Incentivize IRGC Defections, Cripple the Regime
Since December 28, fierce protests have erupted across Iran, threatening to topple Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s regime. Since the start of the protests, regime forces and secret police have retaliated with unbridled violence claiming the lives of a reported over 30,0000 Iranians, suppressing the protests. The regime has shuttered internet access across the country to hide reports of massacres. Unlike previous protests in Iran, protesters are not calling for reform; they are calling for an end to the dictatorship. However, momentum is waning as the protests are suppressed. Without proper support from the United States, protesters are doomed to be stifled at the hand of the regime. And the best way to provide support for the Iranian people is to weaken the Islamic Republic from the inside.
The best approach for the United States to hasten the end of the Ayatollah’s regime is to fracture the rigid hierarchy of the Islamic Republic: the regime’s most powerful means of preserving itself. Since 1979, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) have played an indispensable role in defending the mullahs. The organization is in charge of Iran’s national security, law enforcement, ballistic missile program, and support for proxies. It plays a crucial role in cracking down on the regime’s political opposition while funding and propping up terror groups like Hezbollah and Hamas. To hasten the collapse of the regime, the United States must divide and cripple the IRGC, the main force upholding the ayatollah’s vicious rule.
Cracks have already started to appear in the regime’s structure. An Algemeiner report detailed over 100 defections of junior and mid-level IRGC and Basij security forces joining protesters and abandoning their positions. In response, Khamenei has ordered senior IRGC officials to orchestrate a crackdown, punishing defectors among its ranks. As long as senior IRGC officials remain loyal to Tehran, defectors will be punished and the regime will remain in power.
In order to dismantle the structure of the IRGC and therefore the regime, the United States should begin using its intelligence services to offer financial incentives and safe passage to both high and mid-level IRGC officials to defect from the regime. Financial compensation would spur IRGC officials into action, many of whom may already be considering defection in the wake of the raging protests and reports alleging Ayatollah Khamenei has plans to flee to Moscow if his regime were to fall.
If the IRGC were to collapse into itself, the regime would become hollowed out from the inside, and protesters would be far more likely to succeed in toppling it. Additionally, weakening the IRGC would provide the benefit of preventing Iranian support for its regional proxies. Without a powerful IRGC to act as an intermediary, terror groups like Hezbollah and Hamas would be weakened and severed from Tehran.
There is historical precedent for such an intelligence operation. Before the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in the wake of 9/11, the United States successfully used financial leverage to weaken the Taliban’s internal structure, laying the groundwork for a more successful invasion by conducting Operation Jawbreaker. Washington used its intelligence service to buy off Taliban commanders willing to switch sides, while also funding anti-Taliban rebel groups.
By using financial means to divide the Taliban internally and encourage division, Washington weakened the Taliban’s grip on Afghanistan. In the case of Iran, a ground invasion in the aftermath of this operation would not be necessary. Facilitating decay within the IRGC by incentivizing defections will allow the Iranian people a chance to end the regime and liberate their country.
However, United States policymakers should act fast. The time window for such an operation is closing, as protests have been brutally squashed and are diminishing hourly. Before the momentum expires, the U.S. must take decisive action in a way that will give the Iranian people a chance to free themselves from tyranny. A lasting solution to the problem of the dictatorial Islamic Republic must come from the Iranian people themselves. In order to create that opportunity, the U.S. and its allies must act immediately to encourage defections.
