{"id":7361,"date":"2020-01-20T16:19:07","date_gmt":"2020-01-20T13:19:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/rasanah-iiis.org\/english\/?p=7361"},"modified":"2020-01-20T16:19:09","modified_gmt":"2020-01-20T13:19:09","slug":"gen-hajizadehs-audacity-may-not-cause-harm-to-irans-proxies-in-the-short-run","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rasanah-iiis.org\/english\/monitoring-and-translation\/reports\/gen-hajizadehs-audacity-may-not-cause-harm-to-irans-proxies-in-the-short-run\/","title":{"rendered":"Gen. Hajizadeh\u2019s Audacity May Not Cause Harm to Iran’s Proxies in the Short-Run"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Commander of the\nRevolutionary Guards Aerospace Force, Brigadier General Amir Ali\nHajizadeh,  officially confirmed Iran\u2019s\nsponsorship of militias in a host of neighboring countries. The veil of covert\nsupport, training, and supervision was lifted when he addressed a press conference<\/a> on January 9. In the\nbackdrop, there was a range of flags belonging to\nIran’s proxies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Though a majority of the flags represented designated terrorist outfits<\/a>, Iran admitted its state\npatronage to convey the threat of widespread retaliation against the killing of\nGeneral Qassem Soleimani. However, the flags\non display behind the general don\u2019t quite\nrepresent Tehran’s extensive regional proxy network.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The flags represented: the IRGC,\nthe Basij, Hezbollah (Lebanon), Ansarullah\n(Yemen), Hashd al Shaabi (Iraq), Hamas\n(Palestine), Liwa Fatimiyoun (Afghanistan),\nand Liwa Zainebiyoun (Pakistan). Their affiliation\nwith Iran has been well known and documented but never acknowledged so bluntly\nby the Iranian government and its military.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A rare display of Iran\u2019s military might appeared more\nrelevant when General Amir Ali Hajizadeh stated<\/a>: \u201cIf we were looking to kill, we\ncould have designed the operation in a way such that 500 [Americans] would be\nkilled in the first step, and if they had responded, a further 4,000 to 5,000\nwould be killed in the next steps within 48 hours.\u201d As much as it was a reminder to the world of Iran\u2019s\nretaliatory power, it was also a way to pay\ntribute to Major General Qassem Soleimani\u2019s contribution and stratagem. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Not only did General Hajizadeh promise Hashd al Shaabi revenge for\nthe killing of Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis but also publicly acknowledged in his press conference Iran\u2019s links to this militia\noutfit as well as displaying its flag in the\nbackdrop. Among the messages from the general was\nalso that if one of its proxies was hit, it would invoke Iran\u2019s retribution. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The IRGC sought to exploit the nationalistic\nsentiment that surged in the wake of Soleimani\u2019s killing. Albeit, the events\nwhich unfolded in the days that followed exposed the shallowness of Iran\u2019s\nextreme retaliation pledge. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

While Yemen\u2019s Houthis \u2013 Ansarullah \u2013 maintain an embassy in\nTehran, Iran\u2019s ties to Hezbollah of Lebanon have been repeatedly acknowledged\nby Hassan Nasrullah. “We are open about the fact that Hezbollah’s budget,\nits income, its expenses, everything it eats and drinks, its weapons and\nrockets, come from the Islamic Republic of Iran,\u201d Hezbollah\u2019s Secretary-General Hassan\nNasrallah confirmed<\/a> in a speech.  He added, \u201cAs\nlong as Iran has money, we will have money.” <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Evidently, the IRGC took matters into its own hands after losing\nthe Quds Force commander. The shooting down of the Ukrainian International Airlines flight PS752 and the ensuing chain\nof events did not weaken the military\u2019s grip\non the country\u2019s narrative due to its control of state media. Possibly, to\ndivert attention from its blunder of failing to distinguish an airliner from a\ncruise or ballistic missile, the Iranian military provided a startling\ndiversion by displaying the flags of its proxies behind General\nHajizadeh. The gimmick comes at a huge price, if not\nin the short-run, then definitely in the long-run. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The militia groups represented by the flags placed behind the\ngeneral are located in various neighboring countries of Iran, indicating Tehran\u2019s\ninterference in their internal affairs and its\nviolation of their sovereignty. How can a country be allowed to select, train, arm and deploy citizens of\nother countries to launch attacks? Moreover, Iran showed its daringness in speaking on the record about its proxy outfits\nas well.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This raises a few important questions. Does Iran dictate every\naction the likes of Hezbollah, Hamas and Ansarullah carry out? Do the outfits\nagree to Iran\u2019s military and foreign policy and are they ready to accept the\nimplications thereof? Should Iran not be held accountable for its own admission\nof deploying militias in other sovereign\ncountries as well as for their actions in a court of law? Should there not be\ndiplomatic and political responses to Iran\u2019s acknowledgment of recruiting and deploying militias? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

