فصلنامه مطالعات عملیات روانی
پیاپی 22 (تابستان 1388)

Referring to the Holy Book of Islam, the Quran, we understand that the background of psychological operations dates back to the time before which man descended onto the earth. In fact, based on his oath, Satan has been seeking to mislead man since the beginning of Adam’s creation. Hence, psychological operations begin paratemporally with Satan’s disobeying God's command and gradually continue during history, especially during the time of the Great Prophets and Imams (as). The series of articles entitled "A Review of Psychological Operations in Islam" seeks to study the emergence and development of psychological operations from the standpoint of Quranic verses, narrations, hadiths and other Islamic research sources. The historical research approach on psychological operations gives prominence to concentration on the psychological dimensions in the whole range of individual and social facets of man’s life from a religious perspective.

"Color revolutions" are believed to be among the new and successful methods of political-security intervention in independent countries. Parallel to the importance that soft approaches have gained in the foreign policy of countries, oppressor of the arena of international politics have also attempted to employ such approaches to make changes within the political systems of some governments. In this context, enforcers of color revolutions have enhanced the effectiveness of their intervention by utilizing one of the classical methods of deposing behavior development, namely, psychological operations. The way psychological operations become practical through their role in changing political attitudes and exploiting people’ "mental irritability", especially in mass gatherings, is determined. Thus, as far as behavior development in addressees is concerned, there is a direct relationship between fulfillment of color revolutions and accomplishment of psychological operations. The present article analyzes different dimensions of this process.

«What is to be done with Iran?» is the question that Western policy makers of the past 30 years have repeatedly raised and have rarely come up with an appropriate answer to it¡ although¡ during this period¡ they have tested different policies and each time they have failed to convince Iran. The tenth Iranian presidential elections were held in a free and democratic atmosphere with 85 percent participation of those who could vote and with nearly 40 million votes. Western governments led by America and Britain attempted to impair these elections using different media tools. After the elections¡ using all their capacities¡ they tried to question the health of the elections. Meanwhile¡ the internal rioters and agitators took advantage of this opportunity¡ and created social insecurity by disturbing the internal security in the country. On the other hand¡ thinking that the unrest process will continue in Iran¡ the Western governments supported the rioters and by conducting psychological operations they tried to induce the idea that «this is just the beginning of everything». A first glance at these efforts reminds us of the point that they are aimed at making the rivals inactive in elections by making use of psychological operations techniques and tactics. However¡ it seems that this issue goes beyond some political factions’ making use of psychological operations techniques and tactics. Indications and evidence show that there were some mysterious¡ secret and sophisticated attempts aimed at changing the public opinion in Iran and paving the way for a «color revolution. By raising the question» With what kind of plan did the Westerns follow their ultimate goal of overthrowing the Islamic Republic of Iran? «¡ this paper examines different aspects and objectives of the psychological operations of the West during the tenth presidential elections in Iran.

In recent years and under the influence of the political developments and changes in the structure of international relations especially after the Cold War and the disintegration of the Soviet Union¡ some new terms and definitions have been developed and added to the political literature. Color or velvet revolution is the most important example of such terms. Color revolution or velvet revolution is a kind of bloodless political transformation and overthrowing method which is utilized in a nonviolent way (soft overthrowing). What makes this issue more important is the attempt made by the West especially the USA and aimed at making it a model for changes in the political structure of the countries which are in a transition state or are in opposition with the West. There are some countries in the world which are subject to changes and formation of a new political system after several decades of especial political experiences. Realization of color revolutions in these countries can direct their political changes on a course mainly based on the values of liberal systems and Western democracies. As an introduction to color revolutions¡ this article attempts to introduce this phenomenon in terms of concept¡ features¡ dimensions and method. To make the discussion practical¡ the article also tries to explain the way this kind of revolution has occurred in some countries and utilization of the model in Iran.

