GENEVA CENTRE FOR THE DEMOCRATIC CONTROL OF

ARMED FORCES (DCAF)

CONFERENCE PAPER

IRANS SECURITY SECTOR: AN OVERVIEW

Wilfried Buchta*
Wilfried.Buchta@gmx.de

Paper presented at the Workshop on "Challenges of Security Sector Governance in the

Middle East", held in Geneva 12-13 July 2004, organized by the DCAF Working Group on
Security Sector Governance and Reform in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA)

DCAF Conference Papers

DCAF Conference Papers constitute studies designed to promote reflection and
discussion on civil-military relations and issues of democratic control over defence and
security sector. The publication of these documents is unedited and unreviewed.
The views and opinions expressed are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily
reflect those of the Geneva Centre for the Democratic Control of Armed Forces.
DCAF Conference Papers are not for quotation without permission from the author(s) and
the Geneva Centre for the Democratic Control of Armed Forces.

IRANS SECURITY SECTOR: AN OVERVIEW

Wilfried Buchta1
Introduction
The intention of this paper is to give an overview of the internal structure of the security
sector of the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI), one of the few states in the Islamic world in
which in general the security sector is submitted to the control of the civilian leadership.
This paper will not deal with the issues of WMD, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Irans
open and covert support for militant Islamic groups abroad, the systems fight against
exiled militant opposition groups or Tehrans policy towards Iraq prior to and after the
US invasion, although some aspects of the security sectors tasks are connected to
these issues. Instead the paper will focus on the relationship between civilian
leadership and the influential heads of the different branches of the security sector, a
relationship which is extremely complex and often defies explanation. Therefore it is
vital to offer some explanatory remarks on the overall political structure of the system
and its main features.2
The IRI came into being as the result of the Islamic Revolution of 1978-79, which was
driven by a broad coalition of divergent opposition forces of leftist, national, liberal and
religious orientation. Having succeeded in the overthrow of the Pahlavi-monarchy a
politicised and radical wing, the group of Shiite clerics under the leadership of the
charismatic Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, gradually ousted all competing forces from
the political scene and consolidated its monopoly of power by 1983.3

The

consolidation of its monopoly of power not only allowed the ruling elite to tolerate a
limited degree of political pluralism, including presidential and parliamentary elections
held every four years, but also enabled it to maintain a considerable degree of political
stability.
Regarding the foreign policy of Iran (which still conceives itself to be a self-professed
revolutionary state), in the first decade of the Khomeine era (1979-1989) this was
1

Wilfried Buchta is a Research Fellow at the German Orient Institute in Hamburg

Wilfried Buchta: Who Rules Iran? The Structure of Power in the Islamic Republic (Washington D.C.:
Washington Institute for Near East Policy, 2000), pp. 1-78 (quoted as follows as Buchta: Who Rules
Iran?)
3
See for a concise description of this period Mohsen Milani: Irans Islamic Revolution. From Monarchy to
Islamic republic (Boulder: Westview Press, second edition. 1994), pp. 59-195.
2

mainly driven by revolutionary Islamic dogma. But after the draw in the Iran-Iraq war
which meant the de-facto failure of Irans attempts to export its revolutionary model to
other countries and after Khomeinis death in 1989, revolutionary dogmatism in foreign
policy yielded gradually to the exigencies of the preservation of Irans national
interests. Today, Irans foreign policy with the exception of two, albeit important areas,
its relationship with the USA and Israel, is mainly dominated by pragmatic national
interests and not by ideological dogma. Under the presidency of Rafsanjani (19891997) and even more under Khatami (since 1997) Iran took several steps to moderate
its confrontational foreign policy. Among these initiatives were the establishment of a
critical dialogue with the EU, later after the Mykonos-trial in Berlin this transformed
into a constructive dialogue, aimed at normalizing relations; active engagement with
neighbouring states to discuss and solve the crises in Armenia, Afghanistan and
Tajikistan and a general bringing-together (rapprochement) with the Arab Gulf States
which made considerable progress since President Khatami convened the OIC
Conference in Tehran in December 1997.
A multi-centred power structure and constant factional infighting
The Islamic Republics power structures are multi-centred and often opaque but they
are key to understanding the position and role of the security sector in it. One of its
three main features is the contradictions between theocratic and democratic elements
that are enshrined in the new Iranian Constitution of 1979. These contradictions are
personified by the co-existence of a popularly elected President and a religiously
appointed Supreme Leader, also called ruling jurisprudent (vali-ye faqih). This
dualism between these two pinnacles of power is linked to the second feature, namely
the existence of parallel structures throughout the government, where the authority of
regular political and military institutions that are grounded in the Constitution are
circumscribed by revolutionary Islamic organizations which both operate inside and
outside the framework of the government and Constitution. The tensions resulting from
these dual structures are often compounded by the third feature, namely the
permanent struggle for power between several rivalling ideological factions of its
power-elite. This power-elite can roughly be divided into a socio-political conservative
camp on one side and an Islamic left-wing reformist camp on the other side, whereby
each camp consists of a broad spectrum of factions.4 The leaders of both camps make
up the civilian leadership whereby at present the decisive powers lie in the hands of

See Buchta: Who Rules Iran?, pp. 11-21.

conservatives. It is worth mentioning that among the civilian leadership it is not the
President but the Supreme leader who is the focal point of loyalty for the leaders of the
security sectors different components.
The Supreme Leader
The Iranian Constitution firmly establishes the authority and rights of the the vali-ye
faqih or Supreme leader, who is elected by a clerical body, the Assembly of Experts for
his life-time. The Constitution gives him the responsibility to act as the Commander-inChief of all the armed forces, to declare war or peace and mobilize the armed forces, to
appoint and dismiss the clerical jurists in the Council of Guardians, a kind of
parliamentary upper-house which vets legislation for its compatibility with Islamic law
and the Constitution and vets candidates for elected office. In addition, the Supreme
Leader is authorized to appoint the Head of the Judiciary, the Head of State Radio and
Television, the Supreme commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, IRGC
(sepah-e pasdaran), the Supreme Commander of the Regular Military and the joint
staff of the armed forces.5.
The formal office through which Khomeinis successor, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, wields
his power is the Office of the Supreme Leader (daftar-e maqam-e moazzam-e rahbari),
which arranges his meetings, appearances, and visits, and keeps him up to date on
political developments in Iran. The Office of the Supreme Leader employs special
advisors upon whom Khamenei can call regarding questions relating to fields such as
culture, economics, military affairs, and the media.6 In addition, Khamenei has
personally appointed or approved clerical representatives (nemayandeha) in all
important state ministries and institutions, as well as in most revolutionary and religious
organizations. These clerical commissars form an extended, nationwide network
designed to enforcing the authority of the Supreme Leader and to extend his influence
into the executive branch, armed forces, security services, and revolutionary and
religious organizations.
The current Supreme Leader is Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was elected into this
office by the Assembly of Experts following Khomeini`s death on 3 June 1989.
Irrespective of his overwhelming constitutional competences, the current Supreme

5
6

See The Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran, 2nd edition (Tehran: Islamic Propagation
Organization, 1990), p. 71.
Buchta: Who Rules Iran?, p. 47.

