Iran S Proxy War Against America

This book analyzes the historical quest of the Islamic Republic of Iran to export its revolution to the Muslim countries in the Middle East and beyond. The authors argue that Iran exported its revolution by using proxies such as Hezbollah, the Iraqi Shite militias, and the Houthis. The study unravels the casual chain behind less-known cases of Iranian sponsorship of al Qaeda (Central) and al Qaida in Iraq. It combines rigorous theory with detailed empirical analysis which can add to the current debate about ways to roll back Iran’s revolutionary export.

This book analyzes the historical quest of the Islamic Republic of Iran to export its revolution to the Muslim countries in the Middle East and beyond. The authors argue that Iran exported its revolution by using proxies such as Hezbollah, the Iraqi Shite militias, and the Houthis. The study unravels the casual chain behind less-known cases of Iranian sponsorship of al Qaeda (Central) and al Qaida in Iraq. It combines rigorous theory with detailed empirical analysis which can add to the current debate about ways to roll back Iran’s revolutionary export.

The dramatic secret history of our undeclared thirty-year conflict with Iran, revealing newsbreaking episodes of covert and deadly operations that brought the two nations to the brink of open war For three decades, the United States and Iran have engaged in a secret war. It is a conflict that has never been acknowledged and a story that has never been told. This surreptitious war began with the Iranian revolution and simmers today inside Iraq and in the Persian Gulf. Fights rage in the shadows, between the CIA and its network of spies and Iran's intelligence agency. Battles are fought at sea with Iranians in small speedboats attacking Western oil tankers. This conflict has frustrated five American presidents, divided administrations, and repeatedly threatened to bring the two nations into open warfare. It is a story of shocking miscalculations, bitter debates, hidden casualties, boldness, and betrayal. A senior historian for the federal government with unparalleled access to senior officials and key documents of several U.S. administrations, Crist has spent more than ten years researching and writing The Twilight War, and he breaks new ground on virtually every page. Crist describes the series of secret negotiations between Iran and the United States after 9/11, culminating in Iran's proposal for a grand bargain for peace-which the Bush administration turned down. He documents the clandestine counterattack Iran launched after America's 2003 invasion of Iraq, in which thousands of soldiers disguised as reporters, tourists, pilgrims, and aid workers toiled to change the government in Baghdad and undercut American attempts to pacify the Iraqi insurgency. And he reveals in vivid detail for the first time a number of important stories of military and intelligence operations by both sides, both successes and failures, and their typically unexpected consequences. Much has changed in the world since 1979, but Iran and America remain each other's biggest national security nightmares. "The Iran problem" is a razor-sharp briar patch that has claimed its sixth presidential victim in Barack Obama and his administration. The Twilight War adds vital new depth to our understanding of this acute dilemma it is also a thrillingly engrossing read, animated by a healthy irony about human failings in the fog of not-quite war.

Proxy warfare will shape the conflicts of the twenty-first century for the foreseeable future. Yet the popular understanding of proxy wars remains largely shaped by the experience of the Cold War. In reality, in the Greater Middle East and its periphery today, the growing power of regional states and non-state actors, combined with the proliferation of new technology, has reshaped proxy conflicts, in an increasingly multipolar and interconnected environment. In this collected volume, a range of researchers examine what constitutes proxy warfare and provide new insight into how these wars are waged, in contexts stretching from Ukraine to North Africa and Syria to Afghanistan. The volume draws upon research, surveys and interviews conducted in Syria, Iraq, Libya and Ukraine, as well as examining the propaganda output of those involved in these countries' wars. In doing so, Understanding the New Proxy Wars helps reveal both the continuities and the differences between recent conflicts and those of times past.

As the Middle East descends ever deeper into violence and chaos, 'sectarianism' has become a catch-all explanation for the region's troubles. The turmoil is attributed to 'ancient sectarian differences', putatively primordial forces that make violent conflict intractable. In media and policy discussions, sectarianism has come to possess trans-historical causal power. This book trenchantly challenges the lazy use of 'sectarianism' as a magic-bullet explanation for the region's ills, focusing on how various conflicts in the Middle East have morphed from non-sectarian (or cross-sectarian) and nonviolent movements into sectarian wars. Through multiple case studies -- including Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Yemen and Kuwait -- this book maps the dynamics of sectarianisation, exploring not only how but also why it has taken hold. The contributors examine the constellation of forces -- from those within societies to external factors such as the Saudi-Iran rivalry -- that drive the sectarianisation process and explore how the region's politics can be de-sectarianised. Featuring leading scholars -- and including historians, anthropologists, political scientists and international relations theorists -- this book will redefine the terms of debate on one of the most critical issues in international affairs today.

Everyone knows what happened on September 11, 2001. But do we really know what was behind this act of war? What was the lure? What was it about the Hamburg cell that appealed to him? What lured this educated son of a successful Lebanese family to the jihadist message of destruction and annihiliation that would result in the death of 3170 Americans? These questions torment Sami Haddad as he pondered his choice, in August of 2001, whether or not to join the 9-ll hijackers. Through a series of tape recordings which Sami had made in the months before the operation, he tells his beautiful and feisty Turkish-German lover, Karima Ilgun, of his first meeting with Muhammad Atta in Hamburg, of his training in Afghanistan under the watchful eye of Al Qaeda's military chief, of his meeting with Osama bin Ladin where he swears his oath of allegiance, and of his final months of preparation in Florida where he comes to loath Muhammad Atta but cannot find the courage to flee. A sense of doubt and skepticism suffuses his musings to her, but also of weakness. After the attack on 9/11, Kommissar Recht, a rumpled German government investigator), is tasked to ferret out Karima's role, if any, as an Al Qaeda operative. He comes to suspect that she is withholding valuable evidence, but under German privacy law he is barred from employing strong-arm tactics that would force her to talk. Surviving members of the Al Qaeda cell in Hamburg also suspect Karima is hiding Sami's tapes. To them Sami's recollections are sacred artifacts of what they deemed to be their successful mission, but they fear his presentation of the attack might be something less than heroic. Karima is caught between these two forces, either of which could have terrible consequences for her. How she resolves this dilemma is the climax of the novel.

The U.S. has indirectly intervened in international conflicts on a relatively large scale for decades. Yet little is known about the immediate usefulness or long-term effectiveness of contemporary proxy warfare. In cases when neither direct involvement nor total disengagement are viable, proxy warfare is often the best option, or, rather, the least bad option. Tyrone L. Groh describes the hazards and undesirable aspects of this strategy, as well as how to deploy it effectively. Proxy War explores the circumstances under which indirect warfare works best, how to evaluate it as a policy option, and the possible risks and rewards. Groh offers a fresh look at this strategy, using uncommon and understudied cases to test the concepts presented. These ten case studies investigate and illustrate the different types and uses of proxy war under varying conditions. What arises is a complete theoretical model of proxy warfare that can be applied to a wide range of situations. Proxy war is here to stay and will likely become more common as players on the international stage increasingly challenge U.S. dominance, making it more important than ever to understand how and when to deploy it.