In 1979 Ayatollah Khomeini's indirect approach ignited existing socio-economic conditions during the Iranian Revolution to topple the Shah. A similar indirect approach using psychological operations to target audiences through key vulnerabilities and networks may have applicability for strategies today. Joint Pub 5-0 defines the indirect approach as the employment of attacks on an adversary's derived vulnerabilities when conditions do not permit direct attacks against a defined center of gravity (COG). "A COG can be viewed as the set of characteristics, capabilities, and sources of power from which a system derives its moral or physical strength, freedom of action, and will to act." Using a combination of operations, an indirect approach targets the COG by attacking key adversary weaknesses or requirements. When performed successfully, an indirect approach can isolate, sever, defeat, or degrade adversary capabilities to ultimately prevent their use. In the Shah's case, Khomeini focused on Iranian public opinion to degrade the monarch's legitimacy, and also military morale and unity to effectively neutralize the Iranian armed forces. Ayatollah Khomeini effectively unified various Iranian opposition groups through a common hatred and desire to overthrow the Shah. Most significant, the Ayatollah accomplished this while residing entirely outside Iran's borders using psychological operations as the primary arm of his approach. Joint doctrine defines psychological operations as, "planned operations to convey selected information and indicators to foreign audiences to influence the emotions, motives, objective reasoning, and ultimately the behavior of foreign governments, organizations, groups, and individuals." Often misunderstood, psychological operations require sufficient time in order to work but given appropriate time the effects can often be dramatic. Khomeini's synchronization of psychological operations with coordinated internal political violence successfully deThis work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work.This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work.As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.
