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    I've just been digging up bits about the Sepah-e Pasdaran, thought I'd share this and anything else I found

    What Was Once a Revolutionary Guard Is Now Just a Mafia
    Opinion
    Mohsen Sazegara | Fri. Mar 16, 2007

    Back in October 1978, none of us in exile with Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini imagined that victory for the Islamic Revolution would be attained only a few months later. It was during those days in Neuf-le-Chateau that the notion of starting a “people’s army” first took hold, and expecting that our battle would be a long one, we took as models for our soon-to-be established army the forces in Algeria and Cuba.

    But on February 1, 1979, we stepped off a plane from France into Tehran, and 10 days later we were in power. Suddenly we had a position to protect, and the model for our people’s army changed dramatically. It seemed more appropriate to emulate such forces as the Swiss Armed Forces, United States National Guard or Israel Defense Forces.

    The thought was that if the Islamic Republic had two separate armies with independent command structures, the country could insulate itself against a coup. If ordinary citizens were given military training in preparation for combat, we believed, then any military commander would think twice before contemplating overthrowing the government.

    In the three decades since, there has not been a coup. That people’s army, however, has grown into a multi-headed monster.

    Today the Army of the Guardians of the Islamic Revolution — known in Farsi as the Sepah-e Pasdaran and in English as the Revolutionary Guard — is a mafia-like organization with a corrupting influence on Iran’s army, police, media, industries, judiciary and government. It is imperative that every effort now be made to contain the Revolutionary Guard’s powers, because its political and economic adventurism will ultimately lead to a serious crisis, not just in Iran but also across the Middle East.

    Section Break

    Any attempt at rolling back the Revolutionary Guard’s power must begin with an understanding of how it has strayed from its original mission.

    In the first phase of planning, we envisioned three separate circles on the organizational chart. The first consisted of a small but varied cadre of at most 500 people who were to be permanently employed by the Revolutionary Guard. All command and staff positions, including all the trained personnel destined for senior command in guerilla warfare, were to come from this quarter.

    The second circle was to consist of another group of around 500,000 people who were to be recruited on a volunteer or part-time basis from the general public, with a designated mission to serve as commanders of “civilian guerilla groups.” The third and final circle would encompass as many people as possible from all walks of life — students, workers, bureaucrats, farmers and the like. It was envisioned that each volunteer would receive military training and subsequently be invited to participate in at least one prearranged military exercise each year.

    Although computers were not commonly used in those days, we nonetheless intended to make full use of computerized programming for the promotion of the new organization, under the direct supervision of one of the personnel working for me. The light weapons held in the various armories were to be re-registered and distributed around the country. In case of an emergency, our thinking went, a simple volunteer from anywhere in the land could serve under the command of a part-time, fully trained group leader, who in turn would be part of a Revolutionary Guard division under the command of a full-time, fully trained commander with a mission to protect the country and the revolution.

    As originally planned, the Revolutionary Guard was to be, quite literally, a people’s army — not, as it has become, a force separate from the general public, let alone opposed to it. In times of war, the Revolutionary Guard was seen as a force to fight alongside the regular military in the service of the country. In times of peace, it was to tend to its own affairs. In times of need or natural disasters, it was to help out with civil defense and other emergency operations.

    After the original plans for the Revolutionary Guard had been drawn up and its constitution finalized in April 1979, I relinquished my post in the organization’s information and research unit to Ali Mohammad Besharati. I moved on to National Iranian Radio and Television, where after a short while I was appointed to head radio operations.

    The years since have taken me on a far different path than the one on which I began the Islamic Revolution, but having been involved with the Revolutionary Guard at its birth, I have continuously followed its evolution. It is my view that over the course of the past 28 years, the Revolutionary Guard has deviated from its original mission in three important ways, in the process inflicting a series of irreparable damages to Iran.

    Section Break

    The first deviation began when Mohsen Rezai, Mohammad Bagher Zolghadr and their ilk entered the Revolutionary Guard. Their first major task was to convert the Revolutionary Guard’s information and research unit — which had originally been designed to serve as an analysis and planning unit with, at most, some residual capacity for military intelligence gathering — into an outright security organization with Rezai at its helm.

    It didn’t take long for this intelligence unit to expand its influence over the Revolutionary Guard’s other units. In May 1982, Iranian armed forces expelled the occupying Iraqi army from the ravaged southern city of Khorramshahr. Before the Iraqis captured the city in October 1980, it had been a major international port with a wealthy, cosmopolitan population, and the Revolutionary Guard’s part in recapturing Khorramshahr quickly gained mythic status in Iran. The intelligence unit’s control over the Revolutionary Guard became near total, and it embarked on a mission to convert the Revolutionary Guard into a classic fighting machine.

    After the battle for Khorramshahr, Iran held the upper hand over Iraq. But rather than pursue a cease-fire, these gentlemen — aided and abetted by then-parliament speaker Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani — convinced Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini that it was essential for Iranian military forces to invade Iraqi territory and capture the port city of Basra. There is no doubt that responsibility and blame for the six-year extension of the Iran-Iraq War, which needlessly caused so much death and destruction for the Iranian people, rests firmly on the shoulders of the clique of Revolutionary Guard commanders around Rezai and Zolghadr.