Leader is not as powerful as Imam Khomeini was, which can partly be attributed to the
fact that he lacks his predecessors unique personal charisma. But more important than
this is the fact that he also has a theological Achilles heel because his religious
qualifications are not officially recognized by the most high-ranking theological
authorities in Shiite Islam. In addition, contrary to Khomeini, who did not owe his rise to
the position of the revolutions guide to anybody and whose position of power therefore
was unassailable, Khamenei owes his election to a number of powerful individuals in
the conservative camp.7 They have lent him support (and still continue to do) in his
endeavours to solidify his base of power but in return are strong enough to wield
considerable influence on Supreme Leader whose extent, however, is difficult to
fathom.
The President
In comparison to the Supreme Leader, the President, who is elected for a four year
term with just one additional extension possible, is only the second most powerful
official in Iran. The President` s competences focus primarily on the social, cultural, and
economic policies of the countrynot foreign policy, despite his nominal chairmanship
of the National Security Council. Owing to constitutional shackles, the power of the
President is circumscribed. In the Iranian system, the entire executive branch is
subordinate to a religious authority the Supreme Leaderand is, at least
theoretically, the executive organ for his directives; according to the Constitution, only
the Supreme Leader possesses competence in all general political issues. As a
consequence of this, the President does not have control over the armed forces, the
security services and the police forces.8
Since 1997, the President has been the liberal cleric and outspoken reformer
Mohammad Khatami, whose predecessor in the Presidents office Akbar Hashemi
Rafsanjani (1989-1997) now heads the powerful Expediency Council. According to the
Constitution, this body has two main tasks. The first one is to break stalemates
between the Parliament and the Council of Guardians and to advise the Supreme
Leader. If the Supreme Leader is unable to resolve a state problem through traditional
means, he may only act after consulting the Expediency Council a body that is
empowered to override both the constitution and its underpinnings of sharia law, if it is
7

From an interview by the author with Dr. Ebrahim Yazdi, in 1979 Minister of Foreign Affairs in Irans
provisional revolutionary government, 28. 4. 2004, Tehran.
8
Mohsen Milani: The Evolution of the Iranian Presidency: From Bani Sadr to Rafsanjani, in: British Journal
of Middle Eastern Studies (Exeter), Vol. 20 (1993)1, S. 82-98.

deemed such steps are necessary to preserve the interests of the Islamic state. This
Council currently consists of thirty-seven members from among the different ideological
currents in the leadership elite, who are appointed by the Supreme Leader.9 Since
assuming office, Mohammad Khatami advocated the protection of law and the
enforcement of constitutional rights and thereby initiated a reform process aimed at
reforming the system from within.
The Budget
The budget of the security sector, which was estimated at USD 5 billion in 2001,10 is
determined by the Parliament. As for the amount of the budget allocated for national
defence, security affairs and the expenditures of the Supreme Leaders office, a
complete lack of transparency prevails. The parliament as the institution which ratifies
annually the overall budget and forwards it to the Council of Guardians for final
approval does not mention the figures of these secret budgets which are only
discussed in special parliamentary committees, whose members irrespective of their
political affiliation and mutual conflicts observe the binding rule of secrecy in these
matters. Every single institution or organisation belonging to the sectors of security and
defence reports its annual needs to the planning and budget organisation which is part
of the presidential executive. The budget organisation in turn, after having checked the
exactness of the needs and compared them with expenditures of the last preceding
years, determines the amounts.11

1. The military forces and security apparatus in Iran

Composition of the security forces and their division of labour
The Islamic Republic has at its disposal an entire array of military forces and
revolutionary security forces besides a number of parastatal organizations, called
bonyad (foundations). Among the most important defence and security forces are the
regular army (artesh), the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (or IRGC), and the
Mobilization Army, or Basij militia and the Law Enforcement Forces, (LEF).
Technically, the revolutionary reconstruction organization, the Ministry of Construction
Jihad, is also part of the security forces, because in emergencies it is also in a position
9

Buchta: Who Rules Iran?, p. 61.

Daniel Byman, et al: Iran`s Security Policy in the Post-Revolutionary Era, Santa Monica RAND
2001, p. 31 (quoted as follows as Byman et al: Irans Security Policy)
11
From an interview by the author with an anonymous source of the exiled Iranian opposition, Hamburg 25
April, 2004.
10

to apply coercive means to implement Islamic order in rural areas.12 Besides these
officially recognized forces in Iran we also find various gangs of men known as the
Helpers of God (ansar-e hezbollah), who act as vigilantes aligned with extreme
conservative members of the power-elite. These vigilant groups attack and intimidate
critics and dissidents and usually go unpunished because of the bias of the judiciary
dominated by conservatives.13
In general every single organisation pursues a primary mission. But in several fields the
limits of competences and the overlapping of tasks give rise to mutual competition and
sometimes even a lack of unity of command. During and after the Iran-Iraq war,
division of labour emerged between the most important components of the defence and
security sector. This division of labour which has never actually formulated as the
systems official policy can be described as follows: The regular army retains its
primary responsibility for the defence of Irans borders. In contrast to this, the IRGC
keeps its major role as the defender of the system and its representatives against
internal enemies while it continues simultaneously to have an albeit secondary mission
of assisting the army to fend off external threats.14 In addition, the IRGC has some
other responsibilities too. One of them is safeguarding internal security in the border
areas, especially by waging the war against illegal drugs (in conjunction with the Law
Enforcement Forces) coming from Afghanistan and Pakistan. Another one is the
deployment of relief forces for natural disasters like floods and earthquakes. Still
another task is the active assistance of supporters of Tehrans Islamic revolution
abroad which sometimes goes hand in hand with the proactive fight against exiled
militant opponents of the regime. Regarding the Basij, its major responsibility is to
uphold security in major urban areas.
The regular military (artesh)
The regular military took shape in the 1920s when the first King of the Pahlavi dynasty
ascended to the throne and founded the new army on the model of European armies.
The army grew in size considerably after the 1953 American-organized coup d`tat
against the government of Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddeq, following the arrival
of great numbers of US-military advisors. Prior to the revolution of 1979, more than

12

See Asghar Schirazi: The Islamic Development Policy: The Agrarian Question in Iran (Boulder,
Colorado.: Lynne Reiner, 1993), pp. 147163.
13
See Michael Rubin: Into the Shadows: Radical Vigilantes in Khatamis Iran
14
Michael Eisenstadt: Iranian Military Power. Capabilities and Intentions, (Washington: Washington
Institute for Near East Policy, 1998), p. 40.

