(Asharq Al-Awsat-UK) Amir Taheri - Those who seek to revive the "nuclear deal" with Iran described it as an attempt at preventing another Middle Eastern war, but in dealing with the mullahs it is appeasement that encourages war. Believing that the new U.S. administration may help him solve his cash flow problem, Ayatollah Khamenei re-wrote the official national budget to dramatically increase his military's share. It includes a 62% raise for the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. The Quds (Jerusalem) Force, in charge of exporting revolution, sees its budget increased by almost 40%. The message to Iran's surrogates is that Tehran expects to be able to end the budget cuts it had been forced to introduce. Using the "nuclear deal" as a diversion, the ayatollah hopes to get the sanctions lifted so that he can pursue his kind of war with greater vigor. His kind of war is proxy, asymmetric, low-intensity, low-cost. He pursues it through surrogates and mercenaries, since few Iranians are prepared to fight his kind of war. The writer was editor-in-chief of the Iranian daily Kayhan.
2021-06-10 00:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive