The Iranian government was quick to blame the 22 September attack targeting an Iranian Revolutionary Guard parade on the US and unnamed countries in the region. While this attribution fits with the paranoid world view of Iran’s leadership, there is potentially a degree of truth to its claims, given the current proxy war between Iran and the US and its Middle Eastern allies, and the US history of support for separatist minority groups in Iran.

Two groups have claimed responsibility for the attack: Ahwazi separatists—an Arab ethnic group based in southwestern Iran—and Islamic State. Ahwazi Arabs have been responsible for a number of attacks in Iran over several decades and they have recently tended to target critical economic infrastructure such as oil pipelines. If an Ahwazi group was, in fact, behind the attack on the Revolutionary Guard parade, then it’s the most audacious and significant operation yet undertaken by Ahwazi separatists.

Islamic State also clearly has the capabilities and intent to undertake an attack of this nature. But the group’s only previous attack on Iranian soil was in 2017, when four of its fighters launched simultaneous attacks against the Iranian Parliament and the mausoleum of Ayatollah Khomeini in Tehran. And while IS has a history of falsely claiming credit for terrorist attacks, Ahwazi separatists do not, and therefore it is more likely that the latter group was responsible for this attack. The release of a video on 25 September by IS purporting to show the attackers muddies the waters slightly, but it is curious that the attackers do not declare membership of or support for IS, and this video is still not clear proof of IS involvement.

The Ahwazi Arabs are just one of a number of ethnic minorities in Iran that have spawned either nationalist separatist groups—which include the Ahwazi Arabs, Kurds and Azeris—or militant fundamentalist Sunni groups such as the Baluchis of eastern Iran. The main militant Baluchi group, Jundullah, has been linked to Al Qaeda.

There are also Persian groups-in-exile that are committed to the overthrow of the Iranian regime and have undertaken armed attacks in Iran and against Iranian interests, the most prominent of which is the Mujahedeen-e-Khalq (MEK). MEK has been linked to a number of high profile attacks in Iran, including the murder of Iranian nuclear scientists orchestrated by Israel.

Separatist groups such as these have long featured on the radar of US policy makers as potential proxies in its cold war against Iran. Ahwazi Arabs are particularly attractive as candidates to act as US proxies, because their home in Khuzestan province produces 80% of Iran’s crude oil revenue. By fomenting instability in this region, the US could dramatically impact Iran’s overall economic situation. In 2008, when tensions surrounding the Iranian nuclear program were approaching their peak, claims emerged that the George W. Bush administration had obtained Congressional approval for several hundred million dollars in funding for covert operations in Iran that included support for Ahwazi and Baluchi separatist groups. As noted by the source of the claims, Seymour Hersh, ‘the strategic thinking behind this covert operation is to provoke enough trouble and chaos so that the Iranian government makes the mistake of taking aggressive action which will give the impression of a country in acute turmoil. Then you have what the White House calls the ‘casus belli’, a reason to attack the country’.

While it’s likely that US covert operations supporting these groups were suspended under Barack Obama following the signing of the Iran nuclear agreement, it’s equally possible that Donald Trump has dusted off Bush’s playbook and has resumed covert support for these groups.

A number of key Trump administration officials are on the record supporting Iranian opposition groups as a means for realising change in Iran. Prior to being appointed as National Security Advisor, John Bolton spoke at a rally in a Paris organised by MEK, which was only delisted as a terrorist organisation in 2012. During the rally, Bolton said ‘the outcome of the president’s policy review should be to determine that Ayatollah Khomeini’s 1979 revolution will not last until its 40th birthday…the declared policy of the United States should be the overthrow of the mullahs’ regime in Tehran’.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has been equally hawkish in his stance on Iran. Although Pompeo maintains that he is seeking to change the Iranian regime’s behaviour, not change Iran’s regime, the demands that he has levied on Iran since becoming secretary of state have been characterised as designed to either break the regime or push it towards a resumption of its nuclear program, thus giving the United States and Israel an excuse for military action.