20000 American military advisors, equipped with extra-territorial rights and thereby
impunity from prosecution under Iranian law, were working for the Shahs army.15 The
air force and the navy, in particular, were equipped with very advanced and costly USweaponry at that time. The army and the SAVAK, the notorious secret service of the
Shah, which was established with the assistance of the American CIA and the Israeli
Mossad,16 were the two main pillars of power of the Pahlavi monarchy.
Due to the lack of decisiveness of the Shah to order the full-scale bloody repression of
the non-violent demonstrations of the opposition in 1978, the army was essentially
paralyzed during the revolution. After Khomeini ascended to power, the formal
structure of the army, although it had been built up and indoctrinated by the Shah,
remained almost intact. But while most of its generals were dismissed, the regime
carried out succeeding purges in the ranks of its officers. Up to 1986, an estimated
17000 officers, representing 45% of the entire officer corps, fell a prey to these
purges.17 The younger and low-ranking officers took over the command of the army,
and those with a background of religious and revolutionary militancy were appointed to
strategic posts. In addition to that, the regime created the Politico-Ideological Bureau
(PIB) with branches in all sections of the army. The Bureaus offices are supervised by
clerical figures and they have the task ensuring that the military conforms with the
Islamic ideology as well as carrying out the Islamic indoctrination of the officers corps.18
These Bureaus control the conduct of officers in co-operation with the CounterIntelligence Unit, otherwise known as the Second Bureau of the Army.19
The history of relations between the regular army and the IRGC is characterized by
mutual suspicion and rivalry. As the clerical leadership of 1979 mistrusted the army as
a potential counter-revolutionary force and therefore created the IRGC and the Basij as
the main pillars of armed support for the new revolutionary system, it placed the regular
military at a disadvantage in relation to the IRGC. It took more than fifteen years of
steady Islamisation and indoctrination until the top politicians gradually overcame their
mistrust of the army, which nowadays is not regarded a serious threat to the ideological
system. To the contrary, having exposed to numerous purges in its officer corps, the
regular military as a professional army remains loyal to the current political leadership
15

James Bill: The Eagle and the Lion. The Tragedy of American-Iranian Relations, New Haven: Yale
University Press, 1988, pp. 155-157.
16
See Abbas W. Samii: The Role of SAVAK in the 1978-79 Iranian Revolution, PhD Thesis University of
Cambridge, February 1994, pp. 50-53.
17
Nicola Schahgaldian: The Iranian Military under the Islamic Republic, Santa Monica RAND 1987, p. 26
18
Sepehr Zabih: The Iranian Military in Revolution and War, (London: Routledge, 1988), 137-163.
19
Yearbook Iran 89-90 (Bonn: MRB Publishing Co. LTD, 1989), p. 6.

and appears neither ready nor willing to intervene in the internal power struggles of the
clergy.
The Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC)
The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, or IRGC, was created in May 1979, by a
decree from Ayatollah Khomeini. As is stated in Article 150 of the 1979 constitution, its
primary function is to protect the revolution and its achievements. Thus, the IRGC
initially represented a versatile tool for Khomeini and his supporters in their struggle
against their former revolutionary alliesgroups such as the IslamicMarxist
Mojahedin-e Khalq (MEK) which had begun in 1979 to build up their own autonomous,
armed units. Likewise, the IRGC served as a counterweight to the regular military,
which initially was still dominated by monarchists, and whose loyalty to the
revolutionary regime was doubtful. The IRGC has at its disposal numerous special
units, including its own intelligence service (the Bureau of Security and Intelligence or
BSI). According to expert estimates, the IRGC consists of about 120000 armed men, a
lower figure than in previous years, divided into twelve to fifteen divisions deployed in
eleven security regions in Iran.20
In the beginning, the IRGC was mainly made up of poorly trained, irregular mass
infantry forces that specialized in human waves attacks during the Iran-Iraq war. In
1985in the middle of the war with Iraqthe IRGC developed its own naval and air
combat forces in addition to its own ground troops.21 During and after the war the IRGC
underwent a permanent process of professionalization, which meanwhile put at least
some of its units on the same footing as the regular army in terms of fighting power. It
should be noted that since the 1980s, the IRGC was put in charge of Iran`s missile
forces and non-conventional programmes which still controls nowadays.22
In September 1997, shortly after assuming the presidency, Khatami tried to weaken the
IRGC by successfully exerting pressure on Supreme Leader Khamenei to dismiss
Mohsen Rezai, the Commander of the IRGC since 1981 and a hard-line conservative.
Rezai, during the presidential elections had been a vocal supporter of Khatamis

20

See Cordesman, Threats and Non-Threats from Iran, in: Iran and the Gulf : A Search for Stability,
edited by Jamal al-Suwaidi, Abu Dhabi: ECSSR, p. 232.
21
See Katzman, The Warriors of Islam, op. cit., p. 89.
22
Michael Eisenstadt: Iranian Military Power. Capabilities and Intentions, (Washington: Washington
Institute for Near East Policy, 1998), p. 40.

competitor and thereby violated the IRGCs neutrality obligation.23 Although Khatami
was successful, the change in IRGC leadership did not result in structural changes
within the IRGC since the new Commander appointed by Khamenei, Yahya Rahim
Safavi, continued the policies of his predecessor. In July 1999, at the height of the
student protests it became obvious that the IRGC perceived the reform movement of
Khatami as deadly threat to the systems stability. At that time, in an open letter to
Khatami, twenty-four commanders of the ground, sea, and air forces of the IRGC
alluded their determination to stage a military coup in case he should does not comply
with their wish to support the violent quelling of the protests.24 Faced with this threat of
a military coup, Khatami distanced himself from the students, a move which cost him
much credibility among his most eager followers.25
The Army and the IRGC compared
Today the regular military, which has about 400000 men on active duty, and the IRGC,
which has about 120000 men, each possesses ground, air, and naval forces.
Compared in terms of magnitude and armament, the army is not only a much larger
and better equipped organization than the IRGC, but the armys ground formations are
much bigger and heavier armed than their counter-parts in the IRGC.26 Moreover, the
best equipment is in general allocated to the army. Notwithstanding its smaller size, the
IRGC is a more powerful institution in Iran due to its role as the guardian of the
revolution and due to the fact that many senior IRGC officers have close personal and
family ties to top politicians in Irans clerical power elite.27 Besides that, the IRGC
wields

considerable

influence

on

the

ideological

indoctrination,

professional

development and advancement of future senior officers of the regular army. One of the
means of the IRGCs influence is the regular armys formal subordination to the
Ministry of Defence whose current Head, Admiral Ali Shamkhani, an IRGC officer, is
affiliated to the hard-line faction of the conservative camp of Irans power elite.
Shamkhani in an act of disloyalty ran for the presidency in 2001 against his own Chief
of Cabinet, President Khatami.

