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RedditThe Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps is dropping the mask.
Until June 12, when the Guard emerged as the critical pillar of the regime in putting down the post-election protest demonstrations, the IRGC remained in the shadows. Intelligence specialists say that there isn't a lot known about the organization, structure and operational commanders of the Revolutionary Guard (IRGC), otherwise known as the pasdaran. During my visit to Tehran last month, I spoke to one Iranian expert, a former journalist, who said that there are two things that are very closely shielded in Iran: the organization of the IRGC and the organization of the Office of the Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
But now, at least, the Guard is openly acknowledging its role.
It began in the days before the election, when the IRGC's ideological chief warned that it would crush the reformist-led opposition, which had dressed its campaign in green. "There are many indications that some extremist [i.e., reformist] groups have designed a 'color' revolution," said Yadollah Javani of the IRGC. "Any attempt at a velvet revolution will be nipped in the bud." Now Javani is back, and he's sounding uglier, with talk about eye-gouging. Said Javani, who is the IRGC's "political director":
"We came up against a deep mischief during this election, a mischief that gave birth to the new divisions. During these events, the eye of the mischief was damaged, but it was not blinded. Now the eye of the mischief must be blinded completely and gouged out, and this can be done by illuminating the events behind the scenes."
The political director of the IRGC is an important post. Last year, when I visited Iran, I met with a former IRGC political director, M. Hossein Saffar-Haramdi, a close ally of President Ahmadinejad, who is currently the minister of culture and Islamic guidance. (Like many IRGC commanders, he's been since elevated to a key post in Iran's government.) As minister of culture, Saffar-Haramdi's job is to censor or shut down newspapers, oversee the creative arts (including painting, sculpture, film, and music), and ensure that Iran's women don't get too uppity. When I asked him then why he shuts down opposition papers, he said blithely:
"Any press activity that would disturb the fabric of society or create some sort of disruption, the law must be applied. "The press is free, as long as it does not start insulting political personalities and religious beliefs."
On Sunday, the current commander of the IRGC, Maj. Gen. Mohammad Ali Jafari, admitted that the Guard had been placed in charge of putting down the current protests:
"Because the Revolutionary Guard was assigned the task of controlling the situation, it took the initiative to quell a spiraling unrest."
Thanks to the intrepid Borzou Daragahi of the Los Angeles Times, we know more about the current role of the Guard. In Monday's Times, he quoted more extensivelyfrom the statement of Gen. Jafari:
"These events put us in a new stage of the revolution and political struggles, and all of us must fully comprehend its dimensions. Because the Revolutionary Guard was assigned the task of controlling the situation, [it] took the initiative to quell a spiraling unrest. This event pushed us into a new phase of the revolution and political struggles and we have to understand all its dimensions."
General Javani, the same official who'd warned on June 10 about the threat of a velvet revolution, added:
"Today, no one is impartial. There are two currents -- those who defend and support the revolution and the establishment, and those who are trying to topple it."
That last quote is very significant, because it signals that the Guard, now openly emerging as a power in Iran, considers the opposition to be revolutionaries trying to overthrow the system rather than reformists seeking to modify it.
If you want to understand the importance of the Guard in Iran, I strongly recommend reading a 2009 publication from the Rand Corporation, entitled: "The Rise of the Pasdaran: Assessing the Domestic Roles of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps." It describes in detail how the Guard has developed from a military institution into a political and economic powerhouse. It has vast holdings in every sector of the Iranian economy. And because of those holdings, the Guard is institutionally opposed to rebuilding ties to the West. Why? Because among its various tentacles, the Guard is engaged in a wide-ranging smuggling enterprise that brings its commanders large profits. And if the Iran made a deal with the West that eliminated the sanctions strangling Iran, those profitable smuggling operations would disappear.
Says the Rand report:
From laser eye surgery and construction to automobile manufacturing and real estate, the IRGC has extended its influence into virtually every sector of the Iranian market. Perhaps more than any other area of its domestic involvement, its business activities represent the multidimensional nature of the institution. The commercialization of the IRGC has the potential to broaden the circle of its popular support by co-opting existing financial elites into its constellation of subsidiary companies and subcontractors.