    These same elements in the Revolutionary Guard, who assumed senior military titles for themselves without having the slightest relevant qualifications, unashamedly planned a number of large-scale offensives after the victory at Khorramshahr. As a consequence of Operations Khaybar, Badr, Karbala 4, Karbala 5 and others, thousands and thousands of young Iranians needlessly suffered. Of the nearly 267,000 Iranian deaths and 500,000 casualties caused by the Iran-Iraq War, more than 90% occurred after Khorramshahr was recaptured and the invading Iraqis expelled from Iranian territory.

    In 1985, the Revolutionary Guard was able to obtain Khomeini’s approval for developing air, ground and naval units, thereby acquiring all the properties of a classic military organization. Despite lacking the necessary training and education, the Revolutionary Guard began to rival the regular armed forces.

    During the Iran-Iraq War, the Revolutionary Guard’s commander, Rezai, stated that the Revolutionary Guard must develop units specifically tasked with confronting opposition to the regime. I met shortly afterward with the head of Iran’s Judiciary Branch and asked him not to pursue Rezai’s plan. The only possible outcome from such an act, I warned, would be the creation of a force very much resembling the Nazi Brownshirts.

    The head of the Judiciary Branch laughingly disregarded my suggestion. I should not bad-mouth the Nazis, he told me; at least they had some educated people among them. In the end, Rezai had his way, and so were created the “White Shirts” and other civilian groups entrusted with the task of intimidating and brutalizing any hint of opposition, a practice that still takes place today.

    The Revolutionary Guard was no longer a people’s army, just another coercive force at the service of the ruling establishment. To solidify their hold on power, the same clique that has been running the Revolutionary Guard all these years prematurely removed a number of senior and able commanders, among them Davoud Karimi, the commander in Tehran.

    The Revolutionary Guard also expanded beyond the air, ground and naval components approved by Khomeini in 1985. The Basij force, which had been created as a volunteer militia to help fight the war with Iraq, was transformed into a unit with paid elements who were tasked with confronting domestic opposition. And in order to carry out the Revolutionary Guard’s bidding in areas outside the country — Lebanon, Palestine, Yemen, Egypt, Sudan and, most importantly, Iraq — the Quds Force was created.

    I once heard Hassan Abbasi, who was a member of the Revolutionary Guard’s strategic planning department, boast to students at Khajeh Nasir University that the Revolutionary Guard was making good use of the Hezbollah cells it had created in Lebanon and elsewhere. And the current president of the Islamic Republic, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, served with the Ramazan Unit of the Quds Force, participating in Iraq-related operations during the during the Iran-Iraq War. There should be no doubt about the Quds Force’s role in what transpired last summer in Lebanon, or in what is happening on a daily basis between Shias and Sunnis in Iraq.

    The Revolutionary Guard also set up a new secret intelligence unit under the auspices of the Judiciary Branch’s security section. In effect a parallel security organization, it operates under the direct supervision of the supreme leader.

    The most notorious part of this secret intelligence organization is Prison 325, which the unit runs independently in Evin Prison. I, like other opposition elements, was imprisoned there.

    Section Break

    The Revolutionary Guard’s second major deviation from its original mission took place over the course of Rafsanjani’s eight-year presidency. After becoming president in 1989, he made it a priority for all government agencies to increase their revenues. He incorporated into his plans the Revolutionary Guard and the Ministry of Information. These two organizations, armed with weapons and handcuffs, soon entered the world of business — and became an entity replicated in other parts of the world only by mafia-like gangs of criminals.

    In the former Soviet Union the KGB occupied a similar position, and as a result, post-Soviet society is plagued by the Russian mafia, one of the world’s deadliest criminal organizations. To this day, these elements have a stranglehold on some of Russia’s key economic enterprises, which has allowed them to weigh in heavily on the general direction of the country’s politics.

    In Iran as much as in Russia, when elements armed with weapons enter into commercial activities, two immediate and major threats are created. The first is that economic rivals are soon arrested or intimidated, and with rivals out of the equation, a commercial monopoly is inevitably established. Second, the armed economic unit, in an attempt to increase its easy profits, uses its power of intimidation and force to enter into a number of illegal activities, such as drug and alcohol smuggling and prostitution. Because of their weapons, no one dares challenge or criticize these elements’ behavior.

    After Mohammad Khatami assumed the presidency in 1997, serious attempts were made to extricate Iran’s intelligence community from the world of conventional economic activities. Intelligence Minister Ali Younesi himself insisted on the effort. By most accounts, some moderate progress was achieved, but a number of people remain skeptical about the sincerity with which the effort was pursued.

    However, as regards the Revolutionary Guard — which still operates under the direct supervision of the supreme leader — no such steps were ever initiated. Indeed, its involvement in commercial activities has only grown.

    Today the Revolutionary Guard controls more than 100 different economic enterprises, conducting business under the aegis of either itself or the Basij. Its commercial activities have ranged from importing household goods — at a time when other commercial enterprises were banned from importing some of those goods — to being in charge of car manufacturing companies and assembly plants.