In view of the above, Iran’s leadership could be excused for thinking that the US or one of its allies was behind the recent attack in Ahwaz. Not only does the US have a history of supporting groups such as the one that claimed credit for the attack, but the renewed use of proxy groups to destabilise the Iranian government would also be consistent with the apparent objectives of the Trump administration. The US and Iran are already engaged in a proxy war in Syria, and only the day before the Ahwaz attack, Pompeo threatened Iran with retaliation following a rocket attack against US bases in Iraq by Iranian proxies.

Despite the economic hardships facing Iran and growing dissatisfaction with the government, it’s likely that the Iranian theocracy, backstopped by the Revolutionary Guard, will prove remarkably resilient. At a minimum, any covert US programs will merely harden the resolve of Iran’s leaders and embolden them to strike back at US interests via their own proxies. But should the US strategy succeed in undermining the Islamic Republic of Iran, then the chaos that would follow would likely not only tear apart Iran itself, but also draw all of its neighbours into conflict.

Welcome to ‘The Strategist Six’, a feature providing a glimpse into the thinking of prominent academics, government officials, military officers, reporters and interesting individuals from around the world.

1. The freeing of most of Iraq and Syria, including Mosul and Raqqa, from the Islamic State terror group is very significant but it clearly doesn’t signal the end of IS. We’ve seen its influence as far away as Marawi in the Philippines. To what extent is IS still a threat in the Middle East and further afield, such as in the Asia and the Pacific?

Recent events in Albukamal in Syria, and in the Hawija area in Iraq, show that IS may be almost defunct as a quasi–state entity but that it remains very much a force as an insurgency. None of the potential outcomes in Iraq or Syria look set to lead to an improved situation for the Sunni Arab population of those countries. So there will be scope for continued IS recruitment and it’s clear that IS retains an organisational infrastructure, money and the will to be active. So IS remains a threat in terms of its potential for terror activity. At the same time, the experience of the last four years shows the political ineptitude of Salafi jihadi movements including IS. Hence, it is unlikely to constitute a major political or diplomatic presence, but will remain a significant and dangerous terrorist force.

2. In terms of the regime’s war against the Syrian rebellion, has that been won, how much has it changed that nation and what comes next? In the case of both Iraq and Syria, will we see new conflicts rising out of the old? Will President Bashar al-Assad be able to shake free of his saviours in the shape of Iran and Russia? Are they both in Syria to stay? How serious are the attempts of Iran and the Syrian regime you described to mobilise opposition to the US and its allies in eastern Syria?

The Syrian rebellion as an independent insurgent force is in the process of being defeated. A regime offensive in the southwest is currently beginning. It is likely to end in rebel defeat. This was the last independent enclave of the rebels. However, a large Turkish-guaranteed enclave in the northwest remains, as well as a US-guaranteed desert enclave around the al-Tanf base. I think competition between foreign powers which may also take a violent form is what is taking place now in Syria. Iran, Turkey, Russia, Israel and the US are all players. The attempt to mobilise opposition to the US in eastern Syria is still in its early stages, but it’s likely to gather momentum in the period ahead. Neither the regime nor Iran will readily acquiesce to the US presence. So if the US choses to stay, it will encounter opposition.

3. What are the main impacts on, and benefits of, the wars in Iraq and Syria to Iran, Russia, Turkey and the US? Where does the fighting leave the Kurds and will they benefit from their significant role in defeating IS? You’ve mentioned that their agenda is very different from the Americans’.

Iran emerges as a major earner from both wars, which have strengthened its hand in both countries. Similarly, Russia has achieved its goals in Syria. Turkey is seeking to use both wars to strengthen its own presence in both countries and now has a military presence in both. The US is the main victor in the war against IS, but must now decide how to react to the strengthened Iranian hand in both countries, given the US administration’s opposition to Iranian expansion. For the Kurds in Syria, much will depend on whether they and their allies can make a case in the US for a remaining US presence in eastern Syria. If US air cover over this area remains, then the autonomous Kurdish area will survive. If it’s removed, the Kurds will need to make a deal with the regime or face a regime invasion.