Approximately one-third of Iran's imports are delivered through smuggling, the black market, and a network of sixty illegal ports under the control of the IRGC, according to Mehdi Karroubi, the reformist cleric, and members of the Iranian parliament.
As Rand notes:
As an economic organization more interested in monopoly rather than open competition, the IRGC may wish to keep Iran's economy closed off and under its tight control. If this is the case, U.S. and international sanctions may not weaken the IRGC, but instead enhance its formal and illicit economic capabilities.
The IRGC also has ties to the enormously powerful foundations, or bonyads that have risen since 1979, including the Mostazafan Foundation, headed by Mohammad Forouzandeh, a former IRGC commander, and the Shahid Foundation, headed by Hossein Deghan, the former head of the IRGC Air Force. The Mostazafan Foundation, Iran's largest, owns 350 companies in agriculture, industry, transportation, and tourism. It reportedly has ties to a secret foundation, the Nur Foundation, established in 1999 to import sugar, construction materials, and pharmaceuticals. The Shahid Foundation is also involved in dozens of enterprises.
According to Fariborz Ghadar, an Iranian economist who spoke last week at a forum I attended at the Woodrow Wilson Center, about one-third of Iran's entire economy is controlled by the bonyads. Another one-third is state-owned enterprises, and one-third is private sector. The IRGC has its hand in all three, since it controls several state-owned companies, controls many bonyads, and is awarded many private-sector contracts.
Part of the struggle in Iran involves an economic tussle pitting behind-the-scenes titans like Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, a billionaire, and many private sector businessmen against the power of the IRGC. There's a strong economic dimension to Iran's political crisis. Many of the wealthiest Iranian merchants, who control tremendous power through Iran's networks of bazaars, are traditional conservatives who are increasingly unhappy with the mismanagement of the Iranian economy by Ahmadinejad and his IRGC cronies, and by the IRGC's corruption and greed. Indeed, if the political struggle is raised to the next level, watch the bazaar. A year ago, a nationwide strike by bazaaris (to protest a value-added tax) nearly shut down Iran's economy. (An analogy: imagine if all the shopping malls in America closed down at once.) This time, a bazaari strike could take on much more political, and therefore more explosive dimensions.
No wonder the IRGC is worried.
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Robert Dreyfuss
A chronicle of America's adventures in foreign policy and national security.
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"The Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps is dropping the mask."
I can take 'em.
heheh
BTW, another round, Mr Dreyfuss. Standby for charges that the Revolutionary Guard are swell guys and the protestors and reformers are all "Israeli stooges".
Posted by Mask at 07/07/2009 @ 11:55am
"(An analogy: imagine if all the shopping malls in America closed down at once.)"
http://deadmalls.com/
Posted by frosty zoom at 07/07/2009 @ 11:57am
Posted by frosty zoom at 07/07/2009 @ 11:57am
A lot of people would be without jobs????
Geez, FZ, you're starting to sound like the guys on the Right who want the economy to tank, so they can defeat Obama in 2012. Though I think I can guess why YOU do....."living with less"?
Posted by Mask at 07/07/2009 @ 12:03pm
oh, give it a rest.
Posted by frosty zoom at 07/07/2009 @ 12:04pm
sounds like these guys are some modern combination of the knights templar in some ways...
but again, not much to do but gawk and talk...
at least i'm not living there.
Posted by ibbleblibble at 07/07/2009 @ 12:27pm
Posted by frosty zoom at 07/07/2009 @ 12:04pm |
Economy keeps tanking, as the Right wants, and you may get your "less consumerism" dream come true, Frosty.
Posted by Mask at 07/07/2009 @ 1:06pm
mask,
"less" is the new paradigm.
all the "more" was just a reagan-fueled dream, drawn from the house atm.
Posted by frosty zoom at 07/07/2009 @ 1:15pm
good thing goldman sachs doesn't have a militia.
Posted by frosty zoom at 07/07/2009 @ 1:16pm
Dreyfuss: A lot of information to digest, there, thanks.
Posted by syfriendly at 07/07/2009 @ 1:27pm
Posted by frosty zoom at 07/07/2009 @ 1:15pm
Certainly a lot LESS these days, huh, FROSTY....and we see what that results in.
People buy LESS stuff...they need LESS people to sell stuff, huh?
