfare tactics, known as “niche means.” Suicide bombings,
hijackings of planes, bomb-making, large explosive devices, guerrilla warfare
were among the skills taught. Ayatollah Fazlollah Mahdizadeh
Mahalati, known as Fazlollah Mahalati, Khomeini’s representatives to the
Revolutionary Guard, lectured in the suicide program for specially selected
volunteers. The first commander of Manzariah was Abbas Golru, a
Guardsman who distinguished himself in 1981. Golru and his successors
reached out to experts from North Korea, Syria, and various radical
Palestinian groups. Farsi-speaking KGB officers joined the foreign trainers.
Between 1981 and 1985, a total of 3000 individuals were trained,
making Iran the second-best terrorist state after the Soviet Union, according
to some accounts. By the summer of 1996, intelligence sources
revealed the existence of 11 camps which graduate some 5000 extremists
annually.34
In yet another innovation geared toward exporting the revolution, the
IRGC-QF worked very closely with the Foreign Ministry to utilize the
Iranian embassies. The idea was the brainchild of Javad Mansouri, the first
commander of the IRGC who went on to assume the post of the Deputy
Foreign Minister on March 20, 1981. Shortly after, on November 1,
Mansouri was placed in charge of “transforming every Iranian embassy
33
 Chahram Chubin, Iran and the Arab Spring: Ascendancy Frustrated, Gulf Research
Center, September 2012, p. 4.
34
 Richard J. Leitner, Peter M. Leitner, Unheeded Warnings: The Lost Reports of the
Congressional Task Force on Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare, Washington, Crossbow
Books, 2007, p. 194; Bodansky, Target America, 10–11: Tabnak, In Memory of Martyr
Fazlollah Mahalati, https://www.tabnak.ir/fa/news/149217/‫;به-یاد-شهید-فضل-هللا-محالتی‬
Coughlin, Khomeini’s Ghost, pp. 325–329.
  O. SELIKTAR AND F. REZAEI
17
abroad into an intelligence center and a base for exporting the revolution.”
Ali Akbar Mohtashamipour, a disciple of Ayatollah Khomeini from
his Najaf days and a collaborator of Mohammed Montazeri in SATJA
days, became a prototype of the ambassador-revolutionary exporter. As
would be discussed in Chap. 2, Mohtashamipour, who served as the
ambassador in Damascus, was pivotal in establishing Hezbollah.35
Along the military side, “soft measures” such as political activism, propaganda,
education about Khomeinism, and other forms of outreach have
been developed and lavishly funded. Iranian cultural centers became ubiquities
throughout the Middle East as well as the Muslim communities
around the world. The Quds Force identified promising “identity entrepreneurs,”
who specialized “in articulating and publicizing ethnoreligious
grievances.” After a process of “maturation,” these groups were counted
upon to foment social protest. In more advanced cases, proxy groups
morphed into political parties, a process which the Iranians encouraged
and nurtured. These dual-use proxies garnered political legitimacy while
offering a cover for terror. Altogether, the combination of tactics fits the
characteristics of Fourth Generation Warfare (4GW), which described as a
conflict where lines between politics and war, civilians and combatants,
are blurred.36
4GW experts explained that the simultaneous use of all available networks
“political, economic, social and military” aimed at persuading the
enemy decision makers that its “strategic goals were either unachievable or
too costly.” Inflicting heavy casualties on the civilian population was one
way to prove this point. Another way was to keep the enemy in perpetual
violence-laced tension. This so-called strategy of tension was said to cause
“psychological exhaustion” among policy makers and rank and file alike,
causing a retreat.37
The structure of the book is well suited to analyzing the working of the
proxy system. Each chapter covers a project engineered by the Iranian
regime acting through the IRGC-QF; it offers a detailed analysis of the
way in which the goals of revolution export are melded with the imperative
of regime defense and national interests. Chapter 2 covers the
35
 Leitner, Unheeded Warnings, 193.
36
 William S. Lind, “The Changing Face of War. The Fourth Generation,” Marine Corps
Gazette, October 1989; Matthisen, The Other Saudis, 2015, 17.
37
 Dilegge, Iranian and Hezbollah Hybrid Warfare Activities, 75; Jonathan Spyer, “Iran
Response: The Strategy of Tension, Jerusalem Post. June 1, 2018; Michael Griffith, Islamic
State, Rewriting History, London: Pluto Press, 2016, 179.
1  EXPORTING THE REVOLUTION AND BUILDING HEGEMONY 
18
Hezbollah in Lebanon, Chap. 3 analyzes Hamas and Palestinian Islamic
Jihad in Israel, Chap. 4 details Iranian manipulation of Al-Qaeda, Chap. 5
summarizes the extensive proxy network in Iraq, Chap. 6 looks at the
pivotal role of the Revolutionary Guards and the Shiite Liberation Army
in Syria, and Chap. 7 dissects the working of the proxy system in the Gulf.
The concluding chapter looks at the successes and failures of the
proxy strategy, with a special emphasis on its performance during the
challenging time.
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