Alexander Grinberg, intelligence analyst and research fellow at the Jerusalem Institute for Security and Strategy (JISS), spoke to an April 20 Middle East Forum podcast (video). The following summarizes his comments:
The principle of the Islamic regime’s doctrine invented by Mohammed Ali Jafari, the former commander-in-chief of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), is the dispersal of power via decentralized units acting autonomously, “even if the central command in Iran is gone.” By equipping the Basij, the IRGC’s volunteer paramilitary militia units, with mobile ballistic missile launchers and dispersing those units across remote areas in Iran’s 31 provinces, the regime applied lessons learned from the Iran-Iraq war. This decentralized military doctrine is called “mosaic defense.”
Iran’s decentralized mosaic defense is only applicable to the regime’s naval capabilities and missile units, not the entirety of the Iranian regime’s armed forces.
Iran’s vast size makes the hunt for missile launchers or missile shafts more difficult, but the most severe drawback of mosaic defense is that the central power is incapable of imposing decisions on autonomous units when lines of communication are severed. The strategy is about “endurance, not about victory.”
First, while Iran’s strategy of launching missiles is more of an annoyance for Israel than a prolonged war of attrition, it poses a more serious problem for Gulf countries, because their proximity to Iran means shorter range missiles can reach them. Iran can also operate false flag operations by activating various jihadi groups against its adjacent neighbors. Iran’s current fragmentation may offer opportunities for the U.S. or Israel to organize resistance groups among the population, but fragmentation is a double-edged sword. Surviving terror groups can continue to wreak havoc, even without a central command, which has been “the general Iranian modus operandi” independent of a mosaic defense strategy.
Second, Iran’s decentralized mosaic defense is only applicable to the regime’s naval capabilities and missile units, not the entirety of the Iranian regime’s armed forces. For example, the Houthis, Yemen’s Iranian proxy, are unable to sink vessels despite their shore-to-sea missiles absent the intelligence supplied by Iranian spy ships, which no longer exist. Any attempt by Iran to use a more substantial means of communication risks detection and interception.
Finally, those regime figures who survived the Israeli strikes that eliminated a large number of their colleagues are “less professional and less efficient,” and they fear they are next. “There is no one charismatic authority” among the surviving hardliners. Additionally, Israel destroyed most of Iran’s industrial military capacity to manufacture ballistic missiles. The regime cannot compensate for the loss of personnel necessary to operate its now-defunct chain of production.
The regime presumed Israel was incapable of carrying out a strike on the Caspian Sea, where Iran trains its proxies. The regime’s Achilles heel was that in its arrogance, it blindly avoided preparing a backup “plan B.” Contrarians suggesting alternative plans would place their own lives in danger, as they would be seen as challenging the commander’s authority.
Key targets in the disruption of mosaic defense are Iran’s command-and-control systems. The regime has invested heavily in its asymmetric power but is weak “in terms of conventional military might.” In its weakness, it is incapable of deploying a rapid reaction force that can cope with the “many implications and conclusions” of an “organized, serious military attack.”
Economic pressure alone will not succeed because the IRGC has its own independent resources.
Despite delivering blows in tandem against the regime that “drastically harm its functioning,” both the U.S. and Israel are keenly aware that eliminating Iran’s “cash flow of power” does not mean the regime is done. The Iranians are currently scrambling to improvise with no off ramp. Accepting U.S. conditions would be a surrender, “tantamount to political suicide.” The regime is akin to a mafia cartel—“you must be smart to be a big boss of [the] mafia,”—but the mafia does not act as a state.
“I’m certain America and Israel can win this war on the condition that they understand it’s not the one linear movement. There are several stages of this war.” Economic pressure alone will not succeed because the IRGC has its own independent resources. Instead, when applying economic pressure in tandem with military strikes, the U.S. and Israel “should behave exactly as the Iranians do. Not morally,” but by responding in kind to the simple principle to which the regime ascribes—“to harm your enemy by all means possible.” Military strategy does not operate like a business plan. Success requires flexibility, adaptability, and creativity. “We should gauge exactly what works here and now. Maybe today is one thing and tomorrow it’s another.”