Posted by Mask at 07/07/2009 @ 2:11pm
dude,
what we are seeing is the gambling addict in hospital after an attempted suicide.
i was recommending therapy.....
Posted by frosty zoom at 07/07/2009 @ 2:33pm
Suspect election in Iran? Solution; have results verified by old pal Jimmy Carter... ;^) -- found a cool site; Balkingpoints ; incredible satellite view of earth
Posted by reg373 at 07/07/2009 @ 2:42pm
Dreyfuss and some other US commentators need to stop acting as if the Green movement still has any legs, it has been pretty brutally crushed. The only hope is for another mass movement, working class-led to emerge and right now there are no leaders to speak of.
Posted by Communard115 at 07/07/2009 @ 2:46pm
"Any press activity that would disturb the fabric of society or create some sort of disruption, the law must be applied. "The press is free, as long as it does not start insulting political personalities and religious beliefs."
The Obamanation that makes desolation has learned this lesson quite well! He is highly critical or ridicules any opposition coverage unlike Bush. But then, that just speaks to the small minded dictarorial charactor he displays concerning his failing Presidency! Guess he will meet with the OAS soon to get some more pointers!
Posted by BigPasture at 07/07/2009 @ 4:29pm
Speaking of the M.E.;
"A former Guantanamo Bay inmate is leading the fight against U.S. Marines in the Helmand province of Afghanistan, a senior U.S. defense official confirmed to FOX News on Tuesday. Mullah Zakir, also known as Abdullah Ghulam Rasoul, surrendered in Mazar-e-Sharif in Northern Afghanistan in 2001, and was transferred to Gitmo in 2006. He was released in late 2007 to Afghan custody.
Zakir was released from Afghan custody around 2008, according to the New York Post. He re-established connections with high-level Taliban leaders in Afghanistan and Pakistan after his second release.
Explaining why Zakir was released from Gitmo, the defense official said, "We were under incredible pressure from the world to release detainees at Gitmo. You just don't know what people are going to do."He was no worse than anyone else being held at Gunatanamo Bay," the official added. "He was not going to be tried for war crimes so we decided to release him. Either he was not thought to have committed a crime or we didn't have enough evidence to prosecute him."
Afghanistan's fledgling security agencies have been having trouble keeping the country's jails secure.
Pul-e-Charkhi prison, the country's major high-security prison that houses hundreds of Taliban and Al Qaeda fighters, has seen jailbreaks and even insurrections by inmates. Still, releases of Taliban and Al Qaeda inmates are conducted in coordination with the United States." (thanks to Obama)
-------------
I'm sure the family of the dead U.S.A. soldiers obscured by the King of Poop has a special thanks for all the leftwingnuts and the Obamanation that makes desolation for facilitating their deaths!!!
Posted by BigPasture at 07/07/2009 @ 4:44pm
good thing goldman sachs doesn't have a militia.
Posted by frosty zoom at 07/07/2009 @ 1:16pm | ignore this person | warn this person
No, but a briefcase drill team to be feared.
Posted by schnellerheinz at 07/07/2009 @ 4:53pm
Zakir was released from Afghan custody around 2008, according to the New York Post
Posted by BigPasture at 07/07/2009 @ 4:44pm
Wow, I've finally come across the one subsriber to the trash tabloid, the New York Post.
I know BigPasture, you buy it for he crosswords right?
Posted by Shingo at 07/07/2009 @ 5:00pm
I'm sure the family of the dead U.S.A. soldiers obscured by the King of Poop has a special thanks for all the leftwingnuts and the Obamanation that makes desolation for facilitating their deaths!!!
Posted by BigPasture at 07/07/2009 @ 4:44pm
Seeing as they all died under Bush's watch, it's a sure bet they know who sent them them to their deaths.
How are you coping with your Obama derrangement syndrome BigPasture?
Posted by Shingo at 07/07/2009 @ 5:02pm
Seeing as they all died under Bush's watch, it's a sure bet they know who sent them them to their deaths
Posted by Shingo at 07/07/2009 @ 5:02pm | ignore this person | warn this person
Nice lie, try Afganistan NOW under Obama!
