Fears of the so-called “shadow war” between Iran and Israel spilling out into the open were amplified after an oil tanker—MT Mercer Street—was attacked by an armed drone in the Gulf of Oman on July 29, killing two crew members. The attack on the tanker, owned by an Israeli billionaire, was immediately blamed on Iran by Israel, the United States, the United Kingdom, the European Union, NATO, and Japan. A week later, the foreign ministers of the G7 countries released a joint statement noting that “all available evidence clearly points to Iran” and that its behaviour “threatens international peace and security.” Israeli Defence Minister Benny Gantz went a step further and said that the head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ (IRGC) UAV Command, Saeed Ara Jani, was behind the attack.
Less than ten days after the tanker attack, the Iran-backed Lebanese militant group Hezbollah fired 19 rockets at Israel, prompting retaliatory airstrikes from the Israeli military. Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett was quick to highlight “Iranian involvement” in the incident and called its actions a “clear danger to the stability of the region.” Not long before Hezbollah initiated the rocket launches, IRGC chief Hossein Salami had proclaimed that Hezbollah stands ready to fight against Israel under any scenario.
It should be noted that the attacks carried out by Iran coincided with the change of guard in Tehran. Ebrahim Raisi officially replaced Hassan Rouhani on August 5 as the eighth President of the Islamic Republic, paving the way for greater IRGC control over Iranian foreign policy.
In a paper titled “The IRGC in the Age of Ebrahim Raisi”, Kasra Aarabi and Saeid Golkar state that Raisi will seek to empower the IRGC with “key ministerial and bureaucratic positions.” They argue that expanding the IRGC’s power serves both Raisi and Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
The 82-year-old Supreme Leader is “in the process of securing the foundations of a post-Khamenei Islamic Republic to ensure the survival of his hard-line Islamist regime after his death,” Aarabi and Golkar posit. To ensure that the regime remains committed to its revolutionary ideals, Khamenei has been “empowering the Guard” and “laying the ground for his successor”, who, as things appear right now, is Ebrahim Raisi. The paper argues that Raisi will need the IRGC’s support “more than ever before” if he is to be the next Supreme Leader because the Guard will play a “vital role in smoothing the transition” from Khamenei to Raisi.
In light of these circumstances, the IRGC has been further consolidating its power on an “unprecedented scale” within the government and bureaucracy. According to Aarabi and Golkar, “the IRGC has effectively extended its grip over the visible state after taking control of the deep state.”
The new government is likely to provide more space for the IRGC to function, unlike the previous Rouhani government. Differences between the Guards and the Rouhani administration became public after a damning audiotape, in which Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif is critical of the IRGC, was leaked in April. In the tape, Zarif accuses the IRGC and its former Quds force chief Qassem Soleimani of interference in Iran’s foreign affairs and criticises their efforts to “undermine” the Vienna talks to restore the 2015 nuclear deal. In fact, Rouhani recently said that his government was not always truthful with the public, a possible reference to the government refusing to acknowledge that the IRGC shot down a commercial airliner.
Also Read: What Has the Leaked Zarif Tape Revealed About Iran’s “Deep State”?
In contrast, Raisi’s tone has been extremely favourable to the IRGC. Raisi even said in March that the IRGC has played a crucial role in maintaining stability in the Republic by neutralising “conspiracies and seditions” and that it has “shone in every field it has entered.” Raisi’s closeness to the IRGC is one of the reasons why Khamenei sees him as the next Supreme Leader. It is also why the Guardian Council, responsible for selecting presidential candidates, barred almost all of the reformist candidates from contesting the 2021 election, essentially paving the way for a Raisi presidency.
In fact, political scientist Ramin Jahanbegloo says that the “engineered selection” of Raisi by the Guardian Council was preferred by Khamenei, despite allegations of fraud, public anger, and the fact the election saw the lowest turnout in the Islamic Republic’s history. Jahanbegloo argues that it is because Raisi’s government “will sustain Iran’s revolutionary image and its Islamic values by confronting any opposition from the Iranian civil society” or the moderates. This would provide Iran’s hardliners and the IRGC much-needed fertile ground to carry out their policies.
One of the most crucial aspects of Iranian foreign policy is its widespread proxy network in the Middle East, including in Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, and Yemen, which is mostly managed by the IRGC’s external branch—the Quds Force. Proxies like the Houthis in Yemen, the Popular Mobilisation Forces in Iraq, and the Lebanese Hezbollah have allowed Iran to wield influence over conflicts and actors in the region. For instance, Iran is believed to be backing Shia militias in Iraq, who have been attacking United States (US) bases in the country.
However, the previous government and the IRGC had conflicting positions on how to manage Iran’s proxies. In the leaked tape, Zarif criticises the Quds Force for deploying Iranian forces in Syria without government knowledge and thereby damaging the country’s long-term interests, including bringing an end to crippling Western sanctions.
Rouhani’s exit means that the IRGC will no longer have to worry about government positions on the issue. Furthermore, Raisi’s election victory was welcomed by Iranian proxies and allies including the Houthis, Hamas, and Hezbollah. Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh even attended Raisi’s inauguration ceremony along with officials from Hezbollah and Hashd al-Shaabi, an Iraqi militant group. This could be an indication that under the new government, the IRGC will not only extend its support to its proxies but also use them extensively to achieve its foreign policy goals.
Hardliners like Raisi and the IRGC also share a deep distrust of the West, especially the US, and severely criticised Rouhani’s government when the US reneged on the 2015 nuclear deal and re-imposed sanctions on Iran in 2018. Perhaps Khamenei’s efforts to ensure a Raisi victory in the election was to make sure that there is no repeat of such an incident. It could also be why Iran has chosen to indefinitely delay the Vienna talks and start enriching uranium to its highest level ever. While Raisi has welcomed the nuclear talks and expressed his interest in continuing negotiations, Iran’s actions suggest that he is seeking to set the terms of any talks that might take place. This could also play into the hands of the IRGC. According to The Times of Israel, the IRGC’s actions—such as the attack on MT Mercer Street—“appear designed to maximize its [Iran’s] negotiating position and tell the world it won’t be pushed over or forced into curtailing its proxies abroad.”
In this respect, it is highly unlikely that Iran will try to minimise attacks in the region through the use of proxies, as it views such actions as leveraging its interests in the region. Therefore, the Iran-Israel “shadow war” will continue and could even worsen, given that the IRGC has a special place in the Raisi government and that Israel has shown open hostility to the nuclear deal. That being said, the exact path Raisi chooses to navigate will only be clear in the coming weeks as he appoints his cabinet.