DOCSLIB.ORG

Prospects for Iran

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Prospects for Iran Legatum Institute Prospects for Iran Jonathan Paris Prospects for IranProspects for Jonathan Paris www.li.com Legatum Institute, 11 Charles Street, Mayfair, London, W1J 5DW, United Kingdom Telephone +44 (0)20 7148 5400, Facsimile +44 (0)20 7148 5401, www.li.com Copyright © 2011 Legatum Limited ISBN 978-1-907409-15-8 January 2011 9 781907 409158 January 2011 Prospects for Iran Jonathan Paris Legatum Institute Copyright © 2011 Legatum Limited All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical including photocopying, recording or any information storage or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the copyright holder. Please direct all enquiries to the publishers. Legatum Institute 11 Charles Street, Mayfair London, W1J 5DW United Kingdom T +44 (0)20 7148 5400 F +44 (0)20 7148 5401 www.li.com [email protected] CONTENTS About the Author 5 Acknowledgements 6 Executive Summary 7 Introduction 12 Chapter 1 Domestic Considerations 13 Chapter 2 The Nuclear File 34 Chapter 3 Regional Snapshots 64 Conclusion 70 3 ABOUT THE autHOR Jonathan S. Paris is a London-based security specialist and Non-resident Senior Fellow with the Atlantic Council of the United States South Asia Center. He is also an Adjunct Fellow at the Legatum Institute and an Associate Fellow with the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation (ICSR) at King’s College London. In 2010, he authored the Legatum Institute’s Prospects for Pakistan Report. Before moving to London in 2001, he was a Middle East Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York from 1995-2000, where he worked on the four MENA Economic Summits and the Middle East peace process, and was deputy to Paul A. Volcker, former Federal Reserve Bank Chairman, at the Council’s Middle East Economic Strategy Group. Jonathan also co-edited the first book on Indonesia’s democratic transition, The Politics of Post-Suharto Indonesia (Brookings/CFR 1999). A Senior Associate Member at St. Antony’s College, Oxford from 2004-2005, he is a graduate of Yale University and Stanford Law School. 5 Acknowledgements I thank Nazenin Ansari, Hemal Shah, Iona Debarge and Yasmine Moezinia for their generous assistance. Karim Sadjadpour was kind to introduce me to Omid Memarian, who contributed extensively to the sections dealing with domestic Iranian considerations. I would like to extend my gratitude to Legatum Institute, to Will Inboden and, especially, to Claudia Mendoza, Research Associate at Legatum Institute, for her wise counsel from the inception of this project. Finally, I am very fortunate to have the support of my wife Carrie, and Tanya and Joey. I dedicate this Report to Sam, who urged me a decade ago to spend more time writing about critical foreign policy issues. For Sam, may you continue to serve faithfully, and come back safely. Jonathan Paris 6 EXECUTIVE Summary Iran is opaque and difficult for outsiders to understand. One of the more thoughtful insights to emerge from the WikiLeaks release of confidential US diplomatic cables in November 2010 comes from Abu Dhabi’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed, whose greatest worry “is not how much we know about Iran, but how much we don’t.”1 What we do know is that the Iran crisis is very important to the international community and that it is in fact two crises: the emergence of civil resistance inside Iran as a result of the disputed election of 12 June 2009, and the pursuit of nuclear weapons by the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI). Domestic Considerations Iran’s domestic crisis was born from a confluence of badly managed state affairs, generating widely shared grievances and culminating in mass protests in the June 2009 presidential election. The protests reflect a political chasm between the regime and its two sources of legitimacy: the Iranian people, who saw their votes dismissed, and the religious establishment, many of whom lost confidence in the supreme leader after he lent his partisan support for President Ahmadinejad in the dispute over the election results and the violent crackdown on demonstrators, mostly young, and dissidents. There have been several protests before, but the political schism in 2009 was different for a number of reasons: First, previously protesting sectors were joined by the educated, professional, urban elite. Second, whereas these earlier instances involved only one sector of society at any given time, in June 2009 various sectors of society came together to denounce the election outcome. Third, the previous protests set civil society against the state. This time, the inner core of the state turned against figures who are or who have been part of the state, including Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani (a former president), Mir Hossein Mousavi (a former prime minister), and Mehdi Karroubi (a former speaker of the majlis, or parliament). These men have support inside the regime, including ministries, parallel organisations and the security apparatus. 