Stratfor on Hezballah <> Iranian connections

Red Alert: Hezbollah's Iranian Connection

Sub Req excerpted ... Prior to the rise of the Shia in Iraq, Hezbollah -- as a radical Shiite Islamist organization -- was Iran's main asset in the Arab world. In fact, it likely will continue to be used by Tehran as a key tool for furthering Iranian geopolitical interests in the region, until such time as Shiite power has been consolidated in Baghdad and Iran's interests there secured.

In its earliest days, Hezbollah was a classic militant organization -- the creation of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), the elite unit of the Iranian military. It was founded as a way to export the ideals of Ayatollah Ruholla Khomeini's Islamic revolution to the Shiite community of Lebanon, and served as a model for follow-on organizations (some even using the same name) in other Arab states. It did not take long, however, for Hezbollah to emerge in Lebanon as a guerrilla movement, whose fighters were trained in conventional military tactics.

In the mid-1980s, Iran's premier intelligence agency, the Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS), assumed the task of managing Tehran's militant assets -- not just in the Middle East but in other parts of the world as well. This allowed the Iranians, through a special unit within MOIS, to strike at Israeli interests in places as diverse as Latin America and Southeast Asia.

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