4. What have the wars in Iraq and Syria meant for Israel in terms of making friends and enemies? Is Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s warning that Israel will strike against Iranian efforts to entrench itself militarily throughout Syria realistic and achievable? Do you have a view on the impact of the US decision to pull out of the JCPOA? Why does Iran want nuclear weapons—to defend itself? To destroy Israel?

The emergence of the Shia militias in Iraq introduces the possibility of their being used in a future war against Israel, given Iranian access to and presence in Syria. I think Iran wants nuclear weapons to acquire an insurance policy for its continued actions to advance its strength in the region, which can only come at the expense of the US and its allies in the region. I think Israel will continue to take action to disrupt Iran’s attempts to consolidate its presence in Syria. Re the JCPOA, the issue now is whether the US will develop an integrated strategy including renewed sanctions for the containment of Iran, and whether Iran itself will now exit the JCPOA.

5. Given its extensive operations in Iraq and Syria, what is Iran’s ultimate goal? Does it hope to dominate the Middle East? And to what extent have groups it used, such as Hezbollah, been strengthened or weakened by their involvement in the fighting?

Iran seeks a contiguous area of Iranian control from the Iraq–Iran border to the Mediterranean Sea, and to replace the US as the dominant force in the Gulf. The result for Hezbollah has been mixed. It has lost a considerable number of personnel (around 2,000 people). But its cadres have also gained experience in fighting in urban areas and fighting in areas not familiar to them.

6. Given your extensive coverage of the Middle East, do you see any prospect for peace there?

I think there are many unresolved conflicts in the region, which remains beset by poor governance and by powerful factors militating against successful development. So peace is unlikely across large parts of the region in the near future.

Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has redefined Turkey’s foreign policy, making it more independent and nationalist. The key to the new policy is a shift in Turkey’s security concerns, as the country has become less fearful of and closer to Russia (a traditional enemy) and Iran (a regional competitor and a possible supporter of Kurdish independence), while also successfully resurrecting Necmettin Erbakan’s Islamist foreign policy.

Erdoğan rose to prominence in 2002, a year after he and his ally Abdullah Gul established the Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi, AKP). Under Erdoğan’s leadership, the AKP has been accused of slowly and systematically trying to dismantle Turkey’s secular identity, established by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk in 1923. Many academic researchers have suggested that the AKP’s strategy involves rejecting political Islam—which refers to the implementation of Islamic values in the public sphere—while at the same time embracing Islamic identity politics.

The architect of Turkey’s revitalised foreign policy was Ahmet Davutoğlu, who steered Turkey on a course that was based more on diplomacy (run by the foreign office, as opposed to the Turkish military), economics, soft power and Turkic identity. In pursuing this policy, Turkey capitalises on its geostrategic location to underpin its role in international relations.

The policy has manifested itself in respect of Iraq, Syria, the Palestinians and Iran.

Turkey’s Kurdish problem has meant that Iraq has always weighed heavily in Turkey’s foreign policy. When ideas about dismembering Iraq were floated in the post-2003 period, Ankara was steadfast in demanding Iraqi territorial integrity, emphasising its opposition to Kurdish independence. Turkey was supported on that issue by both Iran and Syria.

Turkish–Syrian relations are cyclical, in that they are affected by three main issues:

• Syria’s interaction with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (Partiya Karkerên Kurdistanê, PKK), which the Turks claim Syria allows to train in the Bekáa Valley
• the status of Hatay, which the Syrians claim but which Turkey annexed in 1939
• water rights, particularly over the Euphrates River.

Turkey wasn’t hostile to the Bashar al-Assad regime when the Syrian war broke out. But as it intensified and Turkey was flooded with Syrians seeking refuge, Erdoğan came to support the opposition in the hope that that would bring a quick end to the conflict.

