Understanding Iran
Through the eyes of a professor's mind and heart
Published: 2024-04-05
Updated 2024-04-05: Added the Scott Ritter interview as it fits neatly into Prof. Marandi’s description of the Axis of Resistance.
Updated 2024-05-06: By a stroke of extraordinary fortune, Dimitri Lascaris has just published an interview with Hezbollah’s Ammar Al-Moussawi. This is has been added to sources.
Two friends
Professor of English Literature and Orientalism Mohmammad Marandi and journalist Richard Medhurst are friends. They have met in person in Vienna while Marandi came to meetings for negotiations on the JCPOA, the extensive trade/sanctions 'deal' between Iran, European nations and the US which Western media blithely mislabel the 'Iran Nuclear Deal'. Medhurst, a son of two UN employees, born in Syria and raised internationally, has interviewed Marandi many times.
Their connection is partially forged by their understanding of the proxy war known in Western independent media as the Syrian Dirty War. Iran and Syria are mutual defense treaty allies. Iran was the first nation to come to Syria's aid in defending itself against the foreign funded, armed and trained (CIA's Operation Timber Sycamore) paramilitary forces used by the US and UK and regional allies to destabilize Syria with the direct purpose of deposing the Syrian government headed by al Assad. Russia was the second major nation to come to Syria's aid, at Syria's request just after the 2014 US coup in Kiev.
In the other’s shoes
Sun Tsu's advice to understand one's adversary is just as important in international relations or geopolitical analysis as in military affairs, as many a retired senior US diplomat has recently stated. These former, leading US diplomats, including Jack Matlock and Chas Freeman, have published articles and appeared in interviews where they have implored their current counterparts to revive this essential element of diplomacy.
We citizens can bypass the censorship of the Western media and listen to the voices of educated people from the populations of the targets of the powers behind the manufactured US foreign policy consensus to understand how they see their history and recent developments in international relations. The independent media provides the censorial circumvention, with Medhurst’s interview with Marandi serving as an excellent example.
Before visiting some of the understandings offered by Prof. Marandi, one can listen to Connor Freeman on Judging Freedom for a recount of recent international actions taken by Israel and the US acting in concert. At the closing of the interview, Napolitano thanks Connor accurately for his encyclopedic knowledge. The interview is an excellent "refresher" on recent, somewhat lesser understood activities in the region by Israel and its principle ally.
Medhurst's discussion with Prof. Marandi is broad in its historical scope and informed by the experience of the Iranian people since the 1979 Islamic revolution in Iran, and the 8 year long 1980 to 1988 Iraq-Iran war in which Marandi fought. That the revolution was Islamic speaks of the repression which the US and UK installed Shah's SAVAK military police imposed on the Iranian people, driving discussion of resistance into the Mosques. In recent, regional history, since the US Dirty war on Syria. Marandi offers a refreshing perspective unheard on Western media or that your author has seen in its public reports. One particular insight of the many offered by Marandi during the interview forms the core of this article; a re-understanding of the "Axis of Resistance".
The recent, beyond immoral behaviour of state of Israel's armed forces, both overt and covert, encourage us to listen to Marandi's local understanding. Three recent events provide a context. The first is the revelation of the extent of the IOF's (Israeli Occupations Force's) destruction of the al Shifa hospital in Gaza City, including the obvious murder of detained individuals, both being war crimes. Then, the 3 separate, deliberate, precision missile attacks to murder 7 people, largely Western, attempting to provide food to Palestinians in Gaza who are being deliberately starved by Israel. The intent of this war crime is clear; to scare other Western aid organisations away from providing aid, to compliment the defunding of UNWRA and cement Israel’s starvation of Palestianian civilians (another two or eight war crimes, depending on how one wishes to count). Their objective was achieved, with other Western aid agencies withdrawing the small amount of risky assistance they were, or were considering, providing. The third event was Israel's precision missile attack on Iran's embassy, that being Iranian soil, in the Syrian capital, Damascus. There is no more clear expression of a declaration of war, without waving a piece of paper with WAR written on it, than a precision missile strike on an embassy. This is even more severe than a war crime. From the Nuremberg trials international law sees the initiation of war as the ultimate crime for “all others are contained within it”.