    The Revolutionary Guard has also been a major contractor in the construction of oil and gas pipelines, as well as in the importing of Kazakh oil into Iran. And when Iraq was under international sanction by the United Nations Security Council, the Revolutionary Guard was the prime force behind Iranian efforts to help Saddam Hussein and his family smuggle oil out of Iraq, according to personal acquaintances of mine who were involved in the operations.

    Some Revolutionary Guard commanders are directly involved in economic activities aimed at enriching themselves. One case in point is Sadegh Mahsouli. Formerly the Revolutionary Guard commander of Azerbaijan province in northwest Iran, he was nominated by Ahmadinejad to the powerful post of oil minister, and would be serving today had the parliament not rejected his nomination.

    And since Ahmadinejad moved into the president’s office, contracts for oil pipelines worth more than $7 billion have reportedly been awarded to Revolutionary Guard-affiliated enterprises without any public tenders, at a time when numerous contractors with far more experience and qualifications in their respective fields are struggling with serious financial problems.

    Consequently, a government whose slogan and mission has been to fight financial corruption has inadvertently become what is undoubtedly the most corrupt government in the history of modern Iran.

    Section Break

    The Revolutionary Guard’s third deviation from its original mission has taken place since Ali Khamenei became supreme leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran in 1989. By involving the Revolutionary Guard in the political life of the country, Khamenei’s direct and unwise leadership of the corps has simply exacerbated matters beyond imagination.

    Before Khamenei assumed the mantle of leadership, ambitious Revolutionary Guard commanders who displayed an interest in entering into politics were severely reprimanded. Khomeini firmly believed that no military establishment should be allowed to involve itself in the political life of the nation.

    Once Khamenei came into power, however, Khomeini’s restrictions were no longer adhered to, and political appointments of Revolutionary Guard members became quite regular. At the height of the reform movement under President Mohammad Khatami, Khamenei was instrumental in allowing a number of key Revolutionary Guard and Basij members to enter into politics.

    The appointments were part of a strategy aimed at safeguarding Khamenei’s own position of power, which was threatened by a clear absence of popular support. When the media publicly questioned the lethal mix of military and politics under Khamenei, the reaction was quick and venomous — and I speak from personal experience.

    In 1999, the commander of the Revolutionary Guard, Rahim Safavi, gave a public speech in which he attacked Jame-e, a reform-minded newspaper I co-founded, and warned of “snakes and scorpions rising from the cracks of Iran’s journalistic society.” The solution he proposed — no doubt with the blessing of the supreme leader — was to “cut off heads and tongues” in order to silence any form of free and open discussion that did not suit the purposes of Khamenei and his cronies.

    I responded to his comments by publishing a short article in Jame-e. I wrote that I did not recall Safavi being one of the Revolutionary Guard’s founding members. I also wrote that when we created the Revolutionary Guard, we never envisioned it as a force standing against the ordinary people of Iran or in opposition to freedom of expression.

    Immediately after the article was published, I was contacted by the supreme leader’s office and reprimanded for having written that I could not recall Safavi’s background with the Revolutionary Guard dating back to the corps’ founding.

    Sometime afterward, Safavi made a political speech during the annual commemoration of the occupation of the American embassy in Tehran. I once again responded, this time in a radio interview. I stated that neither Safavi nor any other military commander had the right to comment on political matters, and that they must leave political matters entirely in the hands of the country’s civilian leadership. I also stated that if Safavi and any other military commanders nourished political ambitions, they were more than free to pursue them, but only once they had resigned their commissions and opted for civilian life.

    In 2003, I was arrested and imprisoned by the secret intelligence unit run by the Revolutionary Guard under the supreme leader’s direct supervision. My radio comments about Safavi were among the six serious charges brought against me. My crime had been to insult a revolutionary organization, a crime punishable by imprisonment.

    Section Break

    My experience was far from unique. Anyone seen as a competitor — political, commercial or otherwise — runs the risk of being put out of commission by intimidation and brute force. As a direct result, a number of Revolutionary Guard commanders have risen to key positions of power in Iran, despite being clearly unqualified.

    Under their leadership, the Revolutionary Guard has extended its reach across Iranian society. Militarily and politically, it has carved out a role for itself not unlike that of the Red Army and the Communist Party in the Soviet Union. It has transformed itself, KGB-like, into a mafia that dominates Iran’s police force. And in its business activities, it now resembles some of the world’s major cartels.

    And the Revolutionary Guard’s ambitions continue to grow. In order to sideline potential rivals, the Revolutionary Guard has been instrumental in inciting division between some of the country’s key agencies, such as the Supreme National Security Council and the Ministry of the Interior. With the backing of Khamenei, Revolutionary Guard commanders have done their very best to expand their influence over the legislative and judicial branches of government. And they have made every effort to consolidate support for their cronies in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and in Iran’s radio and television networks.

    Left unchecked, the Revolutionary Guard’s political and economic adventurism will inevitably lead to a serious crisis. The people of Iran will suffer the most, but so, too, will others in the Middle East. Last summer’s hostage-takings in Lebanon and Palestine, which culminated in the horrific 34-day war between Israel and Hezbollah, are only small examples of the kind of scenarios we are likely to face.

