Rouhani’s Dual Messages and Iran’s Security Strategy
▻http://original.antiwar.com/porter/2015/09/30/rouhanis-dual-messages-and-irans-security-strategy
Gareth Porter : contrairement à ce qu’en disent les think tank occidentaux, il n’existe aucun désaccord entre les « gardiens de la révolution » (et Khamenei) d’une part et Rouhani (et Rafsandjani) d’autre part en ce qui concerne le choix des stratégies visant à empêcher une agression militaire israélienne et étasunienne contre l’Iran.
When #Israel launched its war in Southern Lebanon in 2006, it was to destroy the key element in Iran’s deterrent. General Mohsen Rezai, the former head of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, commented explicitly on that central reason for the Israeli attack. “Israel and the US knew that as long as Hamas and Hezbollah were there,” he said, “confronting Iran would be costly”.
The Israeli war to disarm #Hezbollah was a major failure, however, and #Iran then supplied Hezbollah with far more numerous, more accurate and longer-range missiles and rockets, to supplement the few hundred Iranian missiles capable of reaching Israeli targets.
But Hezbollah’s role in Iranian deterrence depended on the ability to supply Hezbollah through Syrian territory. The Israelis schemed unsuccessfully for years to exploit that potential Iranian vulnerability by trying to get the United States to overthrow the Assad regime militarily. Now, however, IS and #al-Qaeda are threatening to accomplish what the Israelis had failed to do.
That is why Iran’s commitment to the defense of the Assad regime is not a function of the power of the IRGC, but a requirement on which Rouhani and Khamenei are in full agreement. Rouhani’s dual message of diplomatic engagement with Washington and insistence that cooperation on resisting “Daesh” is the priority in Syria reflect the essentials of Iran’s national security strategy.