He has since shifted to a more pro-Russian and pro-Iranian position in which al-Assad has a future role to play in Syria. That means Turkey now operates within the Astana process and not the Geneva one. One reason for this shift is that Erdoğan recognises that he has something in common with Russia and Iran: they don’t focus on his ongoing assault on Turkish democracy because they’re pragmatists, committed to advancing their national interests by any means possible.

Erdoğan’s decision to raise the Palestinian cause stemmed from domestic considerations, as it allowed the AKP to assert that it was standing up for the marginalised majority against the Turkish liberal elite. Increasingly, he has come to see the Palestinian issue as a way to position himself as one of the few leaders in the Muslim world publicly challenging Israel, Israeli policies and, most recently, US policies.

Historically, tensions between Ankara and Tehran centered on Turkish beliefs that Iran was supporting the PKK and trying to export its brand of Islamism, which made Turkey’s then ultra-secular military highly suspicious of Iran. Since 2003, relations between Ankara and Tehran have improved. Tehran has clamped down on the Party for Free Life in Kurdistan, which many believe is affiliated with the PKK, and there’s been a marked improvement in economic relations.

Erdoğan’s foreign policy has paid enormous dividends in Turkey’s interactions with the EU. European leaders recognise that Turkey is their first line of defence against irregular migration. They also recognise that they can’t afford a repeat of the 2015 migration crisis. Consequently, beyond engaging in some rhetorical chastisement, the EU hasn’t challenged any of Turkey’s major assaults on human rights, including 148 trials of people who signed a petition organised by Academics for Peace, which advocated for a peaceful solution to the conflict between Turkey and the PKK.

It seems unlikely that Erdoğan’s firm hold over the Turkish political system will end anytime soon. In fact, he recently moved the important under-secretariat for defence industry, which is responsible for defence procurement, from the defence ministry to the office of the president.

The West must come to terms with the fact that Ankara is now aligned with Moscow and Tehran, which poses a major challenge for NATO, as Turkey is a member of the alliance. We need to substantially rethink the way international peace and security could be restored to the Middle East. The game has changed.

In 2008, when the United States’ National Intelligence Council (NIC) published its volume Global Trends 2025, a key prediction was tighter energy competition. Chinese demand was growing, and non-OPEC sources like the North Sea were being depleted. After two decades of low and relatively stable prices, oil prices had soared to more than $100 per barrel in 2006. Many experts spoke of ‘peak oil’—the idea that reserves had ‘topped off’—and anticipated that production would become concentrated in the low-cost but unstable Middle East, where even Saudi Arabia was thought to be fully explored, with no more giant fields likely to be found.

The US was regarded as increasingly dependent on energy imports, and this, together with rising prices, was seen as a major limit on American geopolitical influence. Power had shifted to the producers.

The NIC analysts did not neglect the possibility of a technological surprise, but they focused on the wrong technology. Emphasising the potential of renewables such as solar, wind and hydro, they missed the main act.

The real technological breakthrough was the shale-energy revolution. While horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing are not new, their pioneering application to shale rock was. By 2015, more than half of all the natural gas produced in the US came from shale.

The shale boom has propelled the US from being an energy importer to an energy exporter. The US Energy Department estimates that the country has 25 trillion cubic metres of technically recoverable shale gas, which, when combined with other oil and gas resources, could last for two centuries. The International Energy Agency now expects North America to be self-sufficient in energy in the 2020s. Facilities built to receive liquefied natural gas (LNG) imports have been converted to process exports.

World markets have also been transformed. Previously, gas markets were geographically restricted by dependence on pipelines. That gave market power to Russia, which used it to exercise political and economic leverage over its European neighbours. LNG has now added a degree of flexibility to gas markets and reduced Russian leverage. In 2005, only 15 countries imported LNG; today, that number has tripled.

Moreover, the smaller scale of shale wells makes them much more responsive to fluctuations in market prices. It is difficult to turn on and off the billion-dollar multiyear investments in traditional oil and gas fields; but shale wells are smaller, cheaper and easier to start and stop as prices change. This means that the US has become the so-called swing producer capable of balancing supply and demand in global hydrocarbon markets.

