Alex Shams
Boston Review
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| Membros do Basij, um grupo de voluntários paramilitares e de serviço iranianos. Imagem: Wikimedia Commons |
Em uma rua arborizada perto da casa da minha avó em Teerã, há uma mesquita onde os moradores vão para conversar, descansar e, às vezes, até rezar. Nos fundos da mesquita, atrás de uma pequena biblioteca, há um escritório para um grupo de jovens que organiza voluntários para dar aulas, fazer campanhas de arrecadação de alimentos, se reunir em feriados religiosos e fazer viagens para vilas pobres nos arredores de Teerã para construir escolas. Sempre que visito a casa da minha avó durante o Muharram, um mês sagrado para os muçulmanos xiitas, vejo seus membros distribuindo comida e doces. O grupo tem filiais na maioria das mesquitas do Irã: a uma caminhada de vinte minutos da casa da minha avó, provavelmente há meia dúzia. Eles recebem um orçamento do governo e sediam eventos políticos, como celebrações do aniversário da Revolução de 1979. Milhões de iranianos são membros; muitos são adolescentes ou jovens adultos, separados em grupos de meninos e meninas.
O grupo é chamado de Basij. Ela é classificada pelos governos dos EUA e de Israel como uma organização terrorista, o que significa que, segundo as leis desses países, cada um de seus membros é considerado um terrorista. Os Basij sempre me inspiraram uma mistura de medo e fascínio. Como um ramo da Guarda Revolucionária do Irã, eles são considerados os executores do governo iraniano no nível do bairro, participando de patrulhas em busca de contrabando, como armas e álcool, vestindo-se camuflados e montando postos de controle nos fins de semana. Para muitos iranianos que vivem suas vidas cotidianas, eles são um grande incômodo, um lembrete sempre presente da violação do governo às liberdades pessoais. Mas, como sugerem os diferentes papéis e responsabilidades dos Basij, a realidade prática do que os Estados Unidos ou Israel chamam de "grupo terrorista" é muito mais complicada do que o rótulo captura. Muitos membros dos Basij se voluntariam para preencher lacunas na infraestrutura de proteção social do estado iraniano, oferecendo serviços educacionais e sociais por meio do Desenvolvimento Basij; outros participam da repressão de protestos. A organização é simultaneamente uma força paramilitar e um grupo de jovens voltado para o serviço, uma combinação de anti-imperialismo inspirado na esquerda e discurso islâmico revolucionário. Os Basij surgiram da história particular do Irã, mas também refletem movimentos anticoloniais em todo o mundo que historicamente casaram resistência militar contra estrangeiros com auto-organização de suas próprias comunidades.
Nem é preciso dizer que esse entendimento mais sutil não aparece com destaque na retórica dos israelenses e americanos que se veem presos em uma batalha nós-contra-eles para proteger os "valores ocidentais" e uma ordem mundial liderada pelos EUA. De sua posição, os Basijis são terroristas, pura e simplesmente, e os terroristas merecem morrer. Assim como o Hamas e o Hezbollah, com quem os Basijis compartilham um lugar na lista do Departamento de Estado de "organizações terroristas estrangeiras", todos e quaisquer de seus membros, desde aqueles que organizam campanhas de alimentos até aqueles que constroem escolas rurais, são considerados alvos justos. Primeiro uma justificativa para os Estados Unidos e Israel realizarem ataques de drones e destruição em massa de infraestrutura, agora um mero subtexto para assassinato em massa, a designação de terrorismo provou ser notavelmente flexível. No Irã, assumiu um novo papel: colocar as pessoas dentro do país umas contra as outras.
Over the last decade, I lived in Tehran conducting research about politics and religion in contemporary Iranian society, interviewing government officials, dissidents, and the vast numbers of ordinary Iranians who fall somewhere in between the two. I also spoke with members of the Basij, trying to understand what motivated young people to join, and then stay in, these kinds of groups. My main previous encounter with the Basij came during the 2009-10 Green Movement protests. When I joined crowds in Tehran demanding fair and free elections, it was members of the Basij who pulled me off the streets and beat and detained me, along with thousands of others. Because of incidents like these—and the many rounds of repression against protests since—many Iranians today understandably see the Basij as primarily a force of repression.