As per international law, when a state sends an armed militia into\nanother state to depose its government or to attack its civilians, it is\ncommitting an armed attack. The victim state can invoke the right of\nself-defense, which must be proportionate to the aggression.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While IRGC-friendly governments run Lebanon, Syria, and Iraq with\nlittle freedom of action, Yemen, Afghanistan, and Pakistan can hold Iran\nresponsible for its illegitimate actions. The Yemeni government in Sanaa can undertake\nlegal proceedings against Iran for its links to Ansarullah. Afghanistan can also be persuaded by\nits Parliament and friendly states to challenge Iran\u2019s role in recruiting,\ntraining, arming and deploying its citizens to protect the Assad government in\nSyria. Besides, the country heavily depends on foreign, especially western, aid\nand cannot be part of Iran\u2019s destructive, expansionist agenda and stratagem.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Last but not least is Pakistan, a country that has itself been a\nvictim of foreign interference since the late 1960s till to-date. Though a\nstrong pro-Iran lobby exists in the country, the presence of individuals facilitating the Zainebiyoun Brigade cannot be ignored. Since 2014, not only did Pakistan increase its surveillance of its shared border with Iran but has also\narrested returning Shiite mercenaries. Yet, there has been no official\nstatement on the issue. It has been reported that the matter has been\nrepeatedly raised at the ambassadorial level as well as during bilateral\nvisits. No Pakistani official or parliamentarian\nhas come forth to question Iran\u2019s acknowledgment of\nits recruitment of Shiites from Pakistani territory.\nIronically, media houses have sidestepped the issue\nof Iran\u2019s interference while beating the drum\nof neutrality in case of Tehran\u2019s conflict with Washington or Riyadh. It is quite less likely\nthat Pakistan will protest to the Iranian embassy in Islamabad or declare the Zainebiyoun Brigade as a terrorist entity. It may do so if the United States and\nother important powers put diplomatic pressures on Islamabad.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Without any punitive action against Iran\u2019s interference which legally amounts to armed attacks, Iran\nwill be emboldened to repeat the same tactics in other countries too. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Commander of the Revolutionary Guards Aerospace Force, Brigadier General Amir Ali Hajizadeh,  officially confirmed Iran\u2019s sponsorship of militias in a host of neighboring countries. The veil of covert support, training, and supervision was lifted when he addressed a press conference on January 9. In the backdrop, there was a range of flags belonging to Iran’s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":7362,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[3977,3976,1625],"class_list":["post-7361","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-reports","tag-audacity","tag-hajizadeh","tag-report"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rasanah-iiis.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7361","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rasanah-iiis.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rasanah-iiis.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rasanah-iiis.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rasanah-iiis.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7361"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/rasanah-iiis.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7361\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7363,"href":"https:\/\/rasanah-iiis.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7361\/revisions\/7363"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rasanah-iiis.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7362"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rasanah-iiis.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7361"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rasanah-iiis.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7361"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rasanah-iiis.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7361"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}