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When Tehran Attacks

(Wall Street Journal) Emanuele Ottolenghi - The Pentagon clearly sees the Qods Force as an integral part of the Iranian regime. The Qods Force are no more independent in their actions than the Navy SEALs would be in theirs. To doubt the Iranian regime's responsibility in the thwarted attack is to misunderstand its nature, or to somehow fall prey to the delusion that when an Iranian connection appears behind a terror plot, its perpetrators have gone rogue or are acting on behalf of some dark faction to undermine a nonexistent "moderate" camp within the regime. Of course, the Qods Force is rogue, but no more so than the regime that directs its actions. Moreover, all members of the Iranian government are fundamentalists. The differences between them are tactical, and the only question about the thwarted plot in Washington is why the regime chose to escalate matters now - not whether the regime was behind it. Iranian agents couldn't have carried out such an operation unless core members of Iran's leadership, likely including Khamenei himself, had given them their blessing. The writer is a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and the author of Pasdaran: Inside Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards' Corps (FDD Press, 2011).
2011-10-14 00:00:00
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