Look back earlier, though, and the picture becomes cloudier. The Basij emerged out of neighborhood self-defense committees. Following the triumph of the Iranian Revolution, they were organized into an official paramilitary force in late 1979. When Saddam Hussein invaded Iran in 1980, the Basij mobilized to defend the country; many members signed up to fight at the front lines, building a reputation as a volunteer force of patriots. Mohammad, a Basiji I interviewed, described his years in the group, which he had joined as a teenager, as the most meaningful of his life, a time when he carried on the legacy of a revolution against a U.S.-backed dictatorship. For him, membership in the Basij was about defending his homeland from foreign forces that sought to turn it into a war-torn land like Iraq or Afghanistan. “America calls us terrorists,” he told me in an interview in Tehran. “But we’re defending our own country. They’re the ones who came halfway around the world to kill people.”
For its members, the Basij today is much more than just a repressive apparatus. Many are young men and women drawn to the certainty espoused by the group’s ideology or motivated by adventurism. The group’s revolutionary ideals and slogans, which speak of an ongoing battle to defend the oppressed of the world against the designs of the powerful, are a strong attraction. They offer a sense of stability amid the pervasive volatility that defines most Iranians’ lives in the shadow of the devastating economic effects of U.S. sanctions and bombings carried out by Israel and militant groups. Leila, a member who worked at a Basiji women’s publication and whose first memories are of missiles falling on Tehran during the Iran-Iraq War, explained her commitment in terms of both self-empowerment and patriotic defense. “My parents protested during the Revolution. They were active in relief efforts helping refugees and displaced people during the War,” she told me. “I am carrying out my revolutionary and religious duty to protect my country, just like they did.”
Outside observers in the West have, predictably, accused the Basij of brainwashing its members. A 2022 Time article on the group, for instance, calls it a “Brutal Militia Trained to Kill for Iran’s Islamic Regime”—as if the only reason someone could sign up to a political project not aligned with U.S. foreign policy goals is mind control. In fact, much of the Basij’s ideological analysis emerges from a pretty fair assessment of U.S. policy toward Iran since the 1950s, one in which the country has carried out coups, supported dictators, enforced sanctions that have dramatically impoverished ordinary people, and regularly threatened to attack and invade. For a young person committed to defending faith and nation in Iran, the enemy can often seem glaringly clear.
And while it’s true that the vast majority of Basijis support, at least to some extent, the Iranian government’s ideology, being part of the Basij can also open up contradictions. It’s an awkward position to be carrying out volunteer duties to provide for social needs while the Iranian state increasingly pulls back from provision of social welfare and represses the working-class protesters raising their voices against it. This creates generational rifts and tensions that frequently emerge in the group’s activities. The anthropologist Ahmad Moradi, for example, describes tensions at a factory purchased by the Basij during a government privatization drive. When its Basiji owners tried to cut costs by firing staff, workers went on strike. The local Basiji chapter ended up taking the side of striking workers.
For many working-class Iranians, the Basij is simply a vehicle for social and economic mobility—an access ticket to a better life. The connections built through the group can help students who normally wouldn’t be able to afford private tutoring, for example, advance into higher education or find decent jobs otherwise unavailable to them. I know men who joined the Basij in high school because doing so would allow them to serve less time in compulsory military service.
Understanding who the Basij were didn’t make me less outraged at the organization’s repressive activities, but it did make me recognize how much more complex it was than it appeared from the outside. And as a believer in the need for a free, democratic Iran where a diversity of opinions can be expressed, I also saw members of the Basij as fellow Iranians who would necessarily be part of a shared national future. To the U.S. and Israeli governments, though, they are simply enemies to be annihilated. I learned from studying the Iranian government’s repression that trying to vanquish or annihilate one’s ideological opponents was not only unethical; it was doomed to fail. Labeling the Basij “terrorists” and marking them as enemies to be annihilated not only missed the mark; it also could have terrifying consequences.