Posted by BigPasture at 07/07/2009 @ 6:30pm
Lt. Brian Bradshaw, 24, died in Kheyl, Afganistan, of wounds suffered when an improvised explosive device detonated near his vehicle. Bradshaw, of Steilacoom, Wash., was assigned to the 1st Battalion, 501st Parachute Infantry Regiment, 4th Airborne Brigade Combat Team, 25th Infantry Division in Fort Richardson, Alaska. He was one of at least 13 U.S. soldiers to die in Afghanistan since June 25 when M.J. died!
Posted by BigPasture at 07/07/2009 @ 6:33pm
I resented them then, and I haven't changed my view; if anything, with the passage of time and further illunination on what back scenes traitorism they were conducting, I resentment has grown.
Posted by antisocialist at 07/07/2009 @ 12:10pm | ignore this person | warn this person
Mutually agreed there!
When leftist start pontificating on the Iraq and Afganistan conflicts its difficult not to be reminded that the Demoncrats succeeded in killing 58,000. American servicemen before their Dem controlled congress defunded, cut and ran from their Vietnam disaster orchestrated by big Mac clearly under JFK and LBJ which Nixon tried his best to turn around.
Posted by BigPasture at 07/07/2009 @ 6:44pm
bigpasture-Back then the left was not big on democrats and protested against them.Of course,it was not a war done just by democrats although I'm not surprised that you are revising history according to your partisan views.
Posted by i'm nobody at 07/07/2009 @ 6:56pm
Dropping the mask? What mask? The purpose of the Guards was always to defend the Islamic theocracy. No surprise here. We are, after all, dealing, not with "Iran", but with the "Islamic Republic of Iran". The Islamic Republic indicates that the ruling regime is carrying out Allah's law. Any attempt to undermine the regime is considered revolt against Allah's law; and the Koran provides horrible punishment for anyone who wages a struggle against Allah. Look at verse 5:33 from the Koran: "The punishment for those who wage war against Allah and his Messenger, and strive with might and main for mischief through the land is: execution, or crucifixion, or the cutting off of hands and feet from opposite sides, or exile from the land: that is their disgrace in this world and a heavy punishment is theirs in the Hereafter." This is from the Yusuf Ali translation which is used and distributed by American mosques. And our President made a point of recognizing the legitimacy of the regime in the Islamic Republic of Iran.
Posted by Montedoro at 07/07/2009 @ 7:16pm
Iran is so.....last week! Where TN's follow-on blog postings on Freak of Pops' mmmmmemooooooorial?
Posted by Happy at 07/07/2009 @ 7:28pm
Is this really informative? Really a surprise to whom? What might be in formative is any discussion of what the breaks between Iranian clerics means in terms of the Islamic Republic? While Dreyfuss may see it all as sooo seventh century, for the clerical factions it clearly means different political and economic views of the nature of Iran and its future. Something about how this society is understood to work and the relevance of a clerical establishment would be helpful.
Charlie M.
Posted by cmsandia at 07/07/2009 @ 7:49pm
Nice lie, try Afganistan NOW under Obama!
Posted by BigPasture at 07/07/2009 @ 6:30pm
Lousy try.
More died under Bush in Afganistan too. Mainly because he took his eye off the ball, wanting to pick a fight with Saddam.
Posted by Shingo at 07/07/2009 @ 7:57pm
Some uplifting, patriotic news.....:)
Excerpt:
In a resounding defeat for ousted University of Colorado professor Ward Churchill, a judge decided Tuesday to neither give the controversial professor his job back at CU nor award him any financial compensation for his dismissal from the school nearly two years ago.
The ruling from Chief Denver District Judge Larry Naves, which was released this afternoon, comes in stunning contrast to a jury's verdict from a civil trial Churchill brought against the school earlier this year, in which six jurors determined that CU had unlawfully stripped Churchill of his job for expressing his political beliefs in a controversial essay he wrote about the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on the United States.
The judge's ruling puts to an end a 4 1/2 year saga that generated headlines across the nation and set talk radio abuzz, with politicians, academicians and pundits locked in debates over patriotism, the limits of free speech on campus, and what constitutes academic misconduct.
Let the wailing and gnashing of teeth (not to mention the endless appeals) begin!