23

For the background of Rezais removal see Buchta: Who Rules Iran?, p. 124f.
For the text and analysis of the letter see Navid Kermani: The Fear of the Guardians. 24 Army
Officers Write a Letter to President Khatami, in Rainer Brunner et al The Twelve Shia in Modern Times,
Leiden Brill 2001, pp. 354 364.
25
See al-Hayat, July 21, 1999, p. 1.
26
Michael Eisenstadt: *The Armed Forces of the Islamic Republic of Iran> Assessment*, in: MERIA, Vol. 5,
No. 1, March 2001, P. 7.
27
Daniel Byman, et al: Irans Security Policy in the Post-Revolutionary Era, Santa Monica RAND 2001, p.
26.
24

In theory, there is a coordinating body between the IRGC and the army, namely the
Joint Armed Forces General Staff, which was created in 1988 after some battle-field
set-backs in the war with Iraq resulting from mutual rivalry and lack of coordination
between the two forces. This organ brought together the leading officers of the two
armed forces and was keen on ensuring a unity of command. However, this situation
altered in the aftermath of the war, Imam Khomeini`s death and the assumption of
office of a new Supreme Leader, Khamenei, whose base of power in the first years was
not absolutely secure. In his search for loyal supporters, Khamenei tried to win over the
IRGC and approved the reestablishment of a separate IRGC Headquarters. By this
measure, which devaluated all previous efforts of the regimes leadership to create a
unity of command, the IRGC retained its autonomy in terms of internal command
structure.28 This autonomy goes back to its inception in 1979 when the IRCG obtained
the right to have a Supreme Commander, a post which was filled for the majority of its
existence by Mohsen Rezai (1981-1997). In contrast to this, until 1998 the regular
military never had a Supreme Commander. Since April 1995, the highest-ranking
regular military officer had been under the command of Hasan Firuzabadi, the Head of
the General Staff of the Combined Armed Forces, a physician and former IRGC
officer.29 And although the Supreme Commander of the IRGC was theoretically
subordinate, in truth he functioned independently of Firuzabadis command. At the
height of a political crisis with the Afghan Taliban militia, when the threat of an outbreak
of a war was imminent and the regime needed the more professionalized army,
Supreme Leader Khamenei appointed General Ali Shahbazi in October 1998 as the
Supreme Commander of the regular military. This put Shahbazi at least formally on an
equal footing with the IRGC Commander, Yahya Rahim Safavi, the successor of
Mohsen Rezai. It further meant a de facto strengthening of the fighting power of the
regular military, whose three separate combat arms were now joined under one unified
command.30 However, according to reliable sources of the opposition only one of its
three separate combat arms, namely the ground forces, really enjoys independence
from the IRGC, while the air force and the navy are put under the command of former
IRGC officers.31

28

Michael Eisenstadt: The Armed Forces of the Islamic Republic of Iran> Assessment, in: MERIA, Vol. 5,
No. 1, March 2001.
29
David Menashri, Revolution at a Crossroads: Irans Domestic Politics and Regional Ambitions
(Washington: The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, 1997), p. 37.
30
See Buchta: Who Rules Iran?, pp. 146-148.
31
From an interview of the author with an anonymous source of the exiled Iranian opposition, Hamburg 25.
4. 2004.

10

The Law Enforcement Forces (LEF)

The LEF, a kind of revolutionary police, came into being in 1990 as the result of a
merger of three formerly separately organized forces with internal administrative
autonomy, e.g. the city police, the gendarmerie (country-side police) and the
revolutionary committees. While the two aforementioned forces were founded by the
Shah and were therefore subject to permanent suspicion of lack of allegiance towards
the new order, the later force was an offspring of the revolution and responsible for
pursuing drug-dealers, oppositionists and anti-Islamic lawbreakers. According to wellinformed Iranian sources, the merger proved a failure in-so-far as the desired
objectives of achieving a greater degree of effectiveness in the up-keeping of law and
order and the protection of the citizens by building up a new de-politicised force were
not achieved. To the contrary, within the newly established LEF, the regular Shahtrained police forces were sidelined and all influential positions in the LEF were
assigned to former committees-members.32 After Khatami became President, a number
of high-ranking LEF commanders turned out to have been involved in acts of violation
of the law, for example by carrying out physical attacks on close aides of Khatami in
1998. The LEF play a crucial role in the maintenance of internal security. This became
obvious when it quelled the student protests in Teheran in July 1999. However,
although the LEF are formally subordinate to the Ministry of the Interior, the Head of
the LEF, General Qalibaf, is directly appointed by the Supreme Leader who in turn
appoints the higher echelons of its officers, who are all hard-line conservatives.
Consequently, the present Minister of the Interior, the reformist, Abdalvahed MusaviLari, openly confessed in a December 1999 press conference that he does not wield
control over the LEF, since their officers dont obey his orders.33 Although exact official
figures are not available, it is generally assumed that the number of personnel of the
LEF today amounts at about 100000 to 120000 men.
The Basij Militia
The Basij militia is the most powerful paramilitary organization in Iran next to the
Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRCG). It was founded by a decree of Ayatollah
Ruhollah Khomeini on 26 November 1979, in which he ordered the establishment of an
Army of Twenty Million to protect the Islamic Republic against U.S. intervention from

32
33

International Crisis Group: Iran: The Struggle for the Revolutions Soul, 5 August, 2002, p. 8.
Wilfried Buchta: Who Rules Iran?, p. 143.

11

without and enemies from within.34 The Basij recruits youthful volunteers, most of
whom are between the ages of 11 and 17 and come from rural regions or the poorer
quarters of cities. Ideologically motivated and deeply religious, most Basijis possess
only a limited education. During the IranIraq War, after military crash courses by the
Revolutionary Guards and ideological indoctrination by clerical commissars, these
Basijis, threw themselves into mine fields in human waves in the hope of achieving
martyrdom. Formally, the Basij is under the command of the IRGC. Due to the value of
the unabated revolutionary zeal of the Basij, the Iranian Government often employs the
Basij in conjunction with special IRGC units in cases that require the merciless
suppression of unrest among the civilian population in urban areas.
This happened for instance in cases when the leadership of regular army and the IRGC
refuses to use violence against massive uprisings of local populations such as in the
social unrests of Qazvin in October 1994 and Islamshahr in January 1995. According
to U.S. estimates, the Basij currently comprises approximately 90.000 armed men.35
Besides this hardcore of trained armed fighters the Basij-Militia has about 200000 to
300000 unofficial collaborators and informers at their disposal who mostly work in rural
areas of the large cities and are affiliated to the local Mosque network of the ruling
clergy, which are both responsible for distributing subsidised food and other items and
for monitoring the population of these areas. The current Head of the Basij is Ali-Reza
Afshari, a member of the IRGC command council, who holds the rank of General.
Given the close relationship of IRGC and Basij on the level of leadership it can be
assumed that in times of exigency, be it nationwide social unrest or be it the outbreak
of violent intra-elite conflicts, the Basij will probably act as an extended arm of the
IRGC.
The Ministry of Information and Security (MOIS)
The MOIS is the successor of the SAVAK, which was dissolved in February 1979 after
the Shah regimes downfall.36 Following the SAVAK`s dissolution, some of its tasks
with regard to counter-espionage and disclosure of conspiracies were assumed by a
number of diverse and often antagonistic Islamic revolutionary organizations, above all
by the IRGC`s intelligence unit. But due to the lack of professionalism of these
organizations and a lack of coordination between them, the results of their work was
34

For information on the origins of the Basij, see Nikola Schahgaldian, The Iranian Military Under the
Islamic Republic, (Santa Monica, Calif.: RAND, 1987), pp. 87100.
See Anthony Cordesman, Threats and Non-Threats from Iran, in Jamal al-Suwaidi, ed., Iran and the
Gulf: A Search for Stability (Abu Dhabi: Emirates Center for Strategic Studies and Research, 1996), p.
232.
36
Abbas W. Samii: The SAVAK, xx. 1994, Cambridge, pp.
35