Israeli authorities have made no secret of its aim to bring down the Islamic Republic, an aim that, until now, it has pursued through assassinating nuclear scientists, carrying out cyberattacks on civilian infrastructure, and supporting armed groups committed to overthrowing Iran’s government. What would happen if Israel were to become more aggressive in its tactics—to declare a mission to fully eradicate “terrorism” in Iran? If what has transpired in Gaza and Lebanon is any guide, the consequences would be deadly. For the fact that there are Basiji offices in every neighborhood in Iran would be enough for Israel to destroy not only those offices, but also the homes and shops around them—and the people who live and work in them. It is also a recipe for civil war, a way to make Iranians see each other as the enemy rather than people with different views who will have to live together in the same country.
Look back earlier, though, and the picture becomes cloudier. The Basij emerged out of neighborhood self-defense committees. Following the triumph of the Iranian Revolution, they were organized into an official paramilitary force in late 1979. When Saddam Hussein invaded Iran in 1980, the Basij mobilized to defend the country; many members signed up to fight at the front lines, building a reputation as a volunteer force of patriots. Mohammad, a Basiji I interviewed, described his years in the group, which he had joined as a teenager, as the most meaningful of his life, a time when he carried on the legacy of a revolution against a U.S.-backed dictatorship. For him, membership in the Basij was about defending his homeland from foreign forces that sought to turn it into a war-torn land like Iraq or Afghanistan. “America calls us terrorists,” he told me in an interview in Tehran. “But we’re defending our own country. They’re the ones who came halfway around the world to kill people.”
For its members, the Basij today is much more than just a repressive apparatus. Many are young men and women drawn to the certainty espoused by the group’s ideology or motivated by adventurism. The group’s revolutionary ideals and slogans, which speak of an ongoing battle to defend the oppressed of the world against the designs of the powerful, are a strong attraction. They offer a sense of stability amid the pervasive volatility that defines most Iranians’ lives in the shadow of the devastating economic effects of U.S. sanctions and bombings carried out by Israel and militant groups. Leila, a member who worked at a Basiji women’s publication and whose first memories are of missiles falling on Tehran during the Iran-Iraq War, explained her commitment in terms of both self-empowerment and patriotic defense. “My parents protested during the Revolution. They were active in relief efforts helping refugees and displaced people during the War,” she told me. “I am carrying out my revolutionary and religious duty to protect my country, just like they did.”
Outside observers in the West have, predictably, accused the Basij of brainwashing its members. A 2022 Time article on the group, for instance, calls it a “Brutal Militia Trained to Kill for Iran’s Islamic Regime”—as if the only reason someone could sign up to a political project not aligned with U.S. foreign policy goals is mind control. In fact, much of the Basij’s ideological analysis emerges from a pretty fair assessment of U.S. policy toward Iran since the 1950s, one in which the country has carried out coups, supported dictators, enforced sanctions that have dramatically impoverished ordinary people, and regularly threatened to attack and invade. For a young person committed to defending faith and nation in Iran, the enemy can often seem glaringly clear.
And while it’s true that the vast majority of Basijis support, at least to some extent, the Iranian government’s ideology, being part of the Basij can also open up contradictions. It’s an awkward position to be carrying out volunteer duties to provide for social needs while the Iranian state increasingly pulls back from provision of social welfare and represses the working-class protesters raising their voices against it. This creates generational rifts and tensions that frequently emerge in the group’s activities. The anthropologist Ahmad Moradi, for example, describes tensions at a factory purchased by the Basij during a government privatization drive. When its Basiji owners tried to cut costs by firing staff, workers went on strike. The local Basiji chapter ended up taking the side of striking workers.
For many working-class Iranians, the Basij is simply a vehicle for social and economic mobility—an access ticket to a better life. The connections built through the group can help students who normally wouldn’t be able to afford private tutoring, for example, advance into higher education or find decent jobs otherwise unavailable to them. I know men who joined the Basij in high school because doing so would allow them to serve less time in compulsory military service.
Understanding who the Basij were didn’t make me less outraged at the organization’s repressive activities, but it did make me recognize how much more complex it was than it appeared from the outside. And as a believer in the need for a free, democratic Iran where a diversity of opinions can be expressed, I also saw members of the Basij as fellow Iranians who would necessarily be part of a shared national future. To the U.S. and Israeli governments, though, they are simply enemies to be annihilated. I learned from studying the Iranian government’s repression that trying to vanquish or annihilate one’s ideological opponents was not only unethical; it was doomed to fail. Labeling the Basij “terrorists” and marking them as enemies to be annihilated not only missed the mark; it also could have terrifying consequences.