1 David Sanger, “Around the World, Distress Over Iran” The New York Times, 28 November 2010 at http://www.nytimes. com/2010/11/29/world/middleeast/29iran.html 7 Legatum Institute Fourth, the presence of international broadcasters in the country and the access of many Iranians to modern telecommunication devices and new media, including the internet, Skype, Paltalk, YouTube and Twitter, altered the information flow to the detriment of the government. The Farsi-language broadcasts of the BBC Persian service, Persian News Network, Radio Farda, Voice of America, in addition to the ubiquitous internet, deprived the state of its monopoly over the means of communication. Two years later and the regime appears to have reconsolidated power and contained the Green Movement, which has been unable to mobilise large demonstrations in Teheran and other Iranian cities since early 2010. The Green Movement itself is fractured and its leadership has turned inward. Meanwhile, quarrels among the regime elite, though serious, are deceptive; whenever regime survival is threatened, the elites seem to unite. The centrist- reformist, Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, has far more to lose if Iran ceases to be an Islamic Republic than if he continues to languish outside the corridors of power wielded by his rivals, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Nonetheless, the growing divisions within the elite have led to the current decision- making paralysis in the IRI. The deepening fissures are multiple: between reformists and conservatives, conservatives and ultra-conservatives, President Ahmadinejad and the parliament, Ahmadinejad and the judiciary, Ahmadinejad and the clerics in Qom, Ahmadinejad and the supreme leader, the supreme leader and the Qom clerics, reformists and the guardian council, the parliament and the guardian council, and more. The Revolutionary Guard, also known as the IRGC, has grown more powerful politically and economically throughout President Ahmadinejad’s tenure since 2005. The IRGC controls the instruments of power, secures the streets and has become the edifice on which the survival of the clerics depends. It is hard to imagine the clerics ruling without the IRGC, but it is possible for the IRGC to survive without the clerics. The one benefit the ayatollahs provide the IRGC is the legitimacy of Iran as an Islamic Republic among other Muslim countries. Otherwise, Iran would simply be another authoritarian regime ruled by a praetorian guard.2 Domestically, the Achilles heels of the regime are its economic mismanagement and human rights violations. Economic stewardship under President Ahmadinejad has been a disaster for all but a few privileged groups, including the IRGC. The anger of the people over the state of affairs wrought by the sanctions and government policies is rising. More and more people question the government’s skewed priorities in which hospitals are left inadequate and jobs non-existent as limited Iranian state revenues go abroad to rebuild southern Lebanon and at home to improve upon North Korean ballistic missiles and assemble a space programme. The other vulnerability of the regime is its human rights violations, particularly since the crackdown following the June 2009 election.3 Stories of rapes of young male and female 2 The author of the concept of the praetorian guard is Samuel P. Huntington, which he explains in his book, Political Order in Changing Societies (1968). 3 Human Rights Activists News Agency documented 38879 cases between in one month alone, between 21 March and 21 April 2010. 37,519 labourers, 537 students, 255 civil society activists re freedom of expression, 34 sentenced to hanging, 259 suffered torture and abuse of prisoners’ rights, 7 were killed in provinces at the borders, and 124 were ethnic minorities, and 68 religious minorities, each suffering arrests and human rights abuse. See full report at http://www.hra-news.org/1389-01-27- 05-27-51/792-000.html 8 Prospects for Iran reformers by their torturers in Teheran prisons have surfaced repeatedly through the efforts of Mir Hussein Mousavi and others in the Green Movement. Other human rights violations take place against minorities, both ethnic and religious, and against women. Many in the Green Movement have been arrested and are languishing in prison. It is hard to predict the next couple of years in Iran since the Green Movement is split between those who want reform and those who want regime change. Disenchanted demonstrators appear unwilling to return to the streets to help Mousavi recreate the earlier pristine Islamic Revolutionary days of 1979. Many of them no longer wish to live under any Islamic regime with the increasingly discredited jurisprudential system of Velayat Faghih (rule of the Jurists) that gives ultimate power to the supreme leader. They want free and fair elections where the people are sovereign. The traditional Shi’a clerics are becoming more vocal in their support for separation of religion and politics and the repeal of the Velayat Faghih.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Tracing the Role of Technology in Iranian Politics: from the Islamic Revolution of 1979 to the Presidential Election of 2009
    IOSR Journal Of Humanities And Social Science (IOSR-JHSS) Volume 21, Issue 4, Ver. 7 (Apr. 2016) PP 06-16 e-ISSN: 2279-0837, p-ISSN: 2279-0845. www.iosrjournals.org Tracing the Role of Technology in Iranian Politics: From the Islamic Revolution of 1979 to the Presidential Election of 2009 Dr. Farid M.S Al-Salim History Program . Department of Humanities . College of Arts and Sciences. Qatar University P.O Box 2713 Doha, Qatar Abstract: This paper will attempt to examine the question: Given the advances in technology, why did the 2009 election protest movement fail to accomplish any of their goals while the participations of the 1979 Revolution were able to succeed in accomplishing their expressed objective? This question will provide a simplified test to a common tenant of those that support the use of technology as a means of bringing about regime change: that advances in communication technology are diffusing power away from governments and toward individual citizens and non-state actors. In order to answer this question this paper will examine the role of technology as an enabling factor in both the 1979 revolution and 2009 election protests. A brief historical context of the 1979 and 2009 conflicts will be provided, followed by a short history about the use of the Internet in Iran and finally the concluding remarks. Shah Muhammad Reza Pahlavi was said to be “The Shah-in-Shah” or the King of Kings.1 The head of the Iranian government, son of Reza Shah and architect of the White Revolution, Shah Muhammad Reza Pahlavi would also be the final ruling monarch of Iran.
    [Show full text]
  • IRAN April 2000
    COUNTRY ASSESSMENT - IRAN April 2000 Country Information and Policy Unit I. SCOPE OF DOCUMENT 1.1 This assessment has been produced by the Country Information & Policy Unit, Immigration & Nationality Directorate, Home Office, from information obtained from a variety of sources. 1.2 The assessment has been prepared for background purposes for those involved in the asylum determination process. The information it contains is not exhaustive, nor is it intended to catalogue all human rights violations. It concentrates on the issues most commonly raised in asylum claims made in the United Kingdom. 1.3 The assessment is sourced throughout. It is intended to be used by caseworkers as a signpost to the source material, which has been made available to them. The vast majority of the source material is readily available in the public domain. 1.4 It is intended to revise the assessment on a 6-monthly basis while the country remains within the top 35 asylum producing countries in the United Kingdom. 1.5 The assessment will be placed on the Internet (http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/ind/cipu1.htm). An electronic copy of the assessment has been made available to the following organisations: Amnesty International UK Immigration Advisory Service Immigration Appellate Authority Immigration Law Practitioners' Association Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants JUSTICE Medical Foundation for the care of Victims of Torture Refugee Council Refugee Legal Centre UN High Commissioner for Refugees CONTENTS I SCOPE OF DOCUMENT 1.1 - 1.6 II GEOGRAPHY 2.1 - 2.2
    [Show full text]
  • IRAN EXECUTIVE SUMMARY the Islamic Republic of Iran
    IRAN EXECUTIVE SUMMARY The Islamic Republic of Iran is a constitutional, theocratic republic in which Shia Muslim clergy and political leaders vetted by the clergy dominate the key power structures. Government legitimacy is based on the twin pillars of popular sovereignty--albeit restricted--and the rule of the supreme leader of the Islamic Revolution. The current supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was chosen by a directly elected body of religious leaders, the Assembly of Experts, in 1989. Khamenei’s writ dominates the legislative, executive, and judicial branches of government. He directly controls the armed forces and indirectly controls internal security forces, the judiciary, and other key institutions. The legislative branch is the popularly elected 290-seat Islamic Consultative Assembly, or Majlis. The unelected 12-member Guardian Council reviews all legislation the Majlis passes to ensure adherence to Islamic and constitutional principles; it also screens presidential and Majlis candidates for eligibility. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was reelected president in June 2009 in a multiparty election that was generally considered neither free nor fair. There were numerous instances in which elements of the security forces acted independently of civilian control. Demonstrations by opposition groups, university students, and others increased during the first few months of the year, inspired in part by events of the Arab Spring. In February hundreds of protesters throughout the country staged rallies to show solidarity with protesters in Tunisia and Egypt. The government responded harshly to protesters and critics, arresting, torturing, and prosecuting them for their dissent. As part of its crackdown, the government increased its oppression of media and the arts, arresting and imprisoning dozens of journalists, bloggers, poets, actors, filmmakers, and artists throughout the year.
    [Show full text]
  • Iran's Gray Zone Strategy
    Iran’s Gray Zone Strategy Cornerstone of its Asymmetric Way of War By Michael Eisenstadt* ince the creation of the Islamic Republic in 1979, Iran has distinguished itself (along with Russia and China) as one of the world’s foremost “gray zone” actors.1 For nearly four decades, however, the United States has struggled to respond effectively to this asymmetric “way of war.” Washington has often Streated Tehran with caution and granted it significant leeway in the conduct of its gray zone activities due to fears that U.S. pushback would lead to “all-out” war—fears that the Islamic Republic actively encourages. Yet, the very purpose of this modus operandi is to enable Iran to pursue its interests and advance its anti-status quo agenda while avoiding escalation that could lead to a wider conflict. Because of the potentially high costs of war—especially in a proliferated world—gray zone conflicts are likely to become increasingly common in the years to come. For this reason, it is more important than ever for the United States to understand the logic underpinning these types of activities, in all their manifestations. Gray Zone, Asymmetric, and Hybrid “Ways of War” in Iran’s Strategy Gray zone warfare, asymmetric warfare, and hybrid warfare are terms that are often used interchangeably, but they refer neither to discrete forms of warfare, nor should they be used interchangeably—as they often (incor- rectly) are. Rather, these terms refer to that aspect of strategy that concerns how states employ ways and means to achieve national security policy ends.2 Means refer to the diplomatic, informational, military, economic, and cyber instruments of national power; ways describe how these means are employed to achieve the ends of strategy.
    [Show full text]
  • Prism Vol. 9, No. 2 Prism About Vol
    2 021 PRISMVOL. 9, NO. 2 | 2021 PRISM VOL. 9, NO. 2 NO. 9, VOL. THE JOURNAL OF COMPLEX OPER ATIONS PRISM ABOUT VOL. 9, NO. 2, 2021 PRISM, the quarterly journal of complex operations published at National Defense University (NDU), aims to illuminate and provoke debate on whole-of-government EDITOR IN CHIEF efforts to conduct reconstruction, stabilization, counterinsurgency, and irregular Mr. Michael Miklaucic warfare operations. Since the inaugural issue of PRISM in 2010, our readership has expanded to include more than 10,000 officials, servicemen and women, and practi- tioners from across the diplomatic, defense, and development communities in more COPYEDITOR than 80 countries. Ms. Andrea L. Connell PRISM is published with support from NDU’s Institute for National Strategic Studies (INSS). In 1984, Secretary of Defense Casper Weinberger established INSS EDITORIAL ASSISTANTS within NDU as a focal point for analysis of critical national security policy and Ms. Taylor Buck defense strategy issues. Today INSS conducts research in support of academic and Ms. Amanda Dawkins leadership programs at NDU; provides strategic support to the Secretary of Defense, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, combatant commands, and armed services; Ms. Alexandra Fabre de la Grange and engages with the broader national and international security communities. Ms. Julia Humphrey COMMUNICATIONS INTERNET PUBLICATIONS PRISM welcomes unsolicited manuscripts from policymakers, practitioners, and EDITOR scholars, particularly those that present emerging thought, best practices, or train- Ms. Joanna E. Seich ing and education innovations. Publication threshold for articles and critiques varies but is largely determined by topical relevance, continuing education for national and DESIGN international security professionals, scholarly standards of argumentation, quality of Mr.