As Harvard’s Meghan O’Sullivan points out in her smart new book Windfall, the shale revolution has a number of implications for US foreign policy. She argues that the new energy abundance increases US power. Shale-energy production boosts the economy and creates more jobs. Reducing imports helps the balance of payments. New tax revenues ease government budgets. Cheaper power strengthens international competitiveness, particularly for energy-intensive industries like petrochemicals, aluminum, steel and others.

There are also domestic political effects. One is psychological. For some time, many people in the US and abroad have bought into the myth of American decline. Increasing dependence on energy imports was often cited as evidence. The shale revolution has changed that, demonstrating the combination of entrepreneurship, property rights and capital markets that constitute the country’s underlying strength. In that sense, the shale revolution has also enhanced American soft power.

Skeptics have argued that lower dependence on energy imports will cause the US to disengage from the Middle East. But this misreads the economics of energy. A major disruption such as a war or terrorist attack that stopped the flow of oil and gas through the Strait of Hormuz would drive prices to very high levels in America and among our allies in Europe and Japan. Besides, the US has many interests other than oil in the region, including nonproliferation of nuclear weapons, protection of Israel, human rights and counterterrorism.

The US may be cautious about overextending itself in the Middle East, but that reflects its experience with the costly invasion of Iraq and the general turmoil of the Arab Spring revolutions, rather than illusions that shale produces political ‘energy independence’. America’s ability to use oil sanctions to force Iran to negotiate an end to its nuclear-weapons program depended not only on Saudi willingness to make up Iran’s exports of a million barrels per day, but also on the general expectations that the shale revolution created.

Other benefits of shale energy for US foreign policy include the diminishing ability of countries like Venezuela to use oil to purchase votes at the United Nations and in regional organisations of small Caribbean states, and Russia’s reduced ability to coerce its neighbours by threatening to cut off gas supplies. In short, there has been a tectonic shift in the geopolitics of energy.

Although no one can know the future of energy prices, modest world prices may last for some time. Both technology and politics could of course upend this prediction. Technological advances could increase supply and reduce prices; politics is more likely to disrupt supply and cause prices to rise. But the disruptions are unlikely to be sharp or long-lasting in the wake of the shale revolution, which is what makes it a geopolitical revolution as well.

For the ADF, the goal of carrying out truly ‘joint’ operations must embrace not just the army, navy and air force, but also key non-military agencies and allied forces.

The head of the ADF’s Joint Operations Command, Vice Admiral David Johnston, tells The Strategist that in the past the Australian forces were at times more accomplished at working with allied military forces than with their own government agencies. ‘That’s been a key observation for us’, Johnston says. ‘As comfortable as we are in the Middle East with all the coalitions, we had to be as comfortable working with our own agencies back in Australia.’

Johnston says that for a country the size of Australia, coalition operations come very naturally.

‘In many scenarios we know we will have to work with other partners and we need to be ready. It’s part of our DNA, a very embedded part of the way we think and work. Our communications systems, this headquarters and our placement of people around the world reinforce that function powerfully for us.’

It’s always been important for the services to work together and they’d always done that to varying degrees, says Johnston. Campaigns now don’t involve just the military, he says, and departments and organisations such as DFAT, the AFP and intelligence agencies are represented at the Joint Operations Command headquarters, or HQJOC, near Bungendore. ‘We’ve evolved to knowing whole of government’s important. We’ve got to have DFAT officials or AFP officers with security clearances to get in here. They’ve got to learn our language so that we’re able to communicate and understand each other.’

Johnston says a great strength of HQJOC is its links to the military headquarters of friendly nations. It has liaison officers embedded in US Central Command in Florida, which leads US operations in the Middle East, and Pacific Command in Hawaii. ‘On a daily basis we communicate with various elements of these headquarters on what they might be doing and what we might be doing in the region.’