12

often insufficient and this caused the regimes leadership to approve the establishment
the MOIS, which at present is the largest, but not the only intelligence agency of Iran.
Since its inception in 1984, based on a foundation law passed by the parliament in
1983,37 the MOIS has emerged as one of the most influential and powerful entities in
Iran. With its fifteen departments and 30000 employees, it is believed to belong among
the largest intelligence services in the Middle East.38 According to the foundation law of
the MOIS, passed by the Iranian Parliament in 1983, the MOIS is responsible for the
coordination of intelligence operations among all the information agencies (LEF, IRGC,
the Second Bureau of the regular army, Basij) on the one hand and the Ministry of the
Interior and the General Prosecutor on the other hand. Article 10 of that law describes
the main tasks and functions of the MOIS as follows: (a) gathering, procurement,
analysis and classification of necessary information inside and outside the country and
(b) disclosure of conspiracies and activities pertaining to coup dtats, espionage,
sabotage, and the incitement of popular unrest, which would endanger the security of
the country and the system.39 The same law stipulates that the allocated financial
means of the MOIS are exempt from the public law of accountability. Also, the law does
not lay down any system of checks and balances that would require the MOIS to be
supervised by the judiciary or any other state organ. A separate special law stipulates
that the Head of the MOIS must be a high-ranking cleric. By stipulating that only a
cleric can be at the helm of this key Ministry, the regime obviously intended to further
strengthen its grip on power.40
The top theological cadres from the MOIS all come from a single theological school, in
Qom, the Madrase-ye Haqqani, which is led by prominent clergies who belong to the
hard-line faction of the conservative camp.41 From its inception in 1984 until 1989 the
MOIS was run by Mohammad Mohammadi Raishahri, under whom it gained a
formidable reputation of being a highly efficient apparatus that exercised repression in
a strictly selective and controlled manner. According to well-informed insiders, the
MOIS changed its character after President Rafsanjani dismissed Raishahri in
September 1989 and replaced him by his deputy Ali Fallahiyan. Fallahiyan is believed
to have turned the MOIS into an overtly repressive apparatus exercising terror and
37

On the MOIS foundation law and its by-laws see Wilfried Buchta: Who Rules Iran?, op. cit. p. 164-165
and p. 174.
38
Al-Mujaz an Iran, (London), No. 68. (May 1997), p. 20.
39
See Qanun-e ta`ssis-e vezarat-e ettela`at-e jomhuri-ye eslami (Foundation Law of the Islamic
Republic`s Ministry of Information) in: Majmu`e-ye qavanin-e avvalin doure-ye qanungozari-ye majles-e
shura-ye eslami 1359-1363 (Compilation of Laws from the First Legislative Period of Lawmaking of
Parliament 1980-1984) (Tehran: Eadare-ye Koll-e qavanin, March 1984), pp. 517-520.
40
Buchta: Who rules Iran?, p. 166.
41
Buchta: Who rules Iran?, p. 166.

13

intimidation at a much larger scale than before and expanding its autonomy to such a
degree that it -at least partly- escaped the full control of the regimes senior decisionmakers.42 During Fallahiyans era as Minister (1989-1997), the MOIS reportedly killed
about 80 dissidents inside Iran in addition to an unknown number of opposition figures
abroad. Moreover, under Fallahiyan the MOIS has reportedly been deeply entangled in
illegal economic and commercial transactions.43 One of the most adamant critics of the
MOIS is Ayatollah Hosein-Ali Montazeri who as Supreme Leader was Khomeinis
designated successor between 1985 to 1989 and was suddenly dismissed in March
1989 by a letter ascribed to Khomeini, but whose authenticity is doubtful. When under
house-arrest (from 1997 to 2003), he published his political memoirs in which he wrote
that during the last years of Khomeini and in the era of Fallahiyan, the MOIS had
turned into a terrifying and impenetrable organization over which no outsider wielded
full control or was informed of what was really going on in it. Montazeri contends that
the MOIS, in addition to the unlimited budget allocated to it by the state, had
augmented his financial resources by diverse activities in trade and commerce. For
Montazeri the MOIS had become an independent state in state which no organ of the
state was powerful enough to call it to account.44
That Fallahiyan even after his ousting from the MOIS was able to continue these
activities was indirectly confirmed in January 2002 by a public speech of parliament
speaker Mehdi Karrubi on economic corruption, in which -without mentioning the MOIS
by name but conspicuously alluding to it he pointed to a parliamentary record of
numerous places of shipments on Irans border. According to him certain persons use
these places, which are not subject to any supervision of authorities belonging to
parliament, the customs, or the ministries of economy, finance, and trade, in order to
import and export goods in great quantities to unknown destinations.45
Since the inauguration of President Khatami in August 1997, the MOIS has undergone
remarkable transformations beginning with Khatamis dismissal of its Head, Ali
Fallahiyan, as Khatami no longer wanted to include him in his list of cabinet members.
Ever since the ruling in the Mykonos terrorism trial in Berlin on 10 April 1997, there
had been a German warrant out for his arrest,46 a fact that had begun to put a strain on
42

Rafsanjani reportedly tolerated Fallahiyans murderous acts in order to neutralize the opposition of
conservative hardliners against his moderation in foreign and economic policy. Interview by the author
with a confidential source, 25 February, 2002, Tehran
43
Ash-Sharq al-Awsat (London), 8 June 2001, p. 3.
44
Khaterat- e Ayatollah Montazeri, 2000, p. 599f.
45
See Hayat-e Nou (Tehran), no. 507, 31 January 2002, p. 2.
46
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, April 10, 1997, p. 1.

14

Tehrans relations with Bonn and thus also with the remainder of the European Union.
Yet, Khatami replaced Fallahiyan with Hojjatoleslam Qorbanali Dorri Najafabadi, a
conservative follower of Supreme Leader Khamenei. Najafabadis appointment
demonstrated that despite his overwhelming victory in the election of 1997, Khatami felt
compelled to make a substantial compromise to his opponents in this sensitive
ministry. Moreover, Khatami also left the defence portfolio in the hands of the
conservatives. Its new leader, Ali Shamkhani, was formerly Commander of the Naval
Forces of the sepah-e pasdaran (Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, or IRGC).
Nonetheless, despite Fallahiyans dismissal the new Head, Dorri Najafabadi, could not
hold sufficient authority within the Ministrys bureaucratic apparatus, since in most
cases they were still controlled by loyal confidents of Fallahiyan.
In November 1998, the reformist press reported the enigmatic serial murders of four
political Iranian dissidents in Teheran, an announcement which raised enormous
attention inside and outside Iran.