    It is therefore imperative that the Iranian people, with the help of the international community, seriously attempt to roll back the powers of this growing monster. Unless the Revolutionary Guard is contained, it may soon face a groundswell of opposition — from within its own ranks, from others associated with the regime and, perhaps most importantly, from ordinary Iranian citizens. Unless the Revolutionary Guard curbs its incompetent and illegal involvement in the political and economic life of Iran, the rising tide of unrest is bound to reach a very dangerous climax.

    Mohsen Sazegara co-founded the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps in 1979, and served the Islamic Republic until 1989 in a number of senior government positions, including deputy prime minister for political affairs and managing director of the National Radio of Iran. He went into exile after being imprisoned in 2003, and is currently a visiting researcher at Harvard University.
    Source
    In the realm of spirit, seek clarity; in the material world, seek utility.

    Leibniz

  • #2
    IRAN’S REVOLUTIONARY GUARDS MAKING A BID FOR INCREASED POWER
    Kamal Nazer Yasin 5/19/04

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    Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, the military force that has served as the main pillar of support for the Islamic republic, is seeking to play an independent role in the country’s domestic political life. The entry of the Revolutionary Guards into the political fray can have many unintended consequences, including the rearrangement of Iran’s policy-making process.

    Iran’s conservative clerics created the Revolutionary Guard Corps to defend the 1979 Islamic revolt from both foreign and domestic enemies. Before his death in 1989, the spiritual leader of the revolution, Ayatollah Khomeini, prohibited the Revolutionary Guards from becoming actively involved in politics, which for much of the Islamic republic’s history has been marked by factional infighting. In addition, the Iranian constitution prohibits members of the armed forces from direct engagement in politics.

    However, recent domestic and regional developments enabled the Revolutionary Guard commanders to break the taboo on political activity. Conservative clerics became increasingly reliant on the country’s security forces as they went about re-establishing their firm grip on power.

    On the domestic front, hard-liners relied heavily on the Revolutionary Guards to manage get-out-the-vote and other activities that helped secure a conservative landslide victory in the controversial February parliamentary elections. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive].

    At the same time, the Revolutionary Guards domestic prestige has been significantly enhanced by the fact of its management of Iran’s nuclear program. The program, under intense international scrutiny because of its arms-making potential, is a source of tremendous national pride in Iran.

    On the security front, the US-led war on terrorism -- specifically the presence of US troops in two neighboring countries, Afghanistan and Iraq – has enhanced the Revolutionary Guards’ clout in defending Iran’s national interests. Indeed, the Revolutionary Guards reportedly dominate Iran’s embassy in Iraq, and have garnered praise in Tehran for running effective intelligence and diplomatic operations that stifled Bush administration talk of promoting regime change in Iran.

    Prior to taking on a higher political profile, the Revolutionary Guards established itself as an economic force in the country, launching a vast array of financial and economic enterprises. In large part, the businesses were seen as needed to finance Revolutionary Guard security programs. At the same time, the ventures were intended to build the guards’ independence. In this, guard commanders sought to mimic their military counterparts in Pakistan and Turkey. In both those countries, the army acts as far more than an instrument to protect national interests: they both play high-profile political roles and often define what the respective nations’ security interests are.

    Signs of the growing political clout of the Revolutionary Guards are abundant. For instance, on May 18, a former guards commander, Ezatullah Zarghami, was named to the key post of national television and radio chief.

    In addition, in apparent exchange for its help during the parliamentary elections, the Revolutionary Guards were permitted to field its own slate of candidates. Thus, when the new parliament convenes later in May, about one dozen legislators will be under the effective control of the Revolutionary Guards. Political observers note that this is the first time in the Islamic republic’s 25-year history that the guards have had such a parliamentary presence.

    By far the greatest demonstration of the Revolutionary Guards’ political influence occurred in early May, when the military abruptly closed down Tehran’s new Imam Khomeini International Airport. In justifying its action, Revolutionary Guard representatives said the fact that a Turkish consortium, TAV, was in charge of operating the airport terminal posed a threat to Iran’s "security and dignity," the official IRNA news agency reported. Accordingly, the guards have demanded that the TAV airport deal be voided before the airport reopens.

    Some observers suspect an economic motive is behind the Revolutionary Guards’ action in the airport row. When TAV won the tender to operate the airport, the losing bidder was reportedly a company with close ties to the Revolutionary Guards.

    TAV in a statement said it had already expended $15 million to fulfill its airport operation obligations. The statement also asserted that a memo of understanding governing TAV’s management of the airport was still valid.

    The Iranian student news agency, ISNA, described the May 8 closure of the airport as illegal, going on to blame the action on "irresponsible elements." IRNA, meanwhile, quoted the lame-duck Parliament Speaker Mehdi Karroubi as characterizing the incident a "disaster and disgrace for the country." Nevertheless, the new airport – which was 30 years and $465 million in the making – remains closed while the issue is decided at the highest levels of Iran’s government.