    [Show full text]
  • Iran and Israel's National Security in the Aftermath of 2003 Regime Change in Iraq
    Durham E-Theses IRAN AND ISRAEL'S NATIONAL SECURITY IN THE AFTERMATH OF 2003 REGIME CHANGE IN IRAQ ALOTHAIMIN, IBRAHIM,ABDULRAHMAN,I How to cite: ALOTHAIMIN, IBRAHIM,ABDULRAHMAN,I (2012) IRAN AND ISRAEL'S NATIONAL SECURITY IN THE AFTERMATH OF 2003 REGIME CHANGE IN IRAQ , Durham theses, Durham University. Available at Durham E-Theses Online: http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/4445/ Use policy The full-text may be used and/or reproduced, and given to third parties in any format or medium, without prior permission or charge, for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-prot purposes provided that: • a full bibliographic reference is made to the original source • a link is made to the metadata record in Durham E-Theses • the full-text is not changed in any way The full-text must not be sold in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holders. Please consult the full Durham E-Theses policy for further details. Academic Support Oce, Durham University, University Oce, Old Elvet, Durham DH1 3HP e-mail: [email protected] Tel: +44 0191 334 6107 http://etheses.dur.ac.uk 2 . IRAN AND ISRAEL’S NATIONAL SECURITY IN THE AFTERMATH OF 2003 REGIME CHANGE IN IRAQ BY: IBRAHIM A. ALOTHAIMIN A thesis submitted to Durham University in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy DURHAM UNIVERSITY GOVERNMENT AND INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS March 2012 1 2 Abstract Following the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, Iran has continued to pose a serious security threat to Israel.
    [Show full text]
  • Khomeini's Face Is in the Moon
    Khomeini’s Face is in the Moon Limitations of Sacredness and the Origins of Sovereignty Olmo Gölz Introduction During the course of the year 1978, the person of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini1 became regarded as the leading figure of the Iranian Revolution who “ultimately engineered the downfall of the Pahlavi monarchy”.2 From his exile, first in Iraq and since September 1978 in France, he maintained his grasp on the events in Iran through his local network and developed a distinct charismatic, if not messi- anic appeal – so that the later success of the revolution was closely associated with both the abscondence of the detested Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi in January 1979 and the return of Ayatollah Khomeini to Iran some days later, culminating in the public opinion that the Shah had left by the force of the Ayatollah.3 In his persuasive evaluation of the source and significance of Ayatollah Khomeini’s charisma during the Iranian Revolution of 1977–1979, the political scientist Daniel Brumberg came to the conclusion that the revolutionary leader’s gravity drew on a rather multi-faceted foundation.4 On the one hand, the Ayatol- lah’s example would validate Hannah Arendt’s theory that mass leaders tend to use the notion of infallibility as a propaganda effect and therefore often an- nounce “their political intentions in the form of prophecy”.5 In this regard, cha- risma is explained as the effect of deliberate use of cultural symbols by elites,6 and Brumberg admits that Khomeini grasped this logic, for example, when in 1978 he publicly legitimized out of exile the deviant actions of his followers as the fulfil- ment of a divine prophecy.