Because the ADF doesn’t have the massive scale of the US forces, each ADF service on operations has to work closely with the others. ‘Our navy doesn’t have its own protective screen of aircraft as the US Navy does, so our air force has to be involved. In terms of amphibious forces, the navy doesn’t have marines so it works with the army. We knew that was the case for the tactical forces, but we needed to be sure the operating headquarters which sat over them was equally joint’, he says.

‘We’ve tried to ensure we have an integrated headquarters that can employ the breadth of ADF capabilities in a very cohesive manner.’ With some ‘growing pains’, the navy, army and air force were given the confidence to hand over the personnel they’d trained to another commander to employ.

‘They need to be sure we can employ their people well within the boundaries of their training and certification and demonstrate at the strategic level that we are competent at delivering the military oversight and planning of operations that’s required.’

Emerging capabilities have brought new challenges, and the commissioning of the navy’s two giant landing ships is a good example of how HQJOC has had to evolve to mount an amphibious capability and deploy it, says Johnston.

The whole, he says, has proven to be much stronger than the sum of the individual services. That applies, too, to the use of cyber capabilities alongside more traditional weapons such as bombs. ‘Changing capabilities that may threaten us, or which we might employ, mean the headquarters needs to change the way we work.’

To better prepare and certify the ADF for joint operations, Johnston has been appointed its ‘joint collective training authority’ responsible for ensuring that units from different services can work effectively together.

This afternoon he’ll be leading a comprehensive ‘after-action review’ of a domestic counter-terrorism training exercise.  ‘After every operation or exercise, we pull it apart to see if we could have done better’, he says. ‘We review our operations in the Middle East with the same focus.’

HQJOC is a very robust learning environment. Exercises like Talisman Sabre are massive dress rehearsals for the real thing and put great pressure on JOC personnel whose goal is to make them as lifelike as possible. ‘It’s easy to forget that you’re in a scenario because you get very consumed by the demands of what we’re facing and how we’re going to work our way through it’, Johnston says. ‘Everyone knows it’s not real, but it feels pretty real when you’re trying to keep track of all the elements we bring to a complex scenario.’

An actual operation can begin at any moment. Choreographed by the headquarters, it will start with the gathering of intelligence and surveillance of an area. That might involve intelligence agencies and manned and unmanned aircraft, such as the P8 Poseidon or the Global Hawk, and lead up to deployment of a force.

When Fiji was hit by a cyclone, RAAF Orion patrol aircraft were sent to survey the damage so assessments could be made of where help was most needed. RAAF C-17 transport aircraft brought urgent supplies and carried army helicopters to distribute the relief material and an army HQ to coordinate. One of the navy’s two massive landing ships followed up.

The sort of urgent planning that went into Operation Fiji Assist could be applied to a military operation. ‘The environment might be different and the outcome could be different, but the approach is consistent whether you’re doing a humanitarian activity or one that’s more combat oriented’, says Johnston.

He notes that in the Gulf War of 1990–91, the ADF went into an environment of great uncertainty and threat. ‘We’ve been in different theatres ever since then and we’ve been learning all the way.’ That includes Iraq and Afghanistan and regional operations.

The level of activity at the moment is as high as Johnston has ever seen it. ‘We have a very demanding Middle East environment and an uncertain region in which we’re operating, which means our span is particularly large.’

A good example of the ADF’s ability to operate independently is the self-contained air task group fighting the Islamic State terror group in Iraq. The RAAF force includes Hornet or Super Hornet strike jets, a tanker to refuel them and a Wedgetail command-and-control aircraft to coordinate operations, along with ground crews to maintain and arm them.

‘But as important is how we got it there’, says Johnston. ‘In the past we couldn’t have gone without somebody helping. In 2014 we used our own C-17s, our tankers did the in-flight refuelling, we had our own search and rescue watch coverage over them as they moved. Now we’ve got the national resources to do it without having to go to others. We can do it faster and in a self-contained manner. Militarily, that gives Australia and its government many options and increases self-reliance.’