Following the serial murders, President Khatami

appointed a tripartite investigating committee whose work and findings incriminated the
MOIS and elicited a tough behind the scenes tug-of-war between the Heads of the
conservative and the reformist camps. As a result, on 5 January 1999, the MOIS was
forced on to admit in a public statement, that a number of irredentist members of the
Ministry, who held deviating opinions and who acted independently had committed the
crimes and that the MOIS had handed them over to the law. Having been exposed to
mounting criticism, Dorri Najafabadi was forced to resign in early February 1999 and
was replaced by Ali Yunesi, who, until that time had been Irans Supreme military judge
and member of the tripartite investigating committee.47 Upon taking office, Yunesi
announced that reforms within the Intelligence Ministry were inevitable, and he swore
loyalty to the policies of the government and the President. Despite having the
reputation of being inclined to the conservative camp, Yunesi kept his word. By purging
the Ministry of most of Fallahiyan`s collaborators he managed to depoliticise the MOIS
and to make it a useful law-abiding instrument of regular government policy. This farreaching cleaning of the MOIS can be regarded as one of the few genuine
achievements of the reformist presidency of Khatami which came out of his conflicts
with the conservative power structure. That said, its positive effect was at least partly
offset by the emergence of new parallel intelligence organisations outside the MOIS. A
number of prominent reformists in the Iranian Parliament, among them the then deputy
Speaker of Parliament and the President`s brother, Mohammad-Reza Khatami, pointed
47

Al-Mujaz an Iran, no. 90 (March 1999), p. 20; see also al-Sharq, al-Awsat, February 11, 1999, p. 1

15

out this phenomenon in the Autumn of 2003. They announced that most of the persons
who had been purged from the MOIS after the serial murders of November 1998, had
joined these new autonomous intelligence agencies which have expanded their
activities over the course of time. According to them, one of these parallel
organizations had three times the personnel that the MOIS has throughout the
country.48
Decision-Making in security affairs and the Supreme National Security Council
According to the Constitution, the structure of Iran`s decision-making is a coherent,
with a President who is responsible for day-to day political management, who controls
the budget planning (by means of his organisation for planning and budget) and so, at
least theoretically, is responsible for incorporating military priorities into comprehensive
strategies. In addition, the President chairs the Supreme National Security Council
(SNSC), the most important assessment body, which formally coordinates decisions
affecting national security. The SNSC membership is comprised of the Head of the
executive, the legislative, the judiciary, the Chief of the Supreme Council of the Armed
Forces, the officer in charge of the planning and budget organization, the Ministers of
Foreign Affairs, the Interior and Information (MOIS), a minister working with the subject
Supreme Commanders of the army, and of the IRGC, the Minister of Defence, and two
representatives of the Supreme Leader, who discuss, calculate and define responses
to menaces of National security.49 The Secretary-General of the SNSC and
representative of the Supreme Leader is Hasan Ruhani. The other representative of
the Supreme Leader is his Advisor on Foreign Policy, former Foreign Minster (from
1981 to 1997) Ali-Akbar Velayati. The decisions of the SNSC shall be effective after the
confirmation of the Supreme Leader.50 By means of his representatives and loyal
supporters in the SNSC, the Supreme Leader and not the President is the dominating
factor in this body.
Although the SNSC with its coherent structure seems to be the main formal forum for
decision-making it would be misleading to conceive that it would be the only forum or
channel by which security institutions exercise their influence. The existence of multiple

48

Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty: Iran Report, 15 September 2003, Vol. 6, No. 37, p. 4ff, Radio Free
Europe/Radio Liberty: Iran Report, Vol. 6, No. 42, 20 October 2003, p. 8ff.
Daniel Byman, et al: Iran`s Security Policy in the Post-Revolutionary Era, Santa Monica RAND 2001, p.
24.
50
The Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran, 2nd edition (Tehran: Islamic Propagation Organization,
1990), p. 100.
49

16

centres of power combined with the existence of informal rules known only to insiders
which enable certain security institutions to exercise their influence, account for the
opaqueness of decision-making processes in this field. But this seemingly chaotic
structure of decision-making is to a large extent offset by a cultural and procedural
emphasis on consensus within Irans power-elite, whose members despite their often
fierce mutual rivalries only very seldom go so far to eliminate particular competitors by
force but try to preserve some solidarity.51 Driven by the fear that their mutual conflicts
escalate to a point of no return, the systems survival might be at stake, they prefer
instead to compromise, which in turn stabilizes the system.
As a general rule, it can be said that informal networks and mechanisms for influencing
decision-making are as important or sometimes even more important than the formal
system of decision-making. That means that leaders of security organisations not only
use official forums and avenues for influencing decision-makers, like their participation
in the SNSC, advisory meetings with the Supreme Leader and the President, their
recommendations for the Parliaments committees for security and foreign affairs.
Besides that, they have at their disposal other means for gaining access to important
members of Irans power-elite with whom they often have strong common
denominators by virtue of common family and religious ties. This fact implies that
informal personal networks are strong while many institutions in Iran are relatively
weak.52
As a consequence of the existence of multiple centres of power and the importance of
informal patterns of exercising influence, the decision-making process is in a constant
back-and-forth process due to the permanent renegotiating of contentious issues. An
example for this is the internal dispute over a rapprochement towards the USA. Since
single influential group or members of the power-elite can refuse their support, thereby
preventing major changes in particular fields of policy even if it has the backing of the
majority of the power-elite. Moreover, they can even sometimes implement measures
which seemingly contradict the official foreign policy of the government and thereby
create the impression that Irans foreign policy is inconsistent and uneven. One good
example is the Salman Rushide fatwa. While the government refrains from
implementing Imam Khomeinis decree by sending death squads abroad, a
revolutionary foundation close to the Supreme Leader, the 15th of Khordad, regularly
51

One of these rare examples is the elimination of Mehdi Hashemi and his group in 1986. See for this
Wilfried Buchta: Mehdi Hashemi, in Encyclopaedia Iranica, forthcoming.
52
Daniel Byman, et al: Iran`s Security Policy in the Post-Revolutionary Era, RAND 2001, pp. 24-27.

17

states the validity of the fatwa in public, calls upon believers to execute those found to
not be following has been said in the fatwa. However, since safeguarding the systems
survival takes precedence over anything else which requires the preservation of
consensus among the power-elite on the most crucial issues, few actors risk to carry
out important operations autonomously without the tacit endorsement of the senior
leadership, especially that of Supreme Leader Khamenei.53
Although the details of the decision-making process of Iran are unknown to outsiders it
is generally assumed, that the leader of the security sectors components comply with
the civilian leaderships wishes due to their relative lack of military autonomy, although
they champion their own agendas as much as they can. Moreover, Heads of the
various sections of the security sector keep to the agreed-upon objectives of the civilian
leadership, whose two top objectives are to safeguard the systems survival while at
the same time remaining loyal to the Islamic revolutionary ideology. However, in
practise real politics and national interests nearly always take precedence over Islamic
ideology and this accounts for Tehrans prudent foreign policy aimed at preserving the
territorial status quo of Iran and its geographic neighbours and avoiding major military
confrontations with any state which would be costly and deeply unpopular in Iran.54 It
can be assumed that the Heads of the Iranian security forces, especially the regular
army, advocate restraint in times of crisis, a pattern of behaviour which can be
attributed to the fact, that in those times, for example during the tensions with the
Taliban Regime in Afghanistan in the Summer of 1998, the security forces preferred
shows of force to active confrontation. The only exceptions to this increasing
moderation in Irans foreign policy are the policies towards the USA and Israel, which a
considerable part of the Iranian leadership still deem Irans arch-enemies. The political
ban on any step towards the resumption of diplomatic ties to both countries remain one
of the strongest remnants of the revolutionary ideology and the greatest obstacle for
Irans full integration in the international community.

