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Revolutionary guards control finance and repression
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Soon after the Islamic Republic was created in 1979, Ayatollah
Khomeini, who was fearful of a coup and conscious of disorganisation
in what had been the shahs army, set up a new military force. This
army of the disinherited, established on 22 April 1979, was legalised
by article 150 of the constitution as the Army of the Guardians of the
Islamic Revolution, or Pasdaran, also known as the Revolutionary
Guards. Their mission is “to safeguard the Islamic revolution,
security and public order”.
The deepening crisis within the regime in 1980-1, the removal of
Abolhassan Banisadr, its first president, and the armed revolt led by
the People’s Mujahedin of Iran (1), led the Revolutionary Guards to
repression to confirm Khomeini’s power. When Iraq declared war on Iran
in September 1980, the Guards were the only organised force capable of
defending the regime against external and internal enemies. They were
in charge of military strategy as well as food imports under
rationing. They were responsible for the protection of state officials
and sat on revolutionary committees claiming to speak for Khomeini.
The dismantling of the radical opposition and the first victories
against Iraq ended Iran’s revolutionary period. In a declaration on 6
December 1982, Khomeini recognised the legitimacy of the private
sector and private property, and called on the Guards to concentrate
on the war effort. After his death in 1989, the Guards backed Ali
Khamenei in the election for Supreme Leader (the highest religious and
political position) and Ali Akbar Rafsanjani for the presidency.
Though the Guards lost political influence during the 1990s, they made
up for that by strengthening their hold over the economy. (This is in
line with article 147 of the constitution: “In time of peace, the
government must utilise the personnel and technical equipment of the
Army in relief operations, and for educational and productive ends.”)
The activities of the many companies overseen by the Guards are
coordinated by the Khatam al-Anbia (construction base) or GHORB,
created in 1990.
The growing power of Rafsanjani’s circle, many of whom were amassing
fortunes, alarmed Khamenei and the conservatives. When, in March 1996,
Rafsanjani’s “reformers” made a breakthrough in the first round of th=
e
elections for the fifth Islamic assembly, Khamenei called on the
Guards for help: he needed support, lacking Khomeini’s charisma,
political aura and religious authority. So on 6 April 1996 General
Yahya Rahim Safavi, commander in chief of the Guards, said that they
needed to “come on stage for the second round and with our vote ensure
that not one liberal likely to create complications for the people and
the country gets into the Assembly” (2).
Safavi’s intervention turned the power relations within the regime
upside down and halted the reformers’ progress. Yet even so, the
surprise victory of Mohammad Khatami as president in 1997, beating the
conservative candidate Nategh-Nouri, showed how fragile the balance
was.
During Khatami’s two terms in office (1997-2005), the Guards sought to
undermine his reforms. They controlled a third of Iranian imports
through 60 landing stages they had built on the Gulf coast and 10
airports, including Payam near Tehran (which officially belongs to the
post and telecommunications ministry). Mohammad Ali Moshaffeq, an aide
to the former speaker of the parliament and 2005 presidential
candidate, Mehdi Karrubi, said that “more than 25 entrance doors of
Mehrabad International Airport in Tehran are publicly claimed to be
outside customs control, and no measure has been taken to exert
control” (3).
Power upon power
A number of ministers and secretaries of state are part of the command
structure of the Guards. During Ahmadinejad’s 2003-5 term as mayor of
Tehran, he helped GHORB win major contracts for public works with a
budget of $2.2bn, including a motorway and underground railway
construction. In 2005 the Guards’ power was reinforced when Khatami’s
divided supporters were defeated and Ahmadinejad was elected
president, beating Rafsanjani who had come to represent corruption and
cronyism.
According to a blog by Mirhossein Mousavi – the candidate declared to
have lost the last presidential election – GHORB controls more than
800 companies in many fields. These include: the army (manufacturing
rockets and missiles); construction and development (road and dam
building, mining, irrigation); petroleum and gas extraction (GHORB was
awarded a $2.2bn contract to build a 600km oil pipeline to India in
June 2009); communications (in 2009 the Etemad Mobin Development
Company, affiliated to the Guards, took control of more than 50% of
the state Telecommunication Company of Iran without any other bids
being invited, a transaction that cost nearly $8bn); and finance (the
transformation of two ostensibly charitable foundations into banks is
under way).
Plans for a further Guard project were unveiled in November 2009 – the
construction of the Chabahar railway in the southeast at a cost of
$2.5bn. “We are not a war machine that is useless in peace time,” (4)
said General Mohammad Ali Jafari, commander-in-chief of the Guards. He
felt obliged to respond in press and parliament to critics who
compared his activities to the mafia: the Guards “and the military
mafias you see in many countries, including in some of our
neighbourhoods, have absolutely nothing in common”.
Since the demonstrations provoked by last June’s fraudulent election
(5), the Guards have crucially backed Khamenei and carried out
repression. Their 125,000 members are spread throughout several corps
of the army and also control the Basij (volunteer militia). In October
General Abdollah Araghi, commander of the Guards’ Rasoul-ol-lah corps,
confirmed that his organisation had assumed responsibility for
security in the months after the election (6). Yadollah Javani,
director of the Guards’s political bureau, called for the arrest and
sentence of the leaders of the reformist opposition, including Karrubi
and Mousavi (7). On 29 December the Guards officially called on the
people to demonstrate in support of the Supreme Leader and accused his
opponents of being foreign agents (8). On the Guards’ internet site
(gerdab.ir) there are photos of demonstrators, accompanied by calls
for Muslim people to denounce the participants.
The lack of clarity about the expansion of the Guards’ economic and
political interests displeases some sectors of Iranian society that
are natural supporters of the Islamic Republic: small businessmen,
parts of the private sector and politically moderate groups. The
Guards have their own internal divisions – some of their support comes
from people from poor backgrounds who disapprove of their
entrepreneurial activities and coercive tactics. These divisions show
how hard it is for the Islamic Republic to decide whether to
compromise or crack down.
March 9, 2010
Le Monde Diplomatique
by Behrouz Aref and Behrouz Farahany
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