Israeli authorities have made no secret of its aim to bring down the Islamic Republic, an aim that, until now, it has pursued through assassinating nuclear scientists, carrying out cyberattacks on civilian infrastructure, and supporting armed groups committed to overthrowing Iran’s government. What would happen if Israel were to become more aggressive in its tactics—to declare a mission to fully eradicate “terrorism” in Iran? If what has transpired in Gaza and Lebanon is any guide, the consequences would be deadly. For the fact that there are Basiji offices in every neighborhood in Iran would be enough for Israel to destroy not only those offices, but also the homes and shops around them—and the people who live and work in them. It is also a recipe for civil war, a way to make Iranians see each other as the enemy rather than people with different views who will have to live together in the same country.
Two years ago, I couldn’t have imagined the quiet alleyways of my grandmother’s neighborhood in Iran as a warzone. But over the last year, as I’ve watched Israel rain bombs down on Palestinian neighborhoods, killing tens of thousands of civilians whose only crime was being somewhere in the proximity of “terrorists,” I’ve started to see terrifying parallels. Jabalia and Rafah were once home to quiet neighborhoods where grandmothers lived, as was Dahiyeh, the Beirut neighborhood that Israel has pulverized over the last few months, and the southern Lebanese villages it obliterated. Upon entering Yaroun, one of the first villages Israel invaded in Lebanon, soldiers immediately dynamited a more than three-hundred-year old mosque and destroyed the local Catholic church, a health clinic, and a religious shrine, in addition to dozens of homes. There was no clear military rationale for the destruction, which occurred in a village already emptied of its inhabitants. Where families lived, children played, and farmers worked today stands a smoking carcass.
It’s not far-fetched to imagine that Israel could decide to replicate the destruction it has visited upon Palestine and Lebanon in Iran. Should it decide to do so, it will have a ready-made justification that has already been crafted by its foremost ally. In 2019, President Trump signed an executive order labeling Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), of which the Basij is a part, a terrorist organization, citing its covert operations worldwide and arming of militias across the Middle East. This came only a year after he ripped up the Iran nuclear deal, which had been forged through great persistence on the parts of President Obama and Iranian President Rouhani, both of whom bucked constituents in their countries that preferred war to peace. Labeling the IRGC a terrorist organization is more a reprimand, an attack, rather than a precise definition, especially when the entity doing the labeling has its own bloody hands and a long history of deadly covert operations, coups, and even invasions. By now, it is evident that such a designation is a foreign policy weapon at its core—one capable of bending reality around the aims of its architects.
Recent events in Syria have made this clear. The Assad regime was on the terror list for decades, a status used to justify harsh U.S. sanctions that helped cripple Syria’s economy. In early December, the regime was overthrown by Syrian rebels. In the wake of Assad’s fall, the U.S. administration renewed its sanctions on the country—and said the situation would only change if Syria’s new rulers no longer “posed a threat” to its neighbors. But how could this be, given that the rebels themselves come from a terror-listed organization? The subtext was clear: “terrorism” is indexed by little more than a group’s willingness to comply with the United States’ grand designs for the region. If the new Syrian government normalizes relations with Israel, its name will be erased from the list. If it refuses, the United States will continue considering it a terrorist state and trying to destroy its economy, which is unlikely to recover without sanctions relief. These are similar conditions to those imposed on Sudan following the 2019 revolution, which has led, in part, to the political and economic deadlock that was the background to the ongoing civil war.
Sanctions justified by the terrorist list have become an explicit “economic weapon” deployed against countries that refuse to normalize relations with Israel and refrain from critiquing its genocidal policies. In Syria, this policy is even more egregious because it is being used while Israel has carried out widespread military strikes against Syria and occupies part of Syrian territory—a zone it has expanded since Assad’s fall. On the other hand, an Iranian opposition militia-cum-cult called the MEK, a group the United States previously considered a terrorist organization but which was feted as an ally against Iran’s government by the Trump administration, today gives briefings about Middle East politics in DC.
