{"id":10255,"date":"2022-10-20T20:58:43","date_gmt":"2022-10-20T17:58:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/?p=10255"},"modified":"2022-10-20T20:58:48","modified_gmt":"2022-10-20T17:58:48","slug":"irans-revolutionary-guards-are-fighting-on-the-ukrainian-front","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/?p=10255","title":{"rendered":"Iran’s Revolutionary Guards are fighting on the Ukrainian front"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Iran-Russia cooperation and the role of the IRGC predated the Syrian conflict. Former IRGC Quds Force commander Qasem Soleimani played a key role in developing the organization and its networks across Iraq, Syria and Lebanon and Yemen. He was the one who encouraged then Russian President Vladimir Putin to intervene in Syria in 2015.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The IRGC was already in Syria helping the regime, and at Soleimani’s instigation, Russia stepped in for Assad. This helped Syria regain territory and enabled Hezbollah and Iran-backed groups to approach the Golan Heights and threaten Israel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Iran has sent trainers from the IRGC to help Russia with the Shahed-136 kamikaze drones it uses. In addition, Iran supplies Russia with missile systems and ammunition, and given that Russia’s reserves of ammunition are rapidly depleting (please read the analysis entitled “Iran will give long-range missiles to Russia in exchange for cash<\/a>“).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The IRGC has done the same thing in the past, helping the Houthis in Yemen develop a deadly drone program to threaten Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and ships in the Gulf of Oman. The IRGC also aided Hamas in the Gaza Strip, Hezbollah and the Syrian regime.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Russia-Iran role in Syria helped turn the war around, with Syrian rebels mostly defeated after 2016. By 2018, the regime had recaptured southern Syria. Russia, Iran and Turkey worked on the Syrian conflict through the Russian-backed Astana Process. Ankara has intervened in northern Syria to fight US-backed Kurdish groups, and Syrian rebels have been turned into proxies by Turkey, diverting them from fighting the regime.<\/p>\n\n\n

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\"\"<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Since 2015, Iran started supporting the Houthis in Yemen and made them use drones against Saudi Arabia. The Houthis were a test case for Iran’s latest drones, and the new kamikaze ones soon rolled off the assembly line. By 2018, Iran was ready to use drones against Israel from Syria. Then in 2019, it used drones against Saudi Arabia and began basing drones and missiles in Iraq in 2018-2019. Iran then used the drones to attack the Kurds and US forces in Iraq, and by 2022, it was threatening US forces in Syria using drones, as well as ships, in the Gulf of Oman.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Iran’s drone and missile threat has forced other countries to confront it. The US Central Command and the Pentagon are plowing resources into stopping the drones, and the US, Israel and the Gulf states that are part of the Abraham Accords are concerned.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Given this long trajectory since Russia’s 2015 intervention in Syria, however, it should be noted how the Iran-Russia model in Syria is now finding its way to war in Ukraine \u2013 via the IRGC and after Iran tried its non- its manned aircraft in the Middle East. In short, Iran and Russia used Syria as a model and test bed for drones, missiles and other systems they are now deploying against Ukraine.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Iran-Russia cooperation and the role of the IRGC predated the Syrian conflict. Former IRGC Quds Force commander Qasem Soleimani played a key role in…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[836,825,3],"tags":[3700,160,1369,58,1156,3369,215],"class_list":["post-10255","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-asia-geopolitical","category-europe-geopolitical","category-geopolitical","tag-drones","tag-iran","tag-irgc","tag-russia","tag-ukraine","tag-ukraine-russia-war","tag-us"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10255","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10255"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10255\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10261,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10255\/revisions\/10261"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10255"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10255"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10255"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}