SWJ Mag Vol 9 - Understanding Iran's Motivations in Iraq

[marden]

I believe anyone who overlooks Iran's Islamist motivation is seeing only part of the picture.

In 1979 the Ayatollah Khomeini presided over an Islamic Revolution in Iran which had a mission of first, creating an Imamate, and then assuming mastery over all mankind.

"We will export our revolution throughout the world.... Until the calls `there is no god but Allah and Muhammad is his the messenger of Allah' are echoed all over the world".

-- Ayatollah Khomeini

The Iran-Iraq War, 1980-1988
By Efraim Karsh

And since Iran was the first nation where the "Government of God" existed it was their sacred duty to lead the Islamic World.

I believe there are people in our government who understand the nature of the Islamist threat and view it as every bit as daunting in it's own way, as the Third Reich was before Chamberlain and Daladier agreed to the cession of the Sudetenland.

Believing the Iranians' desire for greater power, resources and influence in the region without also acknowledging their religious motivation is like purchasing the seeds for the next war on the installment plan. Most of the Iranian population are Shiite Muslim. The largest denomination of the Shiite sect are called "Twelvers," whose eschatology dictates the 12th Imam will come out of hiding after more than a thousand years and will convert the world "into a perfect and just Islamic society alongside Jesus before Yaum al-Qiyamah (literally "Day of the Resurrection")". (Wikipedia - Twelvers)

But rather than waiting for this day to happen, some say the current Iranian leadership believes they can cause this messianic "Day of Resurrection" to occur.

And because of their religious beliefs, the strategy of Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) will not serve as a deterrent as it did with the "Godless" Soviets who did not have an ideology which promised 'borscht and vodka in the sky when they died' but I think we all know about the Islamic belief in an afterlife.

"We do not worship Iran. We worship Allah...For patriotism is another name for paganism. I say let this land (Iran) burn. I say let this land go up in smoke, provided Islam emerges triumphant in the rest of the world."

-- Ayatollah Khomeini

Because of these considerations I think the government is necessarily being as cautious as possible about dealing with Iran. Some of the world's best chess players are Persian born and the problem of removing the United States as a barrier to the creation of their Islamic Empire or else prompting the United States to strike the first blow without "provocation" (for Muslims to strike the first blow and without sufficient provocation would violate Islamic law and, presumably invalidate their eschatology, so they would need us to attack them) is a strategy they have had almost 30 years to study.