It’s not far-fetched to imagine that Israel could decide to replicate the destruction it has visited upon Palestine and Lebanon in Iran. Should it decide to do so, it will have a ready-made justification that has already been crafted by its foremost ally. In 2019, President Trump signed an executive order labeling Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), of which the Basij is a part, a terrorist organization, citing its covert operations worldwide and arming of militias across the Middle East. This came only a year after he ripped up the Iran nuclear deal, which had been forged through great persistence on the parts of President Obama and Iranian President Rouhani, both of whom bucked constituents in their countries that preferred war to peace. Labeling the IRGC a terrorist organization is more a reprimand, an attack, rather than a precise definition, especially when the entity doing the labeling has its own bloody hands and a long history of deadly covert operations, coups, and even invasions. By now, it is evident that such a designation is a foreign policy weapon at its core—one capable of bending reality around the aims of its architects.
Recent events in Syria have made this clear. The Assad regime was on the terror list for decades, a status used to justify harsh U.S. sanctions that helped cripple Syria’s economy. In early December, the regime was overthrown by Syrian rebels. In the wake of Assad’s fall, the U.S. administration renewed its sanctions on the country—and said the situation would only change if Syria’s new rulers no longer “posed a threat” to its neighbors. But how could this be, given that the rebels themselves come from a terror-listed organization? The subtext was clear: “terrorism” is indexed by little more than a group’s willingness to comply with the United States’ grand designs for the region. If the new Syrian government normalizes relations with Israel, its name will be erased from the list. If it refuses, the United States will continue considering it a terrorist state and trying to destroy its economy, which is unlikely to recover without sanctions relief. These are similar conditions to those imposed on Sudan following the 2019 revolution, which has led, in part, to the political and economic deadlock that was the background to the ongoing civil war.
Sanctions justified by the terrorist list have become an explicit “economic weapon” deployed against countries that refuse to normalize relations with Israel and refrain from critiquing its genocidal policies. In Syria, this policy is even more egregious because it is being used while Israel has carried out widespread military strikes against Syria and occupies part of Syrian territory—a zone it has expanded since Assad’s fall. On the other hand, an Iranian opposition militia-cum-cult called the MEK, a group the United States previously considered a terrorist organization but which was feted as an ally against Iran’s government by the Trump administration, today gives briefings about Middle East politics in DC.
When Biden came to power, I hoped that he would follow through on his promises to prioritize diplomacy by returning the United States to the Iran nuclear deal, undoing Trump’s designation of the IRGC as a terrorist organization, and lifting the sanctions that had caused the people of Iran so much suffering. But he failed to do so. Instead, over the last year, he has empowered the most violent tendencies in Israel’s government with $22 billion in U.S. taxpayer money for weapons—a figure larger than Iran’s entire annual military budget—and trotted out, almost reflexively, the well-worn language of terror and existential threat to describe Iran while failing to enforce any of its supposed “red lines” on Israel’s military actions across the region.
The United States helped lay the groundwork for these moves through a legal mechanism: the ability to designate organizations as “terrorist groups.” Both Hamas and Hezbollah have been on the list since 1997, when it was created by the Clinton administration as a central part of the U.S. “counter-terror” strategy. But this strategy of lawfare goes back much further, as Maryam Jamshidi has detailed in these pages. At the first-ever conference on “international terrorism” in 1979, Benjamin Netanyahu and his father Benzion argued that terrorism was an ideology that the West could only defeat by operating outside of international law. This was a distinct shift in the word’s meaning: where once, it described the tactic of state or non-state actors using violence against civilians for political aims, it was now specifically associated with Palestinian, Arab, and Muslim militancy. Though providing “material support” to terrorist organizations was criminalized in response to the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing by a white nationalist, it was Palestinian groups that ended up becoming the focus of the legal reprisals.
We can see the result of decades of “anti-terrorism” lobbying in HR 9495, a bill recently passed by the House that would allow the Treasury Department to unilaterally decide whether a nonprofit has provided “material support” to terrorism with no access to due process or the evidence against them. As Darryl Li has noted, “the bill’s sponsors have made no secret of their desire to smear certain nonprofits connected with campus protests against Israel’s war on Gaza as working at the behest of Hamas,” which would closely connect with the aims of Project Esther, a right-wing plan to bring down the pro-Palestine student movement. Once in power, Trump could wield the “terror” label to stifle dissent far beyond what we’ve seen on campuses over the last year. Top officials have already said they are considering expanding the terrorist label to cartels in Mexico to justify a potential invasion that would potentially open up an Afghanistan-style quagmire on the southern border. It has become a do-it-all tool: one that can crush dissent at home just as easily as it can expand war in every direction abroad.
