The Other MoU: Launching a Europe-Gulf Resilience Initiative After the US-Iran Deal
The Islamabad Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between the United States and Iran may have ended one of the most consequential Middle Eastern crises in decades, but it has not resolved the strategic problem it exposed. Whether the 60-day talks it set in motion will produce a final agreement remains far from certain.Yet the central lessons are already clear: Iran has preserved significant leverage, Washington has had to scale back its ambitions, and Europe and the Gulf face the prospect of protracted regional tension. Europe and the Gulf should therefore use the aftermath of the US-Iran deal to articulate their own “other MoU”: a Europe-Gulf Resilience initiative.
A Post-War Model for Verifying Iran’s Missile Arsenal
This study proposes a model for constraining and verifying Iran’s ballistic missile arsenal by employing a layered Strategic Verification Model with seven components: comprehensive baseline declarations; missile test and launch monitoring; intrusive inspections; quantitative and qualitative limits on missile capabilities; production controls, especially on solid-fuel manufacturing; a robust enforcement and compliance architecture; and regional confidence building measures.
Along with Egypt and Turkey, Iran is one of the most populous countries in the Middle East. Aware of its strategic significance and millennium-long civilization, Iranian leaders have always aspired to assume a leadership role on regional and international issues and pursued an assertive policy to reach their country’s potential. This ambitious strategy requires, among other things, strong military forces.
The Artesh: Iran’s Marginalized and Under-Armed Conventional Military
Originally posted November, 2011
Ravaged, intimidated, and gutted to the core in a series of purges after the 1979 Revolution, the remnant of the Shah’s military, renamed the Army of the Islamic Republic of Iran, known generally in Persian as the Artesh, put itself together as best as it could to face invading Iraqi forces at the beginning of the Iran-Iraq war.
Iran’s conventional military forces — ground, air, and naval — once stood tall as the best armed military forces in the Middle East aside from those of Israel. The United States lavished the most sophisticated military hardware on the Shah, who was willing and able to tap his financial resources from Iran’s oil wealth to buy modern conventional arms. The Shah had the ambition, the financial means, and the political-military backing of the United States to turn Iran into the Persian Gulf’s most formidable military power.
A United States Marine's View of the Artesh and IRGC
United States military forces use standard procedures for planning operations against other militaries. These procedures differentiate between different branches, or units, of an opposing force depending on their capabilities and limitations. This article presents one such analysis of the Iranian Military, where there are vast differences between the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC)and the Artesh, or the regular Iranian armed forces. The article then draws parallels to the planning for Operation Iraqi Freedom that led to the defeat of the Iraqi Republican Guard and regular Iraqi
As the United States and its allies have tightened sanctions on Iran, they have sought in particular to isolate the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the regime’s most aggressive institution. The IRGC, known in Persian as the Pasdaran, fields its own army, navy, and air force, and dominate a large and increasing share of Iran’s national economy.
Iran’s regular military, the Artesh, receives virtually no attention from international media or scholars on Iran. By contrast, its political rival, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC, also known in Persian as the Pasdaran), is scrutinized constantly by analysts for its visible, high-profile role in Iran’s political system, its economic resources and corporate activities, and its role as a spearhead of Iran’s regional policies.
Introduction to The Artesh: Iran's Marginalized Regular Military
As the US-Iran showdown continues, among Western analysts there is an infinite desire for more data and analysis relating to the workings of the Islamic Republic. From a US standpoint, a better understanding of the various organs and players in the Iranian regime setup is imperative as Washington weighs its options and sets out to formulate its policies.
MEI scholar Randa Slim led a discussion about Hezbollah and its reaction to shifting regional dynamics in the wake of the Arab Spring. Although Lebanon has not experienced the same levels of unrest as its neighbors, Hezbollah is not immune from the regional instability resulting from the revolutions roiling the Middle East. Hezbollah is currently the principal orchestrator of a new governing coalition that is rife with internal divisions.
Amidst ongoing violence against protestors in Syria, Hande Ayan of the Center for Turkish Studies discusses the uneasy diplomatic relationship between Turkey and Syria and Turkey’s role in the political situation there. The September 2011 Bulletin also introduces MEI scholars Philip Frayne, who speaks on his Foreign Service career and offers his insights on how the US can support democratic transitions in the Middle East, and Randa Slim, who is interviewed on her experience in post-conflict reconciliation.
In the June 2011 Bulletin, Dr. Michael Ryan discusses the implications of bin Ladin’s death for the remainder of the al-Qa’ida network. It also introduces new MEI scholars Dr. Daniel Serwer, who is interviewed on his career in technology and peacebuilding, and Dr. Charles Schmitz, who speaks about his work on Yemen.
In the wake of the August 31 drawdown of US forces and the formation of a fragile unity government after months of negotiations, the December 2010 Bulletin features an argument from Ambassador David Mack for sustained US assistance to the Iraqi government, interviews with MEI Scholar Charles Dunne the political situation in Iraq and with Katherine Blue Carroll on her forthcoming MEJ article, and a summary of MEI’s 64th Annual Conference.
The oldest peer-reviewed publication dedicated to the study of the modern Middle East, MEI’s flagship journal covers politics, society, and culture in the region.
