U.S. Central Command: Iran Is The Capo Di Tutti Capi

Posted Sep 22, 2011 by Howard Altman

Updated Sep 23, 2011 at 04:19 PM

The Ahmadinejads may not have the same ring as The Sopranos, but the folks at U.S. Central Command say Iran is essentially a Mafiacracy.

“Iran is attempting to run the region the way a mafia boss might,” Centcom Chief of Staff Maj. Gen. Karl Horst told me in an email Thursday afternoon. “They offer protection from insecurity and instability in return for partnership when they are creating the insecurity for their own ends.”

Concern over Iran has been a big issue at Centcom.

“The influence of malign Iran is all throughout the AOR,” Horst told me in his office on Sept. 13. “It’s in Bahrain. It’s in Syria. It’s in Lebanon. It’s in Iraq. Malign Iran is a problem to regional stability. That’s what makes Centcom such an interesting place to work. And we are never bored, or without purpose.”

Nine days later, as the UN gets ready to listen to a plea for statehood by the Palestinians, Centcom is not a smidgeon more boring and the folks there say Iran is not a smidgeon less trouble.

Though the action in Israel takes place in the AOR of European Command, and though Centcom hates talking about the Holy Land, the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian dilemma is the proverbial 800-pound camel wandering the halls.

Take Saudi Arabia. The Saudis, a key political and military ally, have promised to make life even less boring for Centcom, by not recognizing Iraq’s government and by moving away from U.S. efforts in Afghanistan and Yemen if the U.S., as expected, vetoes a state for the Palestinians. Iraq, Afghanistan and Yemen are just three of the very unboring countries where U.S. military operations are run by Centcom.

In a New York Times op-ed, Turki Al-Faisal, former director of the Saudi intel service and a former ambassador to the U.S., argued that even efforts to reign in Iran – a very-much-mutual enemy – could be damaged by a veto.

Today, there is a chance for the United States and Saudi Arabia to contain Iran and prevent it from destabilizing the region. But this opportunity will be squandered if the Obama administration’s actions at the United Nations force a deepening split between our two countries.

Thursday afternoon, Horst downplayed any potential Saudi-US rift, particularly as it relates to Iran.

“I believe that Saudi Arabia and the US have many more shared interests than differences,” he said in an email. “I believe that their concern over Iranian influence matches our concern. They have long been strong partners of ours and despite any possible future differences, they will remain so.”

Iran, said Horst a few weeks back, is a thorn in everybody’s side.

Not only are its nuclear ambitions troubling, but its actions in the region are as well.

Q: What are you seeing right now in Lebanon?

A: The question is, what about the Lebanese armed forces? And what’s the viability of the Lebanese armed forces? What is the destabilizing effect of malign Iran influence? You have Lebanese Hizballah, so you have lots of destabilizing forces at work in Lebanon and the question is can Lebanese armed forces stand up to the destabilizing effect malign Iran presents to them?

Q: Can they?

A: If we assist them with equipment and training, they have a better chance than if we do not.

Q: Have you seen any evidence of Iranian forces on the ground in Syria?

A: I think it is safe to say the Qods Force is on the ground throughout the AOR. The Islamic Revolutionary Guards Command. They are out there on the ground throughout the AOR exerting influence.

Q: Do they have special forces, information operations, MISO?

A: Yes, the have all of those capabilities.

Q: How often have there been direct confrontations between US forces and Qods Forces?

A: Every time we pick them up operating in Iraq, we have a direct confrontation with them. We have detained a number of Iranian Qods Force guys in Iraq.

Q: What do you do with them?

A: Put them in the detention facility.

Q: Have you had any direct engagement with them anywhere else besides Iraq?

A: That’s where we actually detained some, but we know through our regional partners that they are operating in those other countries but that’s the only place we’ve had direct engagement with Qods Force guys. We scarfed a couple up of them up in Iraq.

Q: What are their capabilities in special forces and IO?

A: They are kind of like our special forces. What they are doing is they are training Shi’a militias in operations. They are trainers. They go out and they train Lebanese Hizballah. They train the Shi’a militias in Iraq. In Yemen. It’s a challenge for us because it is a destabilizing effect in the region. Without directly engaging them it makes it really tough. That’s why when we talk about proxies – Iranian proxy militias – we are talking about guys who have been trained, equipped, financed and enabled by Qods Force.

To emphasize the role of Iran in the region, particularly in Iraq, Centcom officials showed me pictures of 107 mm rockets that were captured after a failed attack in July on Contingency Operating Base Garry Owen, which is near the Iranian border.

The rockets, according to Centcom, were fired on the base by the Asa’ib Ahl Al-Haq (AAH), a Shi’a militia. They were delivered to the AAH by the Iranians, says Centcom.

The significance is while no U.S. forces were killed, the rockets overshot the base and killed Iraqi troops and civilians. When US and Iraqi ordinance teams arrived at the launch site that was vacated by the AAH, they found 17 rockets, still on rails, that Centcom says came from Iran. There was a great outrage by Iraq, which let Iran know they knew where the rockets came from.

To put an even finer point on it, Centcom says that Qays al-Shaza’ali, who was responsible for the attack on COS Garry Owen, was a VIP invitee to the Islamic Awakening Conference just held in Iran.