When some observers argue that Hamas or Hezbollah are evil and should be eliminated by Israel, but that not everyone in Gaza is Hamas nor everyone in Lebanon Hezbollah, they ignore the extent to which both groups are part and parcel of their respective societies—that so many ordinary Palestinians and Lebanese are affiliated with Hamas and Hezbollah. As a Lebanese man living under Israel’s bombardment in Dahiyeh told me in October, “Hezbollah isn’t just a military. It has doctors, nurses, teachers, ambulances. It’s a mini-state. It’s very hard to separate Hezbollah and society.” As scholars have noted regarding both Hamas and Hezbollah, the armed wings of these groups are but one piece of a much larger structure. Similar to Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, both organizations emerged in contexts of armed struggle. Both were founded because Israel was occupying their lands, and they see their mission not only as liberating themselves from occupation but also uplifting their communities. They both have thousands of members who carry arms; they also have tens of thousands of more members who have never raised a gun in their lives.
Hamas was founded in the 1980s in response to decades of Israeli rule over Palestinians under which they were forbidden from any form of political organizing including even basic gestures as waving their own flag. It emerged as a major player during the First Intifada, challenging Israel through armed resistance while simultaneously building a network of social care providers to administer to needs in Palestinian society. When Israel was forced to allow for limited Palestinian self-governance in the Oslo Accords, Hamas emerged publicly as a major political party bolstered by its extensive network of social and economic support. Hamas institutions include nursery schools, kindergartens, youth and sports clubs, libraries, day care centers, and nursing homes. Even the garbage collectors are linked to Hamas because Hamas ran Gaza city hall.
Hezbollah emerged in the early 1980s to mount a military resistance against Israel’s occupation of South Lebanon. It grew out of an existing network of social services focused on the region, one of Lebanon’s poorest. Fearful that South Lebanon would end up like Palestine or the Syrian Golan Heights—forever occupied, with its inhabitants rendered perpetual second-class citizens in their homeland—Hezbollah’s armed wing fought until finally, in 2000, Israel was forced to withdraw from Lebanon. But its staying power and popularity among its constituents was not just related to its military prowess. Hezbollah runs health services, schools, orphanages, clinics, and other institutions across Lebanon, making up for the virtual absence of the Lebanese state in providing social care. Hezbollah has a microloan bank, a think tank, and institutions to provide for veterans, widows, and orphans. It even has a boy scouts.
The United States helped lay the groundwork for these moves through a legal mechanism: the ability to designate organizations as “terrorist groups.” Both Hamas and Hezbollah have been on the list since 1997, when it was created by the Clinton administration as a central part of the U.S. “counter-terror” strategy. But this strategy of lawfare goes back much further, as Maryam Jamshidi has detailed in these pages. At the first-ever conference on “international terrorism” in 1979, Benjamin Netanyahu and his father Benzion argued that terrorism was an ideology that the West could only defeat by operating outside of international law. This was a distinct shift in the word’s meaning: where once, it described the tactic of state or non-state actors using violence against civilians for political aims, it was now specifically associated with Palestinian, Arab, and Muslim militancy. Though providing “material support” to terrorist organizations was criminalized in response to the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing by a white nationalist, it was Palestinian groups that ended up becoming the focus of the legal reprisals.
We can see the result of decades of “anti-terrorism” lobbying in HR 9495, a bill recently passed by the House that would allow the Treasury Department to unilaterally decide whether a nonprofit has provided “material support” to terrorism with no access to due process or the evidence against them. As Darryl Li has noted, “the bill’s sponsors have made no secret of their desire to smear certain nonprofits connected with campus protests against Israel’s war on Gaza as working at the behest of Hamas,” which would closely connect with the aims of Project Esther, a right-wing plan to bring down the pro-Palestine student movement. Once in power, Trump could wield the “terror” label to stifle dissent far beyond what we’ve seen on campuses over the last year. Top officials have already said they are considering expanding the terrorist label to cartels in Mexico to justify a potential invasion that would potentially open up an Afghanistan-style quagmire on the southern border. It has become a do-it-all tool: one that can crush dissent at home just as easily as it can expand war in every direction abroad.