...and just because good news bears repeating: Judge rules Churchill will not get job back No job, no money for Ward Churchill Colo. Prof In 9/11 Flap Loses Bid To Reclaim Job
Posted by Happy at 07/07/2009 @ 8:02pm
Mutually agreed there!
Posted by BigPasture at 07/07/2009 @ 6:44pm
And mutually and catastrophically wrong..... as usual.
The majority of Americans in Vietnam died after the Tet offensive, which, lo and behold, took place the same year that Nison came to office.
Posted by Shingo at 07/07/2009 @ 8:02pm
Happuy-Why do you believe that limiting free speech is patriotic?
Posted by i'm nobody at 07/07/2009 @ 8:27pm
...and just because good news bears repeating: Judge rules Churchill will not get job back No job, no money for Ward Churchill Colo. Prof In 9/11 Flap Loses Bid To Reclaim Job
Posted by Happy at 07/07/2009 @ 8:02pm
Don't get too excited...that's not exactly the Ivy League.
Posted by schnellerheinz at 07/07/2009 @ 9:31pm
From laser eye surgery and construction to automobile manufacturing and real estate...
posted by Robert Dreyfuss on 07/07/2009 @ 11:36am
I appreciate your hard work. The more we know the inner workings of Iran the better. The less we can pant it with a reductionist broad brushstroke.
I think the single most salient finding here concerns the fact that the Pasdaran / Revolutionary Guard's power to control the media (and thereby do the dirty work of the extremist hardliners and prevent reform) lies in their corporate holdings.
Deep pockets plus a propaganda arm.
Same here of course - - GE/ Lockheed & MSNBC, Sony & Viacom, etc.
Here it's an open conspiracy, K. street, the FCC, big media's fake turf wars where the average point of view remains far right of all other free nationsI and of course the resultant confusion and apathy of the citizenry... all contributing factors.
Posted by winyahn at 07/07/2009 @ 9:37pm
The majority of Americans in Vietnam died after the Tet offensive, which, lo and behold, took place the same year that Nison came to office.
Posted by Shingo at 07/07/2009 @ 8:02pm | ignore this person | warn this person
Vietnam deaths of Americans by year! 1956-1964 401 1965 1,863 1966 6,143 1967 11,153 1968 16,592 1969 11,616 1970 6,081 1971 2,357 1972 641 1973 168 1974-1998 1178
You sure can pervert history or just out and out LIE about it! Nixon sworn in Jan. 69 after which death rates tumbled down!
Posted by BigPasture at 07/07/2009 @ 11:55pm
His name was Nixon Nisson is a Japanese car company
Posted by BigPasture at 07/07/2009 @ 11:56pm
Vietnam is OWNED by the Demoncrat party and their Presidents JFK and LBJ until the Demoncrat congress defunded, and cut and ran out on American Servicemen and left the vietnamese to be slaughtered by the millions! Lie all you want, but that is what happened!
Posted by BigPasture at 07/08/2009 @ 12:02am
The left would never admit it as it would give G.W. Bush credibility on democracy theory, but one writer ask a poignant question;
"Did the overthrow of the Saddam Hussein regime, and the subsequent holding of competitive elections in which many rival Iraqi Shiite parties took part, have any germinal influence on the astonishing events in Iran? Certainly when I interviewed Sayeed Khomeini in Qum some years ago, where he spoke openly about "the liberation of Iraq," he seemed to hope and believe that the example would spread. One swallow does not make a summer. But consider this: Many Iranians go as religious pilgrims to the holy sites of Najaf and Kerbala in southern Iraq. They have seen the way in which national and local elections have been held, more or less fairly and openly, with different Iraqi Shiite parties having to bid for votes (and with those parties aligned with Iran's regime doing less and less well). They have seen an often turbulent Iraqi Parliament holding genuine debates that are reported with reasonable fairness in the Iraqi media. Meanwhile, an Iranian mullah caste that classifies its own people as children who are mere wards of the state puts on a "let's pretend" election and even then tries to fix the outcome. Iranians by no means like to take their tune from Arabs--perhaps least of all from Iraqis--but watching something like the real thing next door may well have increased the appetite for the genuine article in Iran itself."
Thik about it if you even can?