    Given the opaque nature of Iran’s political system, it is difficult to determine the attitude of the country’s conservative religious hierarchy towards the guards’ rising political profile. Some observers suggest the guards’ efforts to become more politically active are simply a reflection of changing geopolitical conditions that have rewritten the rules governing domestic Iranian politics. Others believe the Revolutionary Guard commanders may be overplaying their hand, and thus could soon be subject to action designed to curb their political ambitions.

    An important indicator of the Revolutionary Guards’ future in politics should come in 2005, when the Guardian Council will vet candidate for the presidential election. If the candidate favored by the guards – current Tehran Mayor Mahmud Ahmadinejad – is allowed to run in the election, many observers will take it as a sign of conservative acceptance of a Revolutionary Guard role in politics.
    Source
    In the realm of spirit, seek clarity; in the material world, seek utility.

    Leibniz

    Comment


    • #3
      ran's Revolutionary Guards ARE the Regime
      By Clare M. Lopez
      When President Bush recently answered a reporter's question about Iranian shipments to Iraq of lethal explosive devices, he was very careful to avoid assigning direct responsibility to the highest levels of the clerical regime. He needn't have been.

      Asked what made him so certain that "the highest levels of Tehran's government" are responsible for supplying the deadly IEDs called Explosively Formed Penetrators to Iraq, the president answered, "We don't know...whether the head leaders of Iran ordered" the shipment of lethal explosive devices to Iraq for use against American troops. Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns also tip-toed tentatively around the question in a 14 Feb 07 appearance at the Brookings Institute, where he, too, declined to charge the Iranian regime with direct responsibility for the presence of these weapons in the hands of Iraqi terrorist militias.

      This kind of misplaced deference to a regime dedicated to the defeat of democracy in Iraq serves only to embolden the aggressive, repressive, and extremist Shi'ite clerics who run Iran today. Let us be very clear about what is really happening: the emergence of a democratic, prosperous, and secure Iraq on its western border poses a direct and unbearable threat to the totalitarian theocratic police state that Iran has become since its 1979 Revolution. While its clerical leadership does not want Iraq to descend into complete chaos, neither is it prepared to permit it to develop peacefully into a modern democracy allied with the United States.

      That is why its policy since the initiation of Operation Iraqi Freedom in March 2003 has been to flood the country with agents from its Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS, otherwise known by its Farsi acronym, VEVAK) and Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC). The task of Iran's VEVAK and IRGC operatives is to infiltrate the Iraqi government at every level and manage the liaison relationship with terrorist militias wreaking havoc across Iraq.

      Iran seeks to export its Islamic Revolution and ideology, known as the Velayat-e Faqih (Rule of the Jurisprudent), to Iraq and other regional neighbors, such as Lebanon. Iran wants to create Islamic regimes ruled by Shari'a (Islamic law) and headed by Shi'ite clergy in as many places as it can; this is the menacing vision that Jordan's King Abdullah referred to as the spreading "Shi'ite crescent". It does not include concepts of democracy, civil society, equal opportunity for all, or rule of man-made law.

      Iran really has a dual objective: the ideological leadership of the radical Islamist movement and regional geo-strategic expansion. To achieve this, it deploys its assets, including the IRGC, irregular Bassij forces, and VEVAK. Each of these is an integral element of the Iranian regime and comes under the direct control of the Supreme Leader, the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The current IRGC commander, Major General Yahya Rahim-Safavi, does not report to Iran's Minister of Defense, but rather to the Supreme Leader.

      The IRGC was formed in the early days of the Iranian Revolution specifically to guard and preserve the Revolution at home and export it abroad; the national armed forces were assigned the defense of the country's borders and sovereignty, but the IRGC was to ensure the survival of the Revolution itself. It was the threat of just such action in Iraq that helped precipitate Saddam Hussein's invasion of Iran in September 1980. The Marine Barracks were blown up in Lebanon in 1983 under the command of IRGC Brigadier General Hussein Moslehi, commander of the Lebanon Brigade. Another IRGC commander, Brigadier General Muhammad-Ja'afar Sahraroudi, was the field commander assigned to the 1989 assassination of Kurdish Democratic Party leader, Abdul-Rahman Qassemlou, in Vienna, Austria. Today, the IRGC is assigned responsibility for both Iran's Shahab missile program and its nuclear weapons program.

      The Qods Force (Jerusalem Force) is an integral unit of the IRGC. Formed in 1990, the secretive Qods force is responsible for commanding, planning, and executing the extra-territorial operations of the IRGC. Its commander and General Staff report directly to the Supreme Leader. In effect, this makes the Qods Force the terrorist wing of the Iranian regime. The Qods Force deploys its terrorist operatives across the world to equip, train, and support terrorist operations and cells in Bosnia, Chechnya, Lebanon, North and South America, Europe, Northern Africa, the Horn of Africa, the Palestinian Territories, Saudi Arabia, and elsewhere. The Qods Force is the unit charged with liaison with Al-Qa'eda; it is under their "supervision" that Usama bin Laden's two sons and military operations chief have enjoyed safe haven inside Iran for the last five years. In addition to its military mission, the Qods force also deploys a political staff charged with export of the Iranian regime's radical ideology to neighboring regions, such as Iraq.