2. Civil management and control of the security apparatus

Constitutional and legal framework

53
54

Daniel Byman, et al: Iran`s Security Policy in the Post-Revolutionary Era, RAND 2001, p. 2.
Ibid, p. 2.

18

Irans Constitution and laws only provide relatively broad instructions and rules for the
control of the security apparatuses, which to a certain degree have often retained some
autonomy in matters of internal management. However, in general there is no
immediate threat that these organizations might evade civilian control and become fully
independent of the main political protagonists. The new ambitious role for which the
IRGC strive for recently and which will be dealt with later on is an exception to this rule.
Due to the neutralization of the army as a potential dangerous counter-force and due to
the loyalty of the IRGC leadership to the safeguarding of the systems survival including
its theocratic ideology, which is the raison d`tre of the IRGC, the civilian ruler reign
uncontested. Regarding the parliamentary oversight of the security apparatuses it is a
matter of fact that the parliament does not wield any noticeable influence over them.
During the era of Khatami, in an unprecedented move the reformist parliament
established several times investigation committees to examine special issues related to
illegal acts committed by members of the security apparatuses. Despite the fact that
the committees work did not lead to any convictions of putative culprits by the biased
conservative judiciary, their establishment may be regarded as a first successful
attempt of enforcing its authority over the security apparatuses and making them more
accountable to the legislative power. The same is true with regard to the harsh critique,
which the reformist press in the era of Khatami often levelled against illegal acts of
members of the security apparatuses and which heightened the Iranian peoples
awareness of their own rights. However, whether these activities of the parliament and
the reformist press have in fact established a lasting and permanent tradition of
enforcing greater accountability on the security sector, which will survive the era of
Khatami is rather doubtful. For the reformers have not only lost in the parliamentary
elections of February 2004 their second most important stronghold, the parliament but
the reformist press has been silenced to a large extent because the judiciary has
closed down since April 2000. More than 80 of the most critical newspapers had put
hundreds of courageous journalists and publishers on trial. In addition, Khatami`s
presidency will reach its end in August 2005, and it can in all likelihood be ruled out that
the conservative power-establishment will allow a promising reform minded candidate
to run again for the presidential elections.

3. Challenges to the Security Sector

Iran is situated in an instable and diverse geo-strategic environment. It is surrounded
by a number of neighbouring states like Pakistan, Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Azerbaijan,
19

and Armenia, which are threatened by internal instability due to low-level conflicts
between ethnic or religious groups, lawlessness and internal turmoil, which may have
dangerous destabilizing spill-over effects for Iran, be it in the shape of refugees, drugtrafficking or other forms. With approximately 2 Million refugees from Iraq and
Afghanistan, Iran already plays host to some of the greatest numbers of refugees
world-wide. Moreover, after the USA succeeded in 2001 and 2003 in the military
overthrow of the Taliban Regime in Kabul and the Baath-regime in Baghdad, Iran is
confronted in Afghanistan and Iraq with the presence of a considerable number of
troops of the USA. Iran as a self-professed revolutionary state is since 1979 entangled
in a mutual hostility with the USA which the Iranian leadership depicts as its ideological
arch-enemy. Nevertheless, although all these mentioned issues pose sources of
considerable concern for the Iranian leadership, Tehran doesnt conceive them to be
an existential menace for the systems survival.55
Instead most Iranian top politicians think that domestic threats are more serious than
the external ones. Doubtlessly, the Iranian system faces a number of internal threats
which have to do with its domestic social, economical and political problems which the
security sector cannot solve by means of force. One of them is the drug problem, which
is interwoven with the chronic economic crisis. Iran is suffering from a nationwide
growth in drug addiction.

This, in turn, has led to an overload of court cases,

overcrowded prisons and an overwhelmed health system, as well as increasing

incidence of HIV/AIDS. Today, with about 2.5 million drug addicts, Iran has one of the
highest numbers of heroin and opium addicts in the world. Another attendant harm has
been the increased amounts of opiates transiting Iran from Afghanistan to markets in
Europe, the Middle East and beyond. As a result, Iran suffers significant casualties
among its security personnel and soldiers deployed along its borders with Afghanistan
and Pakistan due to violent clashes with heavily armed smugglers.
The growing drug addiction among Irans youth is an indicator of the widespread
political and social dissatisfaction of great layers of society and their desire for change,
which the reform government of Khatami tried to address more seriously than any
previous government. Although the reform process is today virtually dead, the drivers
which brought about Khatami`s victory in the ballot box in 1997 are still in place. The
first important factor which had driven the reform movement is the decline in the
revolutionary passion that swept Iran in the early 1980s and drove the anti-Shah
55

Shahram Chubin: Whither Iran? Reform, Domestic Politics and National Security, IISS Adelphi Paper
342, New York, 2002, p. 43f.

20

revolution. Although most Iranians still appear to embrace the essential achievements
of the 1979 revolution, revolutionary passions to dim among much of the population.
After Ayatollah Khomeinis death in June 1989, Irans sense of revolutionary fervour
began to yield to a spirit of pragmatism, symbolised by the accession of Hashemi
Rafsanjani to the presidency in July 1989 and even more by the elective victory of
Khatami in 1997.
Demographics are the second major factor driving the continued impetus for change in
Iran. A general sense of disappointment with the Islamic Government has become
quite common among the large generation of Iranians who were born in the 1970s and
1980s and have recently become eligible to vote. Irans younger population appears
quite eager for economic and political liberalisation, and less amenable to propaganda
than previous generations. With a voting age of 16 and about 60 per cent of the
electorate under 30, Irans youth constitute a formidable force and the driving engine
behind much of the reform movement.
Since 1997, Khatami`s government has focussed on four primary sets of issues, the
first and foremost of which has been the economy. Iranians expect economic reforms
that will provide jobs, curb inflation and improve living standards. Second is the issue of
the strict socio-cultural restrictions that govern the lives of many Iranians, most notably
in terms of womens Islamic dress codes, gender relations and access to Western
culture and media. The third focus for many reformers has been the hope that relations
with the West, including the United States, can be improved, in order both to ameliorate
the current economic situation and to reinvigorate contacts between Iranians and their
relatives abroad. Finally, reformers have pushed for political liberalisation, including
greater public accountability and broader political pluralism.56 All in all these driving
factors for change among the population constitute a potential for social unrest and
political instability which heighten the sense of vigilance of the leaders of the security
sectors components.
Indicators for a new political ambition of the IRGC
In retrospect to the political events which occurred since the beginning of the reform
movement in 1997 one can discern indications for a new ambition of the IRGC
unknown hitherto aimed at playing an independent role in Irans political life. This
56

International Crisis Group Middle East Report No. 5: Iran: The Struggle for the Revolutions` Soul, 5
August, 2002, p. 2f.