    [Show full text]
  • Iran's “Second” Islamic Revolution
    IRAN’S “SECOND” ISLAMIC REVOLUTION: ITS CHALLENGE TO THE WEST Brig.-Gen. (ret.) Dr. Shimon Shapira and Daniel Diker Iranian President Mahmoud The ideological engine powering the Iranian re- via what is known in the West as “Gog and Magog” Ahmadinejad delivers gime’s race for regional supremacy is among the events is driven by his spiritual fealty to the fun- a speech on the 18th more misunderstood – and ignored – aspects of damentalist Ayatollah Mohammad Mesbah Yazdi anniversary of the death Iran’s political and military activity in the Middle and the messianic Hojjatiyeh organization. These of the late revolutionary East. Particularly since the election of Mahmoud religious convictions have propelled the regime founder Ayatollah Khomeini, Ahmadinejad to the presidency in 2005, Iran’s revo- toward an end-of-days scenario that Khomeini had under his portrait, at his 3 mausoleum just outside lutionary leadership has thrust the Islamic Republic sought to avoid. Tehran, Iran, June 3, 2007. into the throes of what has been called a “Second 1 Hard-line Ahmadinejad said Islamic Revolution.” In its basic form, this revolu- Iran’s Second Islamic Revolution is distinguishing the world would witness the tion seeks a return to the principles of former Ira- itself from the original Islamic Revolution in other destruction of Israel soon, nian leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini’s 1979 important ways: Iran is not only spreading its pow- the official Islamic Republic Islamic Revolution, which was based on: destroy- er in the region by reaching out to Shiite communi- News Agency reported. ing Israel – “the Little Satan” – as a symbol of the ties such as in Iraq and Lebanon, the regime is also United States, “the Great Satan;”2 exporting the actively cooperating with Sunni terror groups in an Islamic revolution domestically and against Arab effort to solicit support from the Sunni Arab street “apostate” governments in the region, and forc- over the heads of established Arab governments.
    [Show full text]
  • Introduction Chapter 1
    Notes Introduction 1. Thomas S. Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, 2nd ed. (Chicago: Univer- sity of Chicago Press, 1970). 2. Ralph Pettman, Human Behavior and World Politics: An Introduction to International Relations (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1975); Giandomenico Majone, Evidence, Argument, and Persuasion in the Policy Process (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1989), 275– 76. 3. Bernard Lewis, “The Return of Islam,” Commentary, January 1976; Ofira Seliktar, The Politics of Intelligence and American Wars with Iraq (New York: Palgrave Mac- millan, 2008), 4. 4. Martin Kramer, Ivory Towers on Sand: The Failure of Middle Eastern Studies in Amer- ica (Washington, DC: Washington Institute for Near East Policy, 2000). 5. Bernard Lewis, “The Roots of Muslim Rage,” Atlantic Monthly, September, 1990; Samuel P. Huntington, “The Clash of Civilizations,” Foreign Affairs 72 (1993): 24– 49; Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of the World Order (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1996). Chapter 1 1. Quoted in Joshua Muravchik, The Uncertain Crusade: Jimmy Carter and the Dilemma of Human Rights (Lanham, MD: Hamilton Press, 1986), 11– 12, 114– 15, 133, 138– 39; Hedley Donovan, Roosevelt to Reagan: A Reporter’s Encounter with Nine Presidents (New York: Harper & Row, 1985), 165. 2. Charles D. Ameringer, U.S. Foreign Intelligence: The Secret Side of American History (Lexington, MA: Lexington Books, 1990), 357; Peter Meyer, James Earl Carter: The Man and the Myth (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1978), 18; Michael A. Turner, “Issues in Evaluating U.S. Intelligence,” International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence 5 (1991): 275– 86. 3. Abram Shulsky, Silent Warfare: Understanding the World’s Intelligence (Washington, DC: Brassey’s [US], 1993), 169; Robert M.