The uniqueness of the day which included these horrific event events was poignantly summarized by Edward Snowden
The source’s perspective
Marandi's participation in the JCPOA talks informs us that he is privy to some knowledge of Iran's theocratic leadership's policies and understanding. His lecturing in comparative literature at his university in the Iranian capital, Tehran, informs us that he is aware of the opinions of this section of Iranian society and that he reads works across cultures. His academic profession, and the manner in which he speaks, inform us that he is careful with language and educated. His survival of two chemical weapons attacks by Iraq during the 1980-1988 Iraq-Iran war rounds our understanding that he is also an active student of history. He is, to put it bluntly, an excellent source to further one's understanding of Iran.
Marandi offers us a substantial new perspective. He speaks of the "Axis of Resistance" as an Iranian response to regional affairs. He also broadens a potential understanding of it. One may have considered the "Axis of Resistance" as a limited force composed of the Syrian Arab Army and Lebanon's Hezbollah. To this one may have added Gaza's Hamas. Then perhaps one added Yemen's Asar Allah. Marandi encourages us to include the various paramilitary groups in Iraq, individually politically organized and militarily lead offshoots of the Popular Mobilization Units (PMUs) formed after the US assassinated IRGC General Soleimani and Iraqi military leader al Muhandis from the issuance of a fatwa by Iraqi Shia leading cleric al Sistani. Marandi goes further, though his inclusion of the various regional, political militias warrants consideration before we continuing to the wider understanding.
His argues that these militias are checking the US' military freedom in Iraq and Syria. The recent "Tower 22" drone attack on the US logistics and intelligence base in northeastern Jordan served as an insightful example of this. The success of the attack on the base depended on its lack of effective air defense. This exposed the weakness of the US' forces at this location, and more generally in the region. The choice of target, in Jordan, served to place the Jordanian monarch under even more pressure from the million strong Palestinian population by publicizing the presence of the Zionist supporting base on his territory. There is also a commonality between the Yemeni engagement with the US and British navies and the militia's with the US bases in Syria and Iraq. The attacks are economically asymmetric. There is an economic element to the strategy behind them.
Economic asymmetry
The recent inclusion of geoeconomics by informed commentators and military experts Scott Ritter and Col. Macgregor in their analysis of geopolitical affairs is noteworthy. What may be causing this concern, or what is undermining the strength of the USD as the 'reserve currency' in international trade? The answer is multi-faceted though could be summarized as Newton's third law applied to geopolitics and geoeconomics.
The US and its allies (i.e EU/NATO) have been impounding the assets of foreign nation's central banks. Recent examples include the impounding of (USD) $2 billion of Venezuelan gold by the Bank of London. Then, the outright theft of $7 billion of the Afghan central bank's assets by the US. We now have schemes being proposed to convert the approximately $300 billion of the Russian central bank assets from 'frozen' to 'stolen'. In parallel, we had the outright theft of Venezuela's Citgo company assets in the US. Included in the baker's dozen EU sanctions packages against Russia are other measures to impound or steal assets of Russian companies or individuals. Interestingly, Russia is adopting laws to counter this ongoing egregious economic theft.
The other significant economic activity is the growth of international trade in bilateral currencies, circumventing both the US dollar and the US and EU banks.
Returning to the economically asymmetric tactics of the Axis of Resistance, we have $2000 drones countering $2 million cruise missiles on the waters of the Red Sea and beyond. The same is true on the terrain of Iraq and Syria, with militias firing cheap rockets or flying cheap drones to attack the illegal US bases. The US are spending millions defending their illegal bases from these cheap attacks.