      In Iraq, the IRGC Qods Force has been heavily involved for over three years to build, arm, finance, and train an extensive network of terrorist groups, including both Sunnis and Shi'ites, to ensure the perpetration of vicious sectarian violence and a never-ending situation of instability that will bleed American forces and prevent the emergence of a secure democracy there. The IRGC Qods Force was the principal sponsor of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and continues to provide the same kind of support to Moqtada al-Sadr, the Shi'ite rabble rouser. Brigadier General Abtahi is the Qods Force theatre commander in Iraq and operates from a tactical command center called the Fajr Base, located in southwestern Iran in the city of Ahwaz. Within Iraq itself, the Qods Force base of operations is centered in Najaf. A chain of factories strung out along the Iranian side of the border with Iraq, and under the sole control of the IRGC Qods Force, is the verified source of those deadly IEDs, about which President Bush spoke so carefully; markings on fragments of Explosively Formed Penetrators used against American troops in Iraq identify them irrefutably as of Iranian manufacture.

      When U.S. forces raided Iran's "consulate" in the northern Iraqi city of Irbil in January 2007, one of those detained there was the Qods Force operations chief, Hassan Abasi, who is a ranking strategic advisor to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (himself a former IRGC commander). In early February 2007, it became known that hundreds of Austrian Steyr H550 sniper rifles exported legally to Iran in 2006 have been discovered in the hands of Iraqi terrorists.

      It is time to state clearly to the American people what our military commanders in Iraq have known for years now: the Iranian regime directly deploys its IRGC Qods Force operatives inside Iraq to support terrorist attacks that kill American soldiers. There is no question that they are there-our forces have been capturing, killing, and deporting them back to Iran by the dozens. There is also no question that these forces operate under the direct command and control of the Iranian regime. There is zero possibility that IRGC Qods Force "rogue" elements either exist or operate outside of the strict control of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and the clerical clique that forms the top echelon of the Iranian regime. In this hierarchy, the "democratic" administration of President Ahmadinejad wields only incidental authority and is used primarily as the mouthpiece and public "face" of the regime where real power resides with the unelected clergy.

      We must face facts squarely: the Iranian regime is at war with the United States. Stating the obvious doesn't make it any more or less so, but recognizing and dealing with reality is the only way to defend American national security and the only way to achieve a victory for democratic civilization in Iraq.

      Clare Lopez is the former Executive Director of the Iran Policy Committee who served 20 years as a CIA operations officer. Currently she is a private consultant who speaks and publishes widely on Middle East and WMD issues.
      Source
      In the realm of spirit, seek clarity; in the material world, seek utility.

      Leibniz

      Comment


      • #4
        So, my reading of this is that the Sepah-e Pasdaran has grown from a small cadre to the controller of the majority of Irans military power, intelligence services and enforcement of the Revolutionary Islamic theocracy. Since the last elections where the positions were stacked in favour of the conservatives they now also control the political apparatus. Nominally they are under the control of Ali Khamene'i but are in fact a law unto themselves.
        Xerxes? Comments?
        In the realm of spirit, seek clarity; in the material world, seek utility.

        Leibniz

        Comment


        • #5
          Parihaka, I've only had the time to read pieces of this and will hopefully get the chance to finish up tomorrow. Good work. This should help us understand the internals of Iran a little more.

          Comment


          • #6
            This should help us understand the internals of Iran a little more.
            I always knew they were evil! ;)
            "I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that His justice cannot sleep forever."
            - Thomas Jefferson

            Comment


            • #7
              Exactly, parihaka. I very much agree with your view. The election of A-jad was a political coup d'etat of the Old Guard. I say "Old Guard" refering to the Revolutionary Guards, the Basiji and the Intelligence. They are all veterans of Iran-Iraq War, and that is where they made their bones and wrote their songs. A best example would be the case of Soviet veterans of the Soviet-Afghan War that had their own Band of Brothers.

              The Revolutionary Guards like the rest of the regular military is constitionally under the command of the Supreme Leader from the early days of revolution and still is (de jure power). However, just like the Janisseries that were Sultan's slave army (or the Praetorian Guards for that matter) and that later on became a defacto political entity, so did the Revolutionary Guards. Today, nominally they are Supreme Leader but their alliegence is to their cause, which i havent figured out yet. You might say A-jad then is in control of the Revolutionary Guards, but that is not truth either. It might be ironic to say this, but the power of the Office of the Supreme Leader is actually checking that ambitions of the Revolutionary Guards and of the "Old Guards". A-jad is their representative as president and so is most (if not all) of his ministers, all from the same gang. You asked who control the Guards? ... like I said consitutionally the Supreme Leader does and there is also a IRCG commander who is General Safavi. But the important thing is that, they are a state within state. Though there is no singular de facto leadership, rather there is a non-official closely-knit group of individual that I would refer to them as the Old Guards.