Revolution is a process through which power is transmitted from one group to another and the power position is completely changed by means of violence. In classical revolutions¡ the political structure and rulers are definitely and completely changed and new political¡ economic and social institutions emerge. Utilization of violence enhances the costs of changes and even temporarily causes chaos in society. However¡ in 1989¡ a new type of theory for making changes in the political systems was put forward and became known as velvet or color revolution. In the past decade¡ velvet revolutions managed to change the communist and socialist systems. It is claimed that in color or velvet revolutions there is never any violence or violence is utilized to a lesser degree and political changes are made chiefly by peaceful measures. Velvet revolutions mainly take place during elections. Under such conditions¡ the opposition groups take advantage of the free atmosphere and become united and protest against the ruling group by holding peaceful gatherings and utilizing the power of domestic and foreign media. In this way¡ the political system is changed without resorting to violence and this process is known as velvet or orange revolution. Relying on the new revolution theories and within the framework of contagion phenomenon¡ this article will review and analyze color revolutions during the post-communist era.

Recent developments in international issues and enhancement of the role of the media in smoothing the foreign policy cycle gave rise to a new arena in the field of foreign policy entitled media diplomacy which deals with how the media¡ especially TV¡ influence the public opinion of the world and changes in the nations’ foreign policy. The influence of global TV on the settlement of political issues and its instrumental role in directing the public opinion and bringing pressure on foreign policy officials (as a soft war tool) made the author conduct a study on the influence of global TV on diplomacy and foreign policy giving some hints on CNN Influence Theory¡ the concept of diplomacy and some real examples of the influence of TV on foreign policy.

After several decades of the United States’ intervention in the Middle East and finally the occurrence of 9/11 attacks¡ it became obvious that this region not only isn’t in agreement with the political-economic system of America¡ but also it has strong potentials for resistance and confrontation. After the 9/11 attacks¡ the United States sought the solution of this problem in utilizing hard (military) strategies and occupied Afghanistan and Iraq. However¡ after several years¡ these strategies didn’t have any successful outcome and America was forced to resort to soft strategies in order to confront new threats in the Islamic world; utilization of such strategies requires networking aimed at creating reforms in the allied regimes and implementation of color revolutions in countries considered hostile. The issue dealt with in this article is that America is now trying to make networks of moderate forces in order to confront the threats in the Islamic world. One of the pertinent programs of the United States which the present paper deals with is promotion of democracy¡ development of civil society and public diplomacy. At the same time¡ three case studies related to America’s practical activities in this regard are reviewed.

Psychological operations are the most effective type of war¡ because they target the intellect¡ thought and spirit of the combatants and thereby seek to shatter their spiritual morale and to ruin their combat willpower and ultimately lead them towards defeat. Before taking any military measures or simultaneous with them¡ parties involved in war conduct psychological operations against their enemies by taking advantage of their weaknesses and thereby they weaken the resistance of the people of the target countries and their armed forces. The psychological operations of Iraq against the Islamic Republic of Iraq were a very complicated process. Making use of a carefully-organized structure and benefitting from the effective presence of Ba’th Party¡ Iraq secured a powerful organization for pursuing psychological operations. This article features the propaganda and psychological operations of Iraq which originated from the nature of Ba’th Party. Meanwhile¡ the psychological operations of the Iraqi regime were condemned to failure because of their ignorance of the psychological structure of the Iranian society and their misunderstanding of the features of the Iranian morale and on the whole because of neglecting different aspects of the social psychology of Iranians.

Reporting war news is as old as the challenges related to it¡ i.e. challenges between truth¡ misinformation and deception. Despite efforts made by reporters in order to prepare impartial and comprehensive reports which are compatible with the realities of war¡ due to military censorship¡ secrecy and political considerations¡ fulfillment of such an objective is not possible. Media reflect the attitudes and beliefs of a society. Among the media¡ television is of particular importance because of its strong attraction power and audio-visual nature. Television can create a kind of reality with miles of distance from the truth. Media play a significant role in giving shape to the images of nations¡ and presenting a positive or negative image of them. For example¡ by working on the public opinion¡ the media of a country can prepare the nation for the occurrence of war or a military intervention or they can persuade people to resist such events. But realization of this kind of influence takes a long time. Presenting some examples from the incidents of Balkan War¡ this article evaluates and analyzes the impact of mass media on audiences and formation of public opinion during this war.