When some observers argue that Hamas or Hezbollah are evil and should be eliminated by Israel, but that not everyone in Gaza is Hamas nor everyone in Lebanon Hezbollah, they ignore the extent to which both groups are part and parcel of their respective societies—that so many ordinary Palestinians and Lebanese are affiliated with Hamas and Hezbollah. As a Lebanese man living under Israel’s bombardment in Dahiyeh told me in October, “Hezbollah isn’t just a military. It has doctors, nurses, teachers, ambulances. It’s a mini-state. It’s very hard to separate Hezbollah and society.” As scholars have noted regarding both Hamas and Hezbollah, the armed wings of these groups are but one piece of a much larger structure. Similar to Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, both organizations emerged in contexts of armed struggle. Both were founded because Israel was occupying their lands, and they see their mission not only as liberating themselves from occupation but also uplifting their communities. They both have thousands of members who carry arms; they also have tens of thousands of more members who have never raised a gun in their lives.
Hamas was founded in the 1980s in response to decades of Israeli rule over Palestinians under which they were forbidden from any form of political organizing including even basic gestures as waving their own flag. It emerged as a major player during the First Intifada, challenging Israel through armed resistance while simultaneously building a network of social care providers to administer to needs in Palestinian society. When Israel was forced to allow for limited Palestinian self-governance in the Oslo Accords, Hamas emerged publicly as a major political party bolstered by its extensive network of social and economic support. Hamas institutions include nursery schools, kindergartens, youth and sports clubs, libraries, day care centers, and nursing homes. Even the garbage collectors are linked to Hamas because Hamas ran Gaza city hall.
Hezbollah emerged in the early 1980s to mount a military resistance against Israel’s occupation of South Lebanon. It grew out of an existing network of social services focused on the region, one of Lebanon’s poorest. Fearful that South Lebanon would end up like Palestine or the Syrian Golan Heights—forever occupied, with its inhabitants rendered perpetual second-class citizens in their homeland—Hezbollah’s armed wing fought until finally, in 2000, Israel was forced to withdraw from Lebanon. But its staying power and popularity among its constituents was not just related to its military prowess. Hezbollah runs health services, schools, orphanages, clinics, and other institutions across Lebanon, making up for the virtual absence of the Lebanese state in providing social care. Hezbollah has a microloan bank, a think tank, and institutions to provide for veterans, widows, and orphans. It even has a boy scouts.
Netanyahu knows all this, of course—and it’s why his words ring hollow when he claims that in Iran, his war is not with the people but with the Islamic Republic. This is a far more expanded definition of the target than the IRGC, which is but one branch of Iran’s government. If the Islamic Republic is identified as the enemy, that means all of Iran’s civilian infrastructure—and all of the civilians building it, repairing it, and using it—are potential targets. Iman Vaghefi, a Tehran-based sociologist, recently posted on X:
Hoje embarquei em um ônibus da República Islâmica. Fui trabalhar em uma empresa registrada na República Islâmica. À noite, fui para uma universidade da República Islâmica e à noite voltei para casa, que é o único lugar não pertencente à República Islâmica. Mas, para ser honesto, em casa, cozinho com gás da República Islâmica e uso eletricidade da República Islâmica.
Vimos essa linha sendo borrada em abril, quando Israel bombardeou uma embaixada iraniana em Damasco, matando dezesseis pessoas — e desencadeando a primeira retaliação direta do Irã contra Israel. A desculpa para o ataque contra um prédio diplomático, protegido pelo direito internacional, foi precisamente que o IRGC o estava usando. Líderes israelenses sugeriram que atacar instalações do IRGC ou instituições da República Islâmica poderia desencadear uma "mudança de regime", enfraquecendo o governo o suficiente para que os iranianos se levantassem e o derrubassem.
