Iran has a long history of clandestine attacks abroad to further its ends
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Version 0 of 1. If Tehran was behind antisemitic attacks in Australia, experts say it is a sign of weakness rather than strength Iran’s involvement in clandestine violence and espionage overseas takes many forms, but all have a single aim – to win advantage for Tehran by striking unexpectedly at the “soft underbelly” of enemies. It’s a strategy that dates back to the 1979 revolution, and is rooted in a pragmatic if regretful assessment of Iran’s continuing weakness on the conventional battlefield. Australian authorities have not revealed exactly what convinced them that Iran was behind a series of antisemitic attacks in the country in recent months, but the charge is plausible, experts say. “We don’t know the full details, but the Australians wouldn’t [publicly blame Iran] unless they were pretty confident,” said Matthew Redhead, an expert in state threats and intelligence at London’s Royal United Services Institute. “Iran sees this as a cheap way of fighting an undeclared war against its opponents and of rallying audiences its wants to impress in the Middle East … They don’t have the resources to fight any other way. There is a long history here.” One of Iran’s goals is to distract enemies and so divert any concerted direct attack. Until recently, analysts were able to argue that the strategy had been relatively successful, fending off foes at limited cost. Yet it failed this summer. The damage done to the country’s nuclear programme in the two-week war with Israel and the US in June may be unclear, but few doubt Tehran came off worst in the hostilities. Iran promised “everlasting consequences” against the US at a time and place of its choosing. In reality, Tehran was already committed to a rolling programme of disruption, sometimes deadly, on its enemies’ territory. One long-term target has been dissidents and groups that might threaten the regime politically. The US, UK, Canada and 12 European countries issued a joint condemnation in July of “the attempts of Iranian intelligence services to kill, kidnap and harass people in Europe and North America in clear violation of our sovereignty”. Tehran rejected the allegations as “blatant fabrications … designed as part of a malicious Iranophobia campaign aimed at exerting pressure on the great Iranian nation”. Other targets include Jewish community centres and synagogues, such as those targeted with arson attacks in Australia. One objective is simply to hurt, frighten and demoralise. Another is to sow communal tension and so destabilise countries considered hostile. Researchers have identified more than 200 plots linked to Iran around the world since 1979, and Washington and its allies have reported a sharp rise in recent years. There have been at least 33 assassination or abduction attempts in the west since 2020 in which local or Israeli authorities allege an Iranian link. Some targets are very high profile. The US government unsealed an indictment in November against a 51-year-old Afghan national in connection with an alleged Iranian plot to assassinate Donald Trump. A British minister recently described how “direct action against UK targets has substantially increased over recent years with more than 20 Iran-backed plots presenting potentially lethal threats to British citizens and UK residents since the start of 2022”. For the most part, the plots originate with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), founded in the immediate aftermath of the overthrow of the shah to provide the new regime with an ideologically committed force that would defend the revolution, its leaders and its values. Some are the work of Iran’s intelligence ministry. The IRGC is extremely powerful, answering directly to the supreme leader, Ali Khamanei, and with its own vast financial resources. It cut its teeth putting down unrest among Iran’s ethnic and religious minorities before being deployed in an increasingly central role in the war with Iraq from 1981 until 1988. It was also already involved in more distant operations, organising assassination attempts against shah-era officials who had fled overseas and against the US, France, Israel and other perceived enemies. Two huge bombs that killed hundreds of US diplomats and military forces in Lebanon in 1982 were linked to senior figures in Iran’s new regime and the emergent Islamist militia, Hezbollah, which was formed with help of the IRGC around the same time. So too were bombings against Israeli forces and in Kuwait. A recent trend is use of criminals as proxies. Matthew Levitt, a leading authority on Iran’s overseas operations wrote last week: “Even in the midst of the 12-day Israel-Iran war, Iran reportedly reached out to organised crime groups in Europe … pressing them to quickly carry out attacks targeting Israeli and American interests there.” The use of criminals may be a tacit admission of weakness. If the IRGC had assets on the ground, it would not have to hire unreliable proxies. So too may be the targeting of Australia, which has never been a priority. For Redhead, the Australia attacks “smacked of desperation”. “It seems more about the Iranians signalling that they are still active than anything else. We shouldn’t get overexcited about their capabilities,” he said. |