DAR AL HARB / ISLAM - U.S.A. / IRAN: CONFRONTATION OR ACCOMODATION?!?!?

How Iran is planning to deal with Americans
By Amir Taheri, Special to Gulf News

Confrontation or accommodation? As the latest ultimatum set for Iran by the US Security Council draws closer, that perennial question of Iranian politics is back at the centre of debate in Tehran.

The confrontationists, led by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad believe that the Bush administration, in its sunset phase, will not dare launch any major military operation against Iran.

According to this view, the most that Bush can do is to order air and missile attacks on the country's nuclear installations. That would damage the project, perhaps setting it back by a year or two.

But it would enable the revolutionary faction within the Khomeinist regime to marginalise its conservative rivals and consolidate its hold on power.

Once the American attack is over, Ahmadinejad would produce TV footage of babies burned by American napalm, and old widows weeping over the ruins of their mud huts. The radical president, who seeks the leadership of a global anti-American front, would claim victory simply by pointing out that he is still around.

Last summer, the tactic worked for the Lebanese branch of Hezbollah that went on to claim an "unprecedented victory in the history of Islam" over the "Infidel".

So confident is Ahmadinejad that the US has become a toothless tiger that he has ordered a series of operations in Afghanistan and Iraq to test the Americans.

In Afghanistan, the warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, whose forces are based in Iran, has moved onto the offensive against British forces in several places. But it is in Iraq that the Khomeinist leaders have decided to test the Americans.

The latest attacks in which US and British soldiers were killed in Karbala and Basra, two Shiite cities that had been calm for the past two years, is a message to Washington that the Islamic Republic's clients in Iraq could open dozens of new fronts against the US-led multinational force.

Tehran has also ordered the Mehdi Army militia led by Moqtada Al Sadr to disperse its forces throughout central and southern provinces.

Hundreds of Iranian-controlled gunmen are moving out of Baghdad, heading for Diwaniyah Karbala and Najaf, partly to escape the expected American attack on their stronghold, the Baghdad suburb of Sadr City, but also to prepare new positions for anti-US operations.

Ahmadinejad has often threatened to "raise a thousand fires" against the US when, and if, Washington attacks Iran.

Tehran has also speeded up arms deliveries to its clients in Lebanon with an eye on using any confusion created by an American attack on the Islamic Republic as a cover for seizing power in Beirut.

The plan is to set up a Committee of Public Safety, headed by the Maronite former general and politician General Michel Aoun, but effectively controlled by Hezbollah.

Ahmadinejad's strategy is inspired by the Shiite doctrine of "relaxation after hardship" (faraj baad al-shiddah).


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I have been unable to find anything about this "relaxation after hardship" (faraj baad al-shiddah) doctrine...

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