Posted by BigPasture at 07/08/2009 @ 12:20am
bigpasture-No one lied and I have ready given you the history which includes republicans and the war started before JFK.The last time I told you that you disrespected my dad who nearly got killed when he was an adviser in Nam...According to you getting bombed by the other side does not count as combat if you are there as an adviser,but the advisers saw it differently than you and they were there.You,also,forget that back then there was a group of democrats who were called southern democrats who were very conservative and now call themselves republicans.Of course,since you call yourself an independent you will not care that republicans were involved.Sorry,but reality is that Nam is not owned by the democrats and as an independent that will not bother you and you will,of course, stop revising history.
Posted by i'm nobody at 07/08/2009 @ 12:34am
big pasture-Did LBJ and JFK pay for the war out of their own pockets?
Posted by i'm nobody at 07/08/2009 @ 12:38am
bigpasture-LBJ left office in 1968,but the war did not end in 1968..Can you tell me what party the next president belonged to?
Posted by i'm nobody at 07/08/2009 @ 12:51am
Nixon sworn in Jan. 69 after which death rates tumbled down! Posted by BigPasture at 07/07/2009 @ 11:55pm
Which debunks your theory that the Dems were responsible for all 58,000 deaths.
Mind you, Nixon killed half a million with his secret bombing of Cambodia.
Posted by Shingo at 07/08/2009 @ 01:03am
Vietnam is OWNED by the Demoncrat party and their Presidents JFK and LBJ until the Demoncrat congress defunded, and cut and ran out on American Servicemen and left the vietnamese to be slaughtered by the millions! Lie all you want, but that is what happened!
Posted by BigPasture at 07/08/2009 @ 12:02am
Nixon slaughtered half a million in Cambodia with his secret bombing.
Nixon took office before the US left Vietnam.
The Republicans owned the war every bit as much as as the Dems.
Posted by Shingo at 07/08/2009 @ 01:06am
"Any press activity that would disturb the fabric of society or create some sort of disruption, the law must be applied. "The press is free, as long as it does not start insulting political personalities and religious beliefs."
seems like in Iran it's possible to insult a smiley face. Touch-eee...
Posted by A_Pax_On_Your_Houses at 07/08/2009 @ 01:49am
This time, a bazaari strike could take on much more political, and therefore more explosive dimensions.
No wonder the IRGC is worried.
o holy shit
Posted by A_Pax_On_Your_Houses at 07/08/2009 @ 02:31am
Guess it's Bad News Dreyfuss these days csi (chuckling sadly inside)
Posted by A_Pax_On_Your_Houses at 07/08/2009 @ 02:35am
Dear Mr Dreyfuss :
If you want to have depth anaklysis about the structure of Iranian regime, i suggest you to read this article. The power tool of Islamic regime in Iran is not localized just in Revolutionary Guard.
Title: IRAN.Are you expecting a Martin Luther inside of Iranian regime?My answer is:Sweet Dreams. (parts 1,2,3,4). Link: http://www.ireport.com/docs/DOC-291938 In this article i have analyzed : 1- The structure and foundation of Islamic regime in Iran. 2- Why this regime can not and do not tolerate any reform. 3- who are the proponents of reform in this regime and why.
With best regards Aran
Posted by Aran at 07/08/2009 @ 06:19am
RIO/Big Posture's contortions put Cirque de Soleil to shame.
He attacks Obama for the recent death of a US soldier, but ignores the 4100+ deaths under Dubya....
then he blames LBJ and JFK for the "majority of the deaths" during Vietnam....and says "casualties were going down" under Nixon.
Completely contradicting his Dubya/Obama viewpoint.
Posted by Mask at 07/08/2009 @ 07:53am
RIO/Big Posture's contortions put Cirque de Soleil to shame.
Posted by Mask at 07/08/2009 @ 07:53am
That's the problem the right wing face. They cannot present an argument without distortion, cherry picking and half truths.
In the end, their logic comes down to heads we win, tales you lose.
Posted by Shingo at 07/08/2009 @ 8:36pm
Posted by wimpy trickle at 07/07/2009 @ 4:44pm
"He was released in late 2007 to Afghan custody."
So... Obama was president of Afganistan back then? Or the US?
One of us is confused.
Posted by Malcontent at 07/09/2009 @ 6:41pm