The Iranian Sharia-Supremacist Regime and ‘Civilian’ Infrastructure
The Iranian Sharia-Supremacist Regime and ‘Civilian’ Infrastructure
I hesitate to keep hammering at the same themes at the risk of exhausting our readers’ patience, but I cannot stress enough the importance of trying to see the conflict in Iran as it is seen by the Shiite fundamentalist Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). It is a strategic error to see it as we would see it if we were under military attack, let alone as it is seen by the progressive-leaning, America-hostile media.
On that score, I grant that it is hard to get past President Trump’s disgraceful rhetoric. It reaffirms for the umpteenth time his unfitness. His unhinged posts undermine his support from even those of us who endorse military action against the Iranian regime; they further antagonize the majority of Americans who do not support the Trump-initiated war (many because Trump never tried to explain what he was doing and why to Congress and the public, many because they are deeply opposed to Trump — who is nearly 20 points underwaterratings-wise).
Nevertheless, some things remain true no matter how one views Donald Trump.
Iran’s Sharia Supremacism: Incorrigible, Doctrinal Hostility to the U.S.
Iran’s regime is led by sharia supremacists. The IRGC’s indoctrination in and commitment to this rabidly anti-American, anti-Western ideology is profound. While the regime also hates Israel (more specifically, Jews) for doctrinal as well as geopolitical reasons, its principal enemy is and has always been the United States. If the regime were to acquire nuclear weapons, it would also continue developing ballistic missile capabilities to increase threats against American interests in the Gulf region and beyond — especially, our homeland. That is a fact.
Even if given more opportunities to do so, the regime would not evolve out of its position because of trade or the possibility of economic prosperity. Like its anti-American axis partners China and Russia, it would exploit any improved financial position to become a more formidable enemy. It would continue doing what it did upon becoming flush with energy revenue thanks to the appeasement approach by Obama and Biden: It would remain the world’s leading state sponsor of anti-American jihadist terrorism; it would continue its ballistic missile development and manufacturing programs; and it would seek the game-changer of nuclear weaponry — all to leverage against the United States. This is not speculation; we know it from the regime’s nearly half-century record.
The Iranian Sharia Regime Does Not Recognize ‘Civilians’
We should stop speaking of “civilian” infrastructure, because it deludes us. “Civilian” is a Western concept, based on the Western understanding of the individual’s relation to the state, the individual’s array of civil rights that states are formed to promote and safeguard. In a sharia-supremacist state such as Iran, there are no citizens, no “constituents” of the state’s government, as we understand these terms. There are subjects and rulers.
The ruler’s obligation is to adhere to and enforce sharia — Islam’s law and societal framework, as construed from the fundamentalist perspective, essentially set a millennium ago. The subjects’ obligation is to obey. The subject does not have civil rights as understood in the West. That is why, in the 1990 Cairo statement, Muslim-majority countries promulgated the Declaration of Human Rights in Islam. Their reasoning was that the 1948 Declaration of Human Rights, which Western progressives haughtily described as “Universal,” is incompatible with Islam’s tenet that human beings have only the rights and duties set forth in Muslim scripture, which is the basis of sharia. Islamic law rejects the principles of liberty, self-determination, and equality under the law (it is systematically discriminatory, in favor of Muslim men). When we speak of “civilian” infrastructure in the context of Iran as if we were speaking of it in the context of a Western republican democracy, we are speaking nonsense.
Jihad and Death
In sharia-supremacist ideology, the highest duty is to wage jihad against Allah’s enemies — specifically, those who do not accept sharia and, especially, who thwart its aspiration to dominate. For a Muslim to fight in the jihad earns the highest adulation in this life, and to die while doing one’s part in the jihad earns the greatest reward in the afterlife. Hence, the regime will continue waging jihad against the United States and its allies; that should be a given.
What is underappreciated is that noncombatant deaths are also encouraged. To begin with, noncombatant deaths at the hands of the regime ensure that the regime and therefore its imposition of Islamic law endure. That is why the regime recently killed up to 40,000 Iranian dissenters who tried to rise up against it — just as it has killed, imprisoned, and tortured hundreds of thousands of Iranians over the last half century. Moreover, to the extent that the deaths of Iranian noncombatants are highlighted by regime sympathizers and useful idiots in the West as supposed war crimes, or as the rationalization for ending combat while the Iranian regime is still in power and still capable of projecting military force (against the West and to further enslave the Iranian people), that serves the purposes of jihad.
As the Western press obsesses over attacks on “civilian” infrastructure, the Iranian people who despise the sharia regime know it cannot otherwise be defeated.
Infrastructure
Just as we must view the Iranian sharia state as conceptually different from a Western state, we must also alter our understanding of Iranian infrastructure. In Iran, established in 1979 under the Khomeini sharia system and now ruled by the IRGC created by that system, infrastructure belongs to the rulers.
This is not a diversified Western economy in which there is a robust private sector that has erected most of the infrastructure for the benefit of its citizens. In Iran, the infrastructure is controlled by the rulers and benefits them. The IRGC gets most of the energy revenue and controls about two-thirds of GDP. The regime — like the Hamas jihadist organization it trained, armed, and backed financially — uses infrastructure that is ostensibly “civilian” to conceal forces and armaments. The infrastructure — very much including the energy terminals, the electrical grids, and the bridges and other transportation facilities — is thus the IRGC’s sustenance.
Discrimination and Proportionality
The concepts of discrimination and proportionality must be understood in their military context, not as they have been distorted by Western progressives.
Discrimination does not mean that attacks that are likely to result in noncombatant casualties are forbidden. It means that a target is legitimate if there is military value in striking it, even when such a strike is likely (or certain) to result in civilian casualties.
Proportionality does not mean that a use of force must be proportionate to the enemy’s use of force — a farcical notion that would allow the enemy to dictate the scope of force. Proportionality means the use of force must be commensurate with the military value of the target. Consequently, it counsels minimizing harm to noncombatants, but it does not require prohibiting such harm. The concept recognizes the imperative of defeating the enemy — destroying its assets and its will to fight — which is the surest way of shortening the war and therefore of minimizing noncombatant casualties.
Conclusion
I am a lawyer with some national security experience. I do not pretend to be a military expert, an intelligence analyst, or well-versed in Iranian infrastructure. I am not in a position to assess the military value of the targets that the Trump administration and U.S. military commanders have in mind. I am unable to say whether hitting this or that target would cause a quantum of noncombatant death and destruction that cannot be justified by the military value of the strike.
But I can say that what we in the West are so deluded as to call “civilian infrastructure” — the destruction of which would harm Iranian “civilians”– is, in reality, the lifeline of the totalitarian sharia-supremacist regime that enslaves and kills Iranians while waging ceaseless jihad against the United States.
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