21

phenomenon is obviously linked to the increased demands of an ever growing younger

populations for reforms of the political system which the IRGC leadership conceives as
deadly threat to the systems survival, whose protection is the raison d tre of the
IRGC. During Khomeini`s lifetime, he has repeatedly forbidden the IRGC from
becoming involved as partisans in the power struggle between Irans ideological
currents in public statements and written declarations. This ban on political activities
was valid in general for all armed forces since the regimes inception. As a matter of
fact, a great part of the conservative establishment of power has in the course of the
last few years become even more reliant on the IRGC perceiving them as the last
resort which enables them both to stem the growing tide of domestic discontent and to
protect the national security interests against new external threats manifested in the
military presence of US troops in two neighbouring countries, Iraq and Afghanistan.
The IRCG in turn is believed to have come to the conclusion that the survival of the
regime is at stake because the Iranian civilian leadership elite including the Supreme
Leader has grown too weak to deal with the diverse domestic and external challenges
of national security properly. Based on their self-image as the last saviours of the
system, the IRGC leadership reportedly decided to transform the IRGC into one of the
major independent protagonists in the political arena.57
Prior to the recent parliamentary elections in February, when the outcome was a
landslide victory of the conservatives whose candidates won more than two thirds of
the 290 seats, the IRGC encouraged its personnel to run for parliament.58 Indeed, the
newly established conservative faction, the so called Abad-garan-Group, fielded a
great number of former IRGC commanders and founders of the Basij as their
candidates for the first time in the Islamic Republics history. This raised the
anxiousness of many Iranians who regarded it an indication for the IRGC plan to
intervene more assertively in politics in future.59 According to one Iranian reformist
newspaper the new parliament is believed to be comprised of about 90 persons having
been affiliated before to the IRGC or other revolutionary organisations.60 By the
powerful presence of numerous former IRGC commanders in parliament this lobby
may be able to intimidate critics inside and outside the legislative. Moreover, in May
2004 another former IRGC Commander, Ezatollah Zarghami, was appointed by the
57

Interview by the author with a well informed anonymous Iranian source from the ranks of the exiled
opposition, Hamburg 15 June 2004.
58
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty: Iran Report, 20 October 2003, Vol. 6, No. 3, p. 5.
59
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty: Iran Report, March 1, 2004, Vol. 7, No. 9, p. 5f
60
The Economist, June 17, 2004.

22

Supreme Leader to the key post of the Head of the national television and radio.61 It
should not go unnoticed as well, that with the help of the conservatives who had won
the communal elections in February 2003 a former IRGC Commander, Mahmud
Ahmadi-Nejad, has become Tehrans mayor, thereby occupying the important post of
the administrative chief of Irans capital with 10 million inhabitants.62 Quite apart from
its growing political influence, the IRGC also is believed to have been involved since
the 1990s in an array of financial and economic enterprises aimed at establishing itself
as an economic force which is at least partly independent of the state coffers. The last
reformist parliament, which several times raised the issue of about 72 illegal jetties at
Irans border controlled by the IRGC proved to be powerless to stop the smuggling of
goods into the country carried out by these jetties. It is estimated that about USD 9.5
billion worth of goods are smuggled into Iran by these jetties on an annual basis.63
What further enhanced the domestic prestige of the IRGC is the fact that they manage
Irans nuclear programme, which is under intense international scrutiny because of its
arms-making potential. At the same time, the nuclear programme is a source of
considerable national pride among the regimes supporters and many of its ardent
critics alike.64
While one can argue that the new forceful advancement of former IRG commanders
into prominent second rank positions of the political arena is just an ephemeral and
accidental phenomenon, some observers and Iranian exiled oppositional figures give a
different explanation. To them it is an indicator for the IRGC leaderships new ambition
to follow the path of their military counter-parts in Turkey and Pakistan. In both states,
the military does not confine itself to being an instrument for the defence of national
borders but plays a high-profile political role and often determines what the respective
nations` security interests are.65 But given the lack of reliable data from Iran it is still too
early to give a final judgement as to whether the IRGC really intends to implement a
militarization of Iranian politics or not. In any case, this new development deserves to
be regularly analysed.

61

Eurasia Insight: Iran`s Revolutionary Guards Making a Bid For Increased Power, 20 May, 2004.
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty: Iran Report
63
The Economist, June 17, 2004.
64
Eurasia Insight, May 20, 2004.
65
Eurasia Insight, May 20, 2004
62

23

Conclusion
Iran is a far cry from achieving the democratic control of its armed security forces. The
reason for this is quite simple. The democratic transformation of the theocratic system,
which many Iranians had aspired to at the beginning of Khatami`s reform movement in
1997, did not achieve any substantial progress and has in fact come to a standstill
today. The current constitutional distribution of powers favours the conservative camp
of the power-elite, whose members in turn are determined to preserve the status quo
by all means and are only willing to allow minor cosmetic changes. Given the
stagnation of the reform process, whose most prominent and active protagonists are
either silenced, imprisoned or exiled, the prospects for an evolutionary democratic
transformation of the system in the mid-term are bleak.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Short biography of the author

Dr. Wilfried Buchta has worked as a research fellow at the German Orient Institut in
Hamburg/Germany since 2004. Prior to this, from 1998-2001 he was the representative
of the Konrad-Adenauer Foundation in Rabat/Morocco and from 2001-2002 he held the
position of the International Crisis Group

Middle East Project Director in

Amman/Jordan. In 1997, Friedrich-Wilhelms University in Bonn awarded him a

doctorate in Islamic Studies for his dissertation entitled Die iranische Schia und die
islamische Einheit 1979-1996 [ The Iranian Shia and Islamic Unity 1979-1996],
published in 1997 at the German Orient Institut in Hamburg. Since 1992, Dr. Buchta
has conducted extensive field research in Iran. Since that time he has authored
numerous works on the Shia and Iran, including Who Rules Iran? The Structure of
Power in the Islamic Republic (Washington D.C.: Washington Institute for Near East
Policy, 2000), which was translated into Arabic by the ECSS in Abu Dhabi in 2003.

24

Established in 2000 on the initiative of the Swiss government, the Geneva

Centre for the Democratic Control of Armed Forces (DCAF) encourages and
supports States and non-State governed institutions in their efforts to strengthen
democratic and civilian control of armed and security forces, and promotes
international cooperation within this field, initially targeting Euro-Atlantic regions.
The Centre collects information, undertakes research and engages in
networking activities in order to identify problems, to establish lessons learned
and to propose the best practices in the field of democratic control of armed
forces and civil-military relations. The Centre provides its expertise and support
to all interested parties, in particular governments, parliaments, military
authorities, international organisations, non-governmental organisations,
academic circles.
Geneva Centre for the Democratic Control of Armed Forces (DCAF):
rue de Chantepoulet 11, P.O. Box 1360, CH-1211 Geneva 1, Switzerland
Tel:++41 22 741 77 00; Fax: ++41 22 741 77 05
E-mail: info@dcaf.ch
Website: http://www.dcaf.ch