Iranian General Admits to the use of Terrorism

Qassem Soleimani the head of Iran's Quds Force recently chimed in on the spat between US President Donald Trump and Iranian Theocratic Dictator Hassan Rouhani. The specific term he used was asymmetric war. Asymmetric war is a fancy name for terrorism. 911 for instance is an example of asymmetric warfare.

Asymmetric warfare is defined in the Merriam-Webster Dictionary as: warfare that is between opposing forces which differ greatly in military power and that typically involves the use of unconventional weapons and tactics (such as those associated with guerrilla warfare and terrorist attacks).

While on one hand, it is understandable to want to defend your country from a superior invading force such as the USA. On the other hand, projecting that force against innocent people, which seems to be a tactic in asymmetric warfare, garners no compassion at all. One of the analysis of how America would respond to an all out invasion has been played out in films like Red Dawn. But, even this dramatization fails to encompass the massive backlash an invading army would face in the USA from "rednecks with pick up trucks and deer rifles", for instance, should an invasion ever succeed.

But as we have seen over and over, asymmetric warfare is often used to lash out at Western Civilization as a whole. There is only a small tactical gain in creating sleeper cells inside a country. Yes fear is created when you have terror cells run people down with a car and then get out and begin stabbing people, for example. And that gain of creating chaos in the country in which the asymmetric warfare is employed tends to have the reverse effect on the victim country. The futile nature of these attacks, from a strategic view point fails as it brings the average observer to conclude it is simply senseless violence.

Modern terrorism was first employed by Syed Kutub. It was his influence over, Ayman Zawahiri who later became a mentor of Osama Bin Laden, where the idea formulated to bring their Jihad against the very people who accepted a Westernized Egypt. And it is this movement that specifically carried out the assassination of Egypt's President Anwar Sadat in 1981. But later the terror campaign was waged against the very Muslims they felt were not devoted enough to Islam by accepting Western ideals into their culture. And it is this rejection of Western Civilization and viewing it as a threat to Islam that is a clue of how the Theocratic Dictatorship in Iran must view the world.

This view is expanded upon greatly in the 2004 documentary from BBC 2 called The Power of Nightmares. In this film, producer Adam Curtis explores the rise of radical Islam and how the neo-cons rise to power in America culminated in 911 and the subsequent invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan by a US led coalition of forces.

It is yet to be seen how the statement from Qassem Soleimani will play out on the world stage. Iran has been caught with terror training camps. Can we be careless enough to assume that the statement of Soleimani that war with Iran would "destroy all that you possess" in same speech where he declared the used of "asymmetric war" against the USA would not include projection of terror to US soil? When we look at the continual attacks in Europe carried out by Muslim extremists, do Soleimani's statements call for an increase of the terror campaign against Western Civilization?

Citations:

Reuters: http://news.trust.org/item/20180726094015-595zf

According to Iranian dissidents, Iran is directly contributing to terror activities.
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/iranian-dissidents-warn-irgc-is-expanding-terrorist-training/article/2614784

Here is a link to parts 1-3 of BBC's The Power of Nightmares. https://www.filmsforaction.org/watch/the-power-of-nightmares-13-the-rise-of-the-politics-of-fear/