of equal importance (and potential difficulty) will be finding a neighboring country willing to serve as the conduit for U.s. aid to the insurgent 71 ibid.
committed to opposing the regime with force, and have some history of having done so. Moreover, at least some of these groups have indicated a willingness to ac- cept support from the United states. even if this policy failed to overthrow the
regime, supporting one or more insur- gencies would put pressure on tehran. it would divert the regime’s attention and resources, possibly limiting its ability to make mischief elsewhere in the region. it also might make iran more amenable to compromise on issues of importance to the United states in return for Washing- ton’s agreement to cease its support to the various insurgent groups.
This option requires relatively few resourc- es. insurgencies are famously cheap to sup- port, hence iran’s ability to support them in the Palestinian territories, Lebanon, iraq, and afghanistan simultaneously.
The United states has considerable experi- ence supporting insurgencies and has en- joyed a number of successes in doing so over the years.
Properly executed, covert support to an in- surgency would provide the United states with “plausible deniability.” as a result, the diplomatic and political backlash would likely be much less than if the United states were to mount a direct military action.
Disadvantages:
it would be difficult to find or build an in- surgency with a high likelihood of success. The existing candidates are weak and di- vided, and the iranian regime is very strong relative to the potential internal and exter- nal challengers.
mujahideen than did Pakistan. The United states would have to expect the same or similar from iran’s neighbors, which include Pakistan—an obvious conduit for american support to a Balu- chi insurgency.
There is another likely obstacle to securing a neighboring safe haven for ethnic insurgencies against tehran: many of those ethnic groups span the borders between iran and the potential spon- soring state, which often has the same problems with that ethnic group as does tehran. Both the turks and iraqis would be logical conduits to sup- port a Kurdish insurgency against iran, but that is highly unlikely because both Baghdad and anka- ra fear Kurdish aspirations for independence and believe that supporting an armed Kurdish bid for independence against iran (which is inevitably what a Kurdish insurgency would aim for) would galvanize their own Kurdish populations to seek the same.
Pros and Cons
The following are the advantages and disadvantag- es of supporting an insurgency.
advantages:
This approach has some potential to over- turn the regime and bring to power an- other government more amenable to the United states.
While an insurgency is typically less dan- gerous to the regime than a popular revo- lution (if only because insurgencies often take longer and follow a more predictable course), an insurgency is often easier to instigate and support from abroad. Unlike the option of trying to promote a popu- lar revolution, supporting one or more insurgencies against the regime would rely on groups that are already organized,
iran would likely fight back, and the Unit- ed states would be engaging iran in the dimension of warfare at which it is most adept. iran’s greatest military strength lies in the realm of “unconventional warfare”— insurgencies, terrorism, and other forms of low-intensity conflict. While the United states also has formidable capabilities in this arena (capabilities greatly improved by its experience in iraq and afghanistan), the U.s. advantage here is not as overwhelm- ing as it is at the conventional level. Doubt- less, the iranians would respond with ter- rorist attacks, as well as ramping up their support to the taliban and anti-american groups in iraq. They might also encourage hamas and hizballah to be more aggres- sive toward israel. as best we can tell, the 1996 Khobar towers blast was an iranian response to an $18 million increase in the U.s. covert action budget against iran in 1994-1995. although that covert action program posed little threat to tehran at the time (and another $18 million was a pal- try sum for the United states), the iranians apparently saw it as a declaration of covert war and may have destroyed the Khobar towers complex (killing 19 american ser- vicemen) as a way of warning the United states of the consequences of such a cam- paign. Washington would have to assume that tehran would react in similar fashion if the United states were to launch a far more determined effort than in the past. if the United states commits to supporting
an insurgent group, whether it is galvanized by ethnic, ideological, or political forces, it may have to make some very tough choices supporting one or more insurgency groups
is much less likely than a popular revolu- tion to produce actual regime change in iran. The Kurds, the Baluch, the arabs of Khuzestan—none of these groups is likely to trigger a nationwide movement to topple the regime. indeed, they are more likely to rally iran’s majority Persian community (54 per- cent of the population) around the regime. This is not to say that an insurgency could not accomplish meaningful results, only that it would be difficult for an insurgency to produce true regime change—let alone do so in time to prevent the regime from ac- quiring a nuclear weapons capability. a “successful” insurgency is more likely to
allow the group waging it to achieve more limited goals, such as secession. successful cases of secession have an historical ten- dency to trigger additional bids for seces- sion among other neighboring groups.72 in
the case of iran, that could easily include the iraqi and turkish Kurds, or a variety of caucasian or central asian groups, which would then provoke civil conflict in those countries.
an “unsuccessful” but well-supported in- surgency could easily produce a civil war instead, with the insurgency unable to secede or topple the government but, be- cause of its foreign backing, able to keep on fighting. civil war itself has a tendency to produce dangerous forms of spillover that can destabilize neighboring states.73 again,
since many of iran’s neighbors are impor- tant allies of the United states, this could be potentially harmful to american interests.
72 Daniel L. Byman and Kenneth M. Pollack, Things Fall Apart: Containing the Spillover from an Iraqi Civil War (Washington: Brookings
institution Press, 2007), esp. pp. 35-37.
the insurgency despite american support, and then Washington would have to decide whether to intervene militarily to prevent a complete rout. either situation would pres- ent Washington with a hobson’s choice: the United states would lose no matter which course it took.
The only nonethnic opposition group that is organized, armed, and committed to fighting the regime is the MeK. however, as noted, the MeK has badly alienated the iranian population by its behavior over the years, and american support to the MeK might simply antagonize iranians toward the United states without meaningfully advancing U.s. interests. at the very least, if the United states commits itself to this course of action, Washington should insist that the MeK reform itself and demonstrate that it has rebuilt some degree of popularity in iran before taking up its cause.
at some point regarding how far it is willing to support that group. in particular, what if the regime offers the United states ma- jor concessions in return for an american agreement to stop supporting the insurgen- cy? if Washington agrees, the insurgents would likely be slaughtered without the american aid, but how could Washington refuse if the iranians offer the United states something that would meet its ultimate ob- jectives concerning iran? in 1974-1975, the United states agreed to help iran support Kurdish insurgents fighting the Ba’thist re- gime in iraq. But in 1975, saddam husayn gave in to all the shah’s demands on terri- torial issues in return for iran pulling the plug on the Kurds (and since U.s. support was provided via iran, that terminated U.s. assistance as well). The shah agreed and the Kurds were massacred. alternatively, the United states could find itself in a Bay of Pigs–like situation: the regime might crush