    [Show full text]
  • The Intelligence Organization of the IRGC: a Major Iranian Intelligence Apparatus Dr
    רמה כ ז מל ו תשר מה ו ד י ע י ן ( למ מ" ) רמה כרמ כ ז ז מל מה ו י תשר עד מל מה ו ד ו י ד ע י י ע ן י ן ו רטל ( למ ו מ" ר ) כרמ ז מה י עד מל ו ד י ע י ן ו רטל ו ר The Intelligence Organization of the IRGC: A Major Iranian Intelligence Apparatus Dr. Raz Zimmt November 5, 2020 Main Argument The Intelligence Organization of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) has become a major intelligence apparatus of the Islamic Republic, having increased its influence and broadened its authorities. Iran’s intelligence apparatus, similar to other control and governance apparatuses in the Islamic Republic, is characterized by power plays, rivalries and redundancy. The Intelligence Organization of the IRGC, which answers to the supreme leader, operates alongside the Ministry of Intelligence, which was established in 1984 and answers to the president. The redundancy and overlap in the authorities of the Ministry of Intelligence and the IRGC’s Intelligence Organization have created disagreements and competition over prestige between the two bodies. In recent years, senior regime officials and officials within the two organizations have attempted to downplay the extent of disagreements between the organizations, and strove to present to domestic and foreign audience a visage of unity. The IRGC’s Intelligence Organization (ILNA, July 16, 2020) The IRGC’s Intelligence Organization, in its current form, was established in 2009. The Organization’s origin is in the Intelligence Unit of the IRGC, established shortly after the Islamic Revolution (1979).
    [Show full text]
  • Wahied Wahdat-Hagh Iran
    Wahied Wahdat-Hagh Iran: Eine islamistische Diktatur Über Menschenrechtsverletzungen, Anti-Bahaismus, Antisemitismus, Anti-Amerikanismus, über das Raketen- und Atomprogramm und über Terrorismus Eine Dokumentation von Medienanalysen und Übersetzungen aus der persischen Sprache (2008-2011) 2 Inhalt: Einleitung ..................................................................................................................... 3 I. Islamistische Diktatur ............................................................................................... .4 II. Iran und seine Nachbarn ....................................................................................... 84 Iran und seine arabischen Nachbarn ..................................................................... 98 III. Islamistische Wirtschaftspolitik und Öl ................................................................ 134 IV. Das iranische Raketen- und Atomprogramm und Terrorismus .......................... 187 V. Menschenrechte .................................................................................................. 282 VI. Geschlechtsspezifische Apartheid ..................................................................... 423 VII. Antiamerikanismus ............................................................................................ 442 VIII. Antisemitismus ................................................................................................. 470 Bibliografische Information der Deutschen Nationalbibliothek Die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek verzeichnet
    [Show full text]
  • Iran Page 1 of 43
    2010 Human Rights Report: Iran Page 1 of 43 Home » Under Secretary for Democracy and Global Affairs » Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor » Releases » Human Rights Reports » 2010 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices » Near East and North Africa » Iran 2010 Human Rights Report: Iran* BUREAU OF DEMOCRACY, HUMAN RIGHTS, AND LABOR 2010 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices April 8, 2011 The Islamic Republic of Iran, with a population of approximately 77 million, is a constitutional, theocratic republic in which Shia Muslim clergy, and political leaders vetted by the clergy, dominate the key power structures. Government legitimacy is based on the twin pillars of popular sovereignty--albeit restricted--and the rule of the supreme leader of the Islamic Revolution. The current supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was not directly elected but chosen by a directly elected body of religious leaders, the Assembly of Experts, in 1989. Khamenei's writ dominates the legislative, executive, and judicial branches of government. He directly controls the armed forces and indirectly controls internal security forces, the judiciary, and other key institutions. The legislative branch is the popularly elected 290-seat Islamic Consultative Assembly, or Majles. The unelected 12-member Guardian Council reviews all legislation the Majles passes to ensure adherence to Islamic and constitutional principles; it also screens presidential and Majles candidates for eligibility. Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad, a member of the Alliance of Builders political party, was reelected president in June 2009 in a multiparty election that was generally considered neither free nor fair. There were numerous instances in which elements of the security forces acted independently of civilian control.
    [Show full text]