On a military tactical level, we are seeing the introduction of drone warfare in all of the conflicts between the proxy forces of the two geopolitical power blocks of the US/NATO/EU and BRICS/SCO.
The fabric of an idea
Behind Marandi's suggestion to include these less considered militias, who are pinning down the US in the region, in the “Axis of Resistance” is to consider the Iranian strategy behind them. Marandi states that this has been a decades long process.
On the one hand are the distributed missile systems in Iran serving as either a defensive or offensive force. External activities have been coordinated by Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corp (IRGC). The extensive training which has been provided to these regional militias has been some of the IRGC's work. That training has also been distributed. While Iran is the leading Shia power in the region, its training has not been limited to the Shia, but extended beyond the Islamic divide. The training is distributed, in that the IRGC have been encouraging the elements of the "Axis" to train each other, to share understanding gained from their resistance efforts. The Axis is not a top down military organisation, but a fabric.
Medhurst touches on this in a comment. Just as the West's military strategic thinking still resides in the WWII era, its approach to eliminating militias is colonial. There is a difference, remarks Medhurst, between ideological organisations lead by a charismatic leader and the leadership within these militias. They are fighting for their land. This is not an abstract idea. They live on it. Baud's understanding of Russian military culture included that there was no taboo in detailed, insightful discussion between a Captain and a General. It is encouraged. It is a part of their military culture. The same horizontal, low hierarchy culture may also be able to be seen in these militias. They all feel the occupation.
They cannot be 'beheaded'. Or, to use another phrase, an idea cannot be killed.
Continuing with Marandi's's description of the Axis, he sees the outer edge of it in the populations of the greater "Global South" or "Global Majority". The other important remote popular element is the youth in the West. The West's abject moral hypocrisy has destroyed its soft power. Its young are beginning to see the moral depravity. It is no wonder that the US wishes to ban TikTok.
As Caitlin Johnstone has so eloquently expressed, one does not call out the West's hypocrisy expecting that by doing so it will change, but to expose the evil within it.
To the heart of the restistance
Marandi's exposition on the composition of the "Axis of Resistance" begins with him declaring where he sees extraordinary bravery. It is not with the disciplined and committed forces in Gaza or Yemen, or Iraq or Syria. It is not in the Mosques in Tehran or Jerusalem. It is not in the presidential palace in Damascus or the parliament in Beirut.
It is in the hearts of the women and children in Gaza, and the West Bank.
They refuse to leave their land. The Zionists and their enablers are martyring these women and children by brutal starvation and terror. These women and mothers are steadfast in the face of this evil. They refuse to submit. They force the Zionists to demonstrate their evil.
Some may wish to comment that without the courage and discipline of the resistance fighters in Gaza these brave women could not stand. Marandi has asked himself for whom these fighters fight? He has provided us with the answer he sees in his heart.
Sources
War and sanctions have forced Russia to make long overdue reforms, Ben Aris, Natalyie's Place: Understanding Russia (originally Intellinews), 2024-04-03
Mystery Solved: US DoD Killed Soldiers, YesXorNo, 2024-02-11
🎧 From the Military via the Geopolitical to the Geoeconomic, YesXorNo, 2024-04-04
Connor Freeman: US To Seize Russian Assets?, Napolitano interviews Freeman, Judging Freedom, 2024-04-03
LIVE INTERVIEW： Prof Marandi on Israel's Bombing of Iranian Embassy, Resistance, and More, Medhurst interviews Prof. Marandi, Richard Medhurst, 2024-04-02
interview begins at 00:01:57, Marandi's audio cuts in at 00:03:14
Scott Ritter： How Long Will Ukraine Last？, Napolitano interviews Ritter, Judging Freedom, 2024-04-04
Senior Hezbollah official: "Israel, by its own actions, will destroy itself", Lascaris interviews Ammar Al-Moussawi, the Director of International Relations for the political wing of Hezbollah, Dimitri Lascaris, 2024-04-04
Copyleft: CC0
