Slide 4
Slide 4 text
However, Tehran views its influence in Iraq and Syria as vital to its
national security. Qassem Soleimani, the leader of the IRGC’s elite
Qods Force, Mohammad Ali Jafari, the head of the IRGC, and most of
the other top leadership of Iran’s armed forces are hardened veterans
of the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq War. That conflict and more recent attacks
carried out by Syria-based Sunni jihadists in Iran are seared in these
officers’ collective memories. They view Salafi-jihadi extremism as an
existential threat to Shiite Iran, and while there are many in Iran who
dislike Iran’s adventurism abroad and have even protested it, there
are also many Iranians who view Tehran’s involvement in Syria, Iraq,
and Lebanon as necessary to keep fighting outside Iran’s borders.
Indeed, this mentality is not so different from that of the George W.
Bush administration, which invaded Afghanistan and Iraq ostensibly
to deter new threats to the US homeland.