Temperature Rising: Iran's Revolutionary Guards and Wars in the Middle East - Paperback

by Nader Uskowi (Author)

Iran is a country at war - in Syria, Iraq, and Yemen. The founder of the Islamic Republic, Ayatollah Khomeini, always told audiences that the revolution was not about Iran, but the whole region. To establish an arc of Shia influence across the Middle East, the Islamic Republic created the Quds Force, the extraterritorial branch of its Revolutionary Guards. Hundreds of thousands of Shia youths were recruited, trained, armed, and organized in militia groups across the region. The book tells the story of how the Quds Force and its Shia militias fought on the three fronts to advance the Islamic Republic's militant interpretation of Shia Islam and create a contiguous land corridor linking Iran through Iraq to Syria, Lebanon, and the Israeli northern fronts. The Iran-led operations are creating enormous political and security challenges for the Sunni Arabs and all regional powers, creating further instabilities in an already turbulent Middle East, with specters of direct military conflicts looming, pitting Iran against the Arab states and Israel.

Author Biography

Nader Uskowi is a subject matter expert on the Islamic Republic of Iran and its military strategy. He is currently a Senior Fellow at the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security at the Atlantic Council. He has served as the Senior Policy Advisor to United States Central Command, the branch of the U.S. military whose area of responsibility includes Iran and the Middle East, focusing on geopolitical and military developments across the region. Uskowi has recently testified before Congress, and published articles, appeared on Radio and TV news programs, and presented papers to seminars and symposiums on Iran. He lives with his wife, Patti, in Reston, VA.