It is in light of these changed conditions that we must look at Ayatollah Khamanei’s recently published 9-point plan to eliminate Israel – and contrast it with the vision of a military conquest of Jerusalem for the Mahdi back in 2011.
The importance of this comparison is that we know both visions have had the ayatollah’s approval, and by implication that of the clerical council in Qom. The difference between them indicates a clear shift from a more linear, but less concretely developed, strategic concept to a non-linear but realistically “developable” one.
The “Mighty Ahmadinejad” concept was quite linear and militarily conventional in implication: arrive with troops – somehow; exact campaign method not specified – and wage a military battle for Jerusalem.
The 9-point plan is a proxy plan, and one that seeks to induce Jerusalem to fall, and drive the Jews out through pressure – presumably a combination of political pressure and guerrilla-terrorist violence – rather than setting up a pitched military confrontation.
The plan proposes a referendum among “Palestinians,” wherever they are on earth, to set up a Palestinian government and, effectively, dissolve the modern state of Israel and eject the Jews from it. Until the referendum can be held, says Khamenei, the West Bank should be armed, and enabled to join Gaza in waging “armed resistance.”
It’s quite possible for this plan to be seen as the missing link in the “Mighty Ahmadinejad” concept: the interim campaign that will position a Shia warlord to accept the surrender of Jerusalem. (Ahmadinejad, of course, isn’t likely to be involved.) The 9-point plan is not a conventional military campaign, but in the conditions of 2014, its strategic outlines have the advantage of being feasible – unlike the impressionistic vision of 2011.
What we can also see now, however, is a prospect there was no glimmer of in 2011: the prospect of Iran being able to move a military force from her territory across central Iraq. We are a long way off from a real possibility of that; for one thing, Iran would have to build the force. But the most important shift has already occurred. Instead of being impossible, this prospect is now merely improbable, or at least is clearly not imminent.
Iran’s strategic approach – and the bomb
The approach we can expect from Iran will continue to emphasize what Iran has emphasized for years: proxy insurgencies, client forces, and terrorism. In addition to Hezbollah and Hamas, Iran has backed guerrilla terrorists ranging from Boko Haram in Nigeria to Taliban factions in Afghanistan. The Assad regime has been a client state of longstanding, as has the Bashir regime in Sudan; there is now a real possibility that the government of a “rump” Iraq will be an Iranian client (here, here, here, here, and here), and that the Iranian-backed Houthi insurgency in Yemen will form the core of a government, and make Yemen another client state.
Iran has shifted her regional posture in the last couple of years, and in some ways improved it, without the bomb, because of the power vacuum left by Obama’s America. Six years ago, Iran couldn’t contemplate achieving so much without a nuclear deterrent to wield against the U.S. Now, with Obama in the Oval Office through January 2017, she can.