              As far as the image of A-jad being the puppet of the Mullah groomed by the Mullah from the days of Embassy takeover to lead them into martyrdom. That is totally wrong. You see ... Mullah are negociaters. They always negociate. That is part of their character. That is how they are. The "Old Guards" are fanatics. These are two different things. They best way to describe it to a non-Iranian would be to describes Mullah as those Trade Federation guys from the movie star wars. They are businessmen not fanatics no matter what they say. A fanatic will loose at the end, but businessmen will have more success, because they are hypocrats. Hypocrats always win.
              Last edited by xerxes; 26 Mar 07,, 06:24.

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              • #8
                I've met quite a few Iranian vets from the Iran-Iraq War. They were regular army and they have absolutely no love lost for the Revolutionary Guard whom they said is akin to the Red Guards of China.

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                • #9
                  Thanks. The reason I'm stressing my tiny little brain over this is the incidents related to the 15 marines. A-jad cancels what for him was the chance of a lifetime to beard the lion in its own den, and the unconfirmed announcement that the prisoners had been taken to Tehran.
                  A-jad must wish to stay in the loop over what happens to them, and the move to Tehran, the visual seat of power, seems to be statement of who is in charge.
                  Therefore it comes down to who is actually in charge.

                  Blair is on a skewer: his own politics won't allow him to take punitive military measures, using the excuse that it could further endanger the prisoners safety, and if the retired members of Her Majesties Forces are anything to go by, the British military establishment must be fuming.
                  Looks like the poor buggers are going to have an extended stay in hotel Tehran, much like the original Embassy hostages and the two Israeli soldiers.
                  In the realm of spirit, seek clarity; in the material world, seek utility.

                  Leibniz

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                  • #10
                    Originally posted by Parihaka View Post
                    Looks like the poor buggers are going to have an extended stay in hotel Tehran, much like the original Embassy hostages and the two Israeli soldiers.
                    I hope not. Though I think that A-jad was caught off surprise by the events. and decided to stick around as you said. It could be very well a faction within A-jad camp, making sure that he doesnt yield politically, by taking hostages or most likely a revenge attack for the consulate affair that happened sometimes ago.

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                    • #11
                      Originally posted by Parihaka View Post
                      So, my reading of this is that the Sepah-e Pasdaran has grown from a small cadre to the controller of the majority of Irans military power, intelligence services and enforcement of the Revolutionary Islamic theocracy.
                      Gaining control of Iran's schools now too...

                      Teenage Paramilitaries in Iran - IWPR Institute for War & Peace Reporting
                      Basij movement hopes to catch children at early age and train them up for “army of 20 million”.
                      By Ali Reza Eshraghi - Iran
                      IRN Issue 41, 30 Jun 10

                      On a cold February morning, primary-age schoolchildren are lined up for a ceremony in which they will shout “Death to America” and hurl old shoes at effigies of Uncle Sam, the Great Satan.

                      The event, part of annual celebrations of the anniversary of the 1979 Islamic Revolution, is the work of the Student Basij, a subdivision of Iran’s powerful paramilitary movement which is seen as a bulwark of the regime.

                      The Basij force made its name in the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s, as an army of fearless volunteers who acted as auxiliaries to the regular troops, marching across minefields and through concerted Iraqi fire to clear a way through.

                      The movement fielded at least 550,000 under-18s in the course of the eight-year war. Thirty-six thousand were killed or were reported missing in action.

                      More recently, the Basij has acquired a reputation as a domestic security force loyal to the Iranian regime, and was deployed on the streets of Tehran to counter the widespread protests that followed last year’s disputed presidential election.

                      The Basij is the largest organisation in Iran and has a presence in schools, universities, factories, government offices and the private sector. Structurally, it sits under the powerful Islamic Revolution Guards Corps, and its leader is appointed directly by Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

                      The Student Basij has specific responsibility for work in the schools and recruiting younger members.

                      Under a 1996 law, the education ministry is required to supporting the Student Basij’s activity.

                      CATCH THEM YOUNG

                      The Student Basij has a presence in 54,000 of the country’s 150,000 and is expanding fast.

                      One major new development is that its attention has broadened to take in young children as well as adolescents. Since last November, 6,000 “Basij centres” have opened in primary schools across the country.

                      The commander of the Student Basij, Mohammad Saleh Jokar, has said the primary schools are being targeted so as to familiarise youngsters with the “Basij culture, so that they will be fully prepared when they go on to join its ranks in a few years’ time”.

                      Jokar asserts that 4.6 million of the 14 million schoolchildren in Iran have signed up to the Basij, although such figures are hard to corroborate.

                      Children join different groups according to what class they are in – the Omidan or “Hope Resistance” for seven to 11 year olds, the Puyandegan or “Dynamic Resistance” for those aged 11 to 13, and the Pishgaman or “Pioneer Resistance” for older adolescents up to the age of 18.

                      Military prowess with a strong ideological slant is an important part of the Basij’s image, and forms an important part of the training the organisation provides in the schools.

                      Student Basij Day on October 30 commemorates the death of Hossein Fahmideh, a 13-year-old who strapped grenades to himself and threw himself under an Iraqi tank in 1980. At the time, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini said the teenager was Iran’s real leader.