Mas, durante anos, Israel lançou ataques dentro do Irã e nenhuma revolta desse tipo aconteceu. Desde o início da década de 2010, Israel realizava assassinatos regularmente em solo iraniano, incluindo uma bomba em 2011 que matou Tehrani Moghaddam junto com outros dezesseis ao redor dele. Quando morei no Irã de 2018 a 2021, bombardeios e explosões misteriosos nas montanhas eram uma ocorrência regular, aparentemente parte de uma campanha do Mossad para ressaltar a vulnerabilidade do Irã e minar suas forças armadas. Nos últimos anos, vimos Israel lançar ataques cibernéticos que derrubaram postos de gasolina em todo o país. Esses ataques espalharam uma sensação de vulnerabilidade entre as pessoas comuns — e também tornaram suas vidas um pouco mais miseráveis. Certa vez, passei um fim de semana em uma vila idílica à beira do lago fora de Teerã. Algumas semanas depois, acordei com a notícia de que uma metralhadora montada em um drone robô foi usada para assassinar um general naquela estrada que eu havia tomado para chegar lá.
Se Israel expandisse a pressão, a miséria só se multiplicaria. Se o fizer, é inteiramente possível que persiga esse objetivo da mesma forma que fez em Gaza e no Líbano: partindo para erradicar o "terrorismo" e, em seguida, expandindo a categoria de terrorista para abranger todos os tipos de iranianos, começando com a força paramilitar armada e os membros jovens que compõem as fileiras dos Basij e, eventualmente, abrangendo os civis comuns presos entre eles.
Mas, de muitas maneiras, a estratégia também pode render dividendos sem que uma única bala seja disparada. Quando o governo Trump rotulou a Guarda Revolucionária como uma organização terrorista em 2019, a ideia era sem precedentes — a primeira vez que o país usou a designação contra os militares de outro país. No início, os aliados dos EUA se recusaram a seguir o exemplo. Mas depois do movimento feminista Women Life Freedom do Irã em 2022, que viu a Guarda tomar duras medidas de retaliação contra os manifestantes, grupos de pressão de direita fora do Irã — muitos deles famintos por sanções e ação militar — começaram a pressionar para que outros países adotassem o rótulo. Logo, os iranianos dentro do país que buscavam uma maneira de punir simbolicamente o IRGC também aderiram à ideia.
Não é de surpreender que a campanha tenha encontrado terreno fértil entre os iranianos que a viram como uma vingança contra um grupo que consideram, na melhor das hipóteses, irresponsável perante aqueles que alega servir e, na pior, um agente de repressão aliado à corrupção estatal. A maioria não percebeu, no entanto, que seu ressentimento havia sido usado como arma contra eles. Mais do que qualquer grupo, são os civis iranianos que sentiram a dor das sanções dos EUA — escassez de medicamentos, perda de acesso a bancos e serviços financeiros, a negação de vistos a homens que não tinham escolha a não ser cumprir seu serviço militar obrigatório no IRGC — de forma mais aguda. Se os EUA e Israel embarcassem em um conflito militar em larga escala para atingir seus objetivos, as consequências seriam ainda mais graves.
A triste ironia de tudo isso é que o governo do Irã está desesperado por uma abertura diplomática. O presidente Pezeshkian foi eleito há apenas alguns meses em uma plataforma de diplomacia com o mundo. Em uma visita à ONU em setembro, ele disse que o Irã estaria disposto a deixar de lado suas armas para garantir um cessar-fogo em Gaza, com a esperança de que este pudesse ser um primeiro passo em direção a um acordo mais amplo entre o Irã e os Estados Unidos. Com o apoio do Líder Supremo do Irã, Ali Khamenei, Pezeshkian repetidamente estendeu as mãos para os Estados Unidos na esperança de um aperto de mão. Israel não apenas rejeitou suas súplicas; ele respondeu com força militar projetada para sabotar qualquer possibilidade de um acordo. Em julho, assassinou Ismail Haniyeh, líder político do Hamas, em Teerã, apenas algumas horas depois de ele ter comparecido à cerimônia de posse de Pezeshkian. Esta é a ação de um estado desonesto — um que, sem dúvida, seria rotulado como um ataque terrorista se um dos inimigos da América o estivesse fazendo.
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