Reza Shafa
Two weeks ago, in a classified report leaked from a meeting of the regime’s Supreme National Security Council (SNSC) Iraq Publicity Committee (IPC), the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Crops (IRGC) top commanders, director of Community for Religious Affinity (CRA), and some high ranking members of Organization of Islamic Culture and Communication (OICC) presented their latest assessment of the developments in Iraq. The SNSC received exasperating reports of the Iraqi people’s enmity towards IRGC and Quds Force meddling in the country’s affairs.
The outcome of the meeting was the following instructions for the IRGC and Quds Force personal both in Iran and Iraq:
• In public media outlets, the regime’s operatives should stress on the unity of Shiites and Sunnis. Whereas, in the internal briefings for their agents in Iraq, Sunnis should be portrayed as the main obstacle in the way of mullahs expanding their hegemony and control in the country and should be expelled from their positions, assassinated or removed in any way possible;
• The U.S. presence must be introduced as the sole source of sectarian violence and it is the United States which is in need of more unrest in Iraq;
• Elements of Moqtada Sadr’s Mehdi army and The Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI) must publicly emphasize on unity of Shiites and Sunnis in their common struggle against the U.S. occupation and in particular they have the task of stirring popular unrest against U.S. Forces in Iraq. While these elements have the mission of publicly denouncing the religious violence, behind the scenes, their true task is igniting widespread revulsion and inflaming anti-American sentiment;
• At inside briefings of its fanatic loyalists, Quds Force commanders in Iraq unveiled their actual face by introducing Sunnis as their main enemies who stand in their way of expanding the mullahs’ domination in the whole of Iraq;
• The Iranian regime’s agents instructed their proxies in that country to preach that the U.S. presence in Iraq is the only source of sectarian violence and should be terminated at all costs;
• Elements of Mehdi army and SCIRI must publicly emphasis that Shiites and Sunnis are brothers and united in their common struggle for forcing out the enemy which is none other than the U.S. forces. In fact they have to mobilize and provoke the Sunni youths against the U.S. while pretending that they have nothing to do with stirring violence;
• In particular in Diyala Province, northeast Baghdad, the U.S. should be introduced as collaborator with the Sunni tribal leaders in plotting to destabilize Nuri al-Maliki’s Shiite government.
According to these instructions by IPC, the mullahs working for Quds Force in Iraq should concentrate their efforts in pursuing the public along these lines in Mosques and religious centers throughout the country.
Reza Shafa is an expert on the Iranian regime’s intelligence networks,.