                      Since 1984, the Basij have run military training for middle and high school pupils, aged 11 upwards. Girls as well as boys are taught how to use Kalashnikov rifles.

                      Officially, the Basij recruiting drive in Iranian schools is to help build a 20-million-strong army, an idea conceived by the late Ayatollah Khomeini in the early years of the war with Iraq.

                      Twenty years after the end of the war, Basij and Revolutionay Guards commanders are still carrying out that order. But in reality, the Basij’s raison d’etre has shifted from external to domestic security, nurturing a generation of young people loyal to the regime, devoted to defending it, and equipped with all the skills they need to do so.

                      As the movement’s website puts it, the aim now is “raising and deepening the religious awareness and political understanding” of young Basijis to enable them to steer the country’s schoolchildren as a whole towards the state’s objectives.

                      Supreme Leader Khamenei made the same point in 2008 when he told Student Basij members that “the teenage years play a crucial and decisive part in determining the future of every individual…. It is therefore important to teach and train this segment of society.”

                      POLITICALLY CORRECT ENTERTAINMENT

                      To make recruitment easier, the Basij now offers a lot more than weapons training in the schools. Competitions for science and inventions provide another way of scouting for new talent, and a range of sporting, artistic and cultural competitions are held – all with a strong injection of official ideology.

                      Last November, for example primary schools across the country marked the 1979 takeover of the American embassy in the Iranian revolution by holding drawing competitions. The theme? “Death to America.”

                      Aware of the importance of the internet, and its use by the opposition, the Basij has been busy training its own bloggers. Ten thousand were supposed to have been trained in a programme ending this spring.

                      The movement also held a blog competition, which Student Basij commander Jokar said was intended to encourage “effective use of using cyberspace to promote the values of the Islamic Revolution” and – significantly – to counter “soft threats”.

                      The term “soft threat” was coined by Supreme Leader Khamenei to describe what he saw as corrosive western influences designed to undermine the politics and Islamic culture of Iran.

                      IRGC commander Brigadier-General Mohammad Ali Jafari has made it clear that Khamenei has entrusted the Basij with the task of combating “soft threats” and “confronting those who would strike at the strong relationship between the Supreme Leader and the people”.

                      As part of this virtual war, the Basij has designed its own politically correct computer games.

                      “Devil Den”, launched in July 2009 by the Basij’s then overall commander Hossein Taeb, is based around a scenario where Iranian students on a pilgrimage to Karbala in Iraq are captured by American soldiers. The Americans turn them over to Israel, which plans to perform experiments on them so that they will mutate into Israeli soldiers. An escape attempt results in a pitched battle with Israeli soldiers, which the Iranians win before returning home.

                      Other Student Basij activities involve summer camps mixing recreation with ideological content. The most famous programme, the “Velayat Project”, involves one-week camps in every province of Iran. The purpose, according to Jokar, is once again religious and political awareness-raising, and also “learning strategies to counter soft threats”.

                      The “One Way to Heaven” camp scheme is designed for underprivileged schoolchildren. Last year, 20,000 attended these camps and were taken to visit the holy city of Mashhad.

                      “Rahian-e Nour” or “Seekers of Light” is yet another summer scheme; in this case to take schoolchildren on tours of Iran-Iraq war battlefields in the west and south of the country. This year, there are plans to take half a million children on these trips.

                      TEENAGE DEMONSTRATORS – AND RIOT POLICE TOO?

                      While the Basij undoubtedly had a strong presence on the streets during last year’s anti-government protests, acting as auxiliary security forces, allegations that it deployed minors in this role as well are much more controversial.

                      Isa Saharkhiz, formerly head of the domestic media department at the culture ministry, was a lone voice when he made this claim, and was arrested and jailed in early July 2009, almost immediately after doing so.

                      Saharkhiz claimed that the Basij had been training underprivileged children and orphans in urban counter-insurgency techniques at special camps for a number of years. These youngsters aged 13 to 16 were armed and deployed on the streets as shock troops against the protests, he claimed.

                      Such allegations aside, the main way in which the Basij deploys its youth members is as participants in pro-government demonstrations.

                      When Basiji schoolgirls mounted a nationwide march in May this year to urge the authorities to take action against women who flouted the Islamic dress code, police began arresting young people on the streets for “bad hejab” or immodest behaviour.

                      At the start of the Israeli offensive in Gaza last year, the Basij began a campaign to sign up squads of school-age martyrs to go and fight. A website was even launched to register names of volunteer fighters.

                      As schoolchildren went on marches across the country, one 15-year-old girl spoke for many when she told reporters, “Should it be necessary we will go and fight Israel, so as to defend the Palestinians”.

                      It turned out not to be necessary. The future martyrs were ready to go, but would have needed approval from the Supreme Leader before doing so.

                      Nevertheless, the campaign was a demonstration of the Basij’s capacity to mobilise large numbers of young people to serve the regime, and even die if need be.

                      (Young Basijis in training can be seen in our slideshow Iran's Loyal Defenders Start Young.)

                      Ali Reza Eshraghi is IWPR’s Iran editor.



                      More: Iran's Loyal Defenders Start Young - IWPR Institute for War & Peace Reporting

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