IRGC Generals Play a Desperate and Dangerous Poker Game

 Whilst they are not good bluffers, they desperately do anyway

The Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) held on 15 January a military exercise involving ballistic missiles. It preceded by its yet another military exercise only a few days earlier. These exercises translate to a clear response to the latest news from Israel that it is contemplating a plan to attack Iran's nuclear sites. 

They also did a several other military exercises last year, to send the same message to the US, Israel and others in order to deter any military response to their nuclear adventure recently. They are more funny than be serious in playing such dangerous game! Ask Israel, the US and its Western and regional allies.  

The IRGC, the Caliphate, does these exercises on wrong premises--I would say. They complacently calculate, as I see it, their actions and bluffs. They evaluate their own risks, options, as well as of their (and I should remind you that that is the Islamic Shiite Caliphate (the ISC) not Iran and her people) foes, both Israel and the US and its Western allies.  

The ISC and its IRGC may think a) Iran is a vast country with over 80 million population which makes it difficult, if not impossible, to invade militarily. For this reason, there see no feasibility of a military action of the 2003-Iraq-kind invasion in dealing with the ISC and its IRGC adventure in pursue of nuclear bomb and the capability of delivering it. And b) it can alarm the US and its Western allies, the UK, France, and Germany, by its daring stride toward the bomb and its delivery machine, for the West to cave-in and lift all sanctions president Trump imposed on the Caliphate State before any further negotiation on the JCPOA. They desperately count on their bluff and need this respite—they are suffocating. And c) seen it that way, the only risk they see foreseeable in short term is to have Israel, the US or both surgically attack on the Caliphate State's nuclear sites and that they can afford and still stand in Iran--like an injured snake in the Middle East and Israel backyard.  

 

On that case, the ISC and its IRGC would, they think, decide their own fate by choosing to either do or not to do anything at all in response. That is to similarly do limited, careful and calculated response such as they did last year in response to the termination of general Soleimani, head of the Quds Force, without any grave consequence to the US' troops or interests, or Israel this time around. That way they decide the outcome of their own action/s with an ultimate goal of not being fatally injured--collapse of the Caliphate State. 

In such scenario, they then be even free to grasp further and tighter to power and remove all domestic oppositions, if there is one at all--I believe there is no such thing as an opposition inside Iran--as in the Shiite Caliphate State both conservatives and so-called reformists are on board and the crew members of the same ship, the Shiite Caliphate State.  

 

But their bluff is like a double edges sword which may backfire badly. French Foreign Minister Jean Yves Le Drian has already indicated that coming back of the US to the JCPOA table is not that simple! And that ‘[T]ough discussions will be needed over ballistic proliferation and Iran’s destabilisation of its neighbours in the region.’  

It sounds like, I observe, Israel and the US and its Western allies have already called the ISC and its IRGC generals' bluff. It was not unreasonable to assume that Israel, the US and its Western allies have also done their own homework and observations as to the ISC and its IRGC options. The ISC and its generals are not after all good poker players.

In this kind of calculations, the ISC and its generals also missing from their equation a number of decisive factors. The people of Iran are the biggest players whom the US and its Western allies have heard their wish loud and clear. The ISC and generals have been imprisoning, violating all their human and citizen rights for decades, killing them by thousands. Israel, the US, its Western and regional allies, after say they surgically remove the Caliphate State's nuclear concerns, not only have their contingency plans in place but also there is nothing to stop them from increasing pressure, even more than before, by imposing further sanctions! Shiite Caliphate State will have the same fate as its Islamic brother Abu Bakr -al-Baghdadi. 

Having a few chaotic months, or years, afterward is manageable--Welcome to a Free and Democratic Iran.