TEHRAN – A fresh in-depth study of Iran’s military capabilities and balanceof power in the embattled Middle East has assumed that regional wars arebeing waged on two layers – between states and in a so-called “grey zone”,where no conventional force can counterbalance Iran’s sovereign dominance.
As one of the most detailed assessments of Iran’s military strategysuggests, the Islamic Republic’s “third party capability” has becomesTehran’s most prominent weapon of choice.
The 16-month study by the International Institute for Strategic Studies(IISS) called Iran’s Networks of Influence claims that the networks,including Shia militias fighting in what it says is a “grey zone”, forinstance, are something Iran heavily relies on, even to a greater extentthan conventional military forces.
The network is said to be operating differently in most countries, havingbeen designed by Tehran as a key means of countering regional instabilityand international pressure alike, with the policy “having consistentlydelivered Iran advantage without the cost or risk of direct confrontationwith adversaries”.
Although the report concedes that overall military balance is still infavour of the US and allies, the balance of effective forces has shiftedtowards Iran and is currently in the Islamic Republic’s favour. The studygoes on to claim that “Iran is fighting and winning wars ‘fought amongstthe people’, not wars between states”.
The report details at length the balance of power in the region painting itas “complex and congested battle spaces involving no rule of law oraccountability, low visibility and multiple players who represent a mosaicof local and regional interests”.
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The study has also come up with a number of calculations: theextraterritorial al-Quds force and various militias reportedly amount to200,000 fighters. Meanwhile, the total cost of Iran’s activities in Iraqand Yemen was $16 billion, and Lebanon’s Hezbollah reportedly receives $700million in grants from the Islamic Republic.
The report comes as Iran continues to battle US-imposed economic sanctions,which closely followed Washington’s unilateral withdrawal from the 2015Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action in May 2018.
On 8 May, the first anniversary of the move, Tehran announced that it wouldstart scrapping its nuclear obligations stipulated by the JCPOA every 60days unless European signatories did their best to save the agreement,safeguarding Iran’s interests amid Washington’s re-imposed sanctions. -Sputnik
