The Revolutionary Guards' role in Iranian politics.(Insight on Iran)

Almost three decades after the Islamic Republic's founding, former Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) commanders are infiltrating the political, economic, and cultural life of Iran. Half the members of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's cabinet are former IRGC officers, (1) and he has appointed several IRGC officers to provincial governorships. The IRGC's rise has been deliberate. Facing both external opposition to Tehran's pursuit of an indigenous nuclear enrichment capability and internal pressures for political and economic reforms, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei considers the IRGC officer corps more apt at crisis management than the bureaucratic teams of either former president Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani (1989-97) or Mohammad Khatami (1997-2005). IRGC chief General Mohammad Ali Ja'fari's announcement of internal restructuring to prepare the IRGC to counter "internal threats to the Islamic Republic" (2) reflects the organization's expanding role. The Council of Guardians, which screens candidates before elections, privileged IRGC veterans, who won the bulk of seats in the March 2008 parliamentary elections. Whereas there has always been tension within the Islamic Republic's elite concerning whether the Revolutionary Guards' political or military role should be dominant, recent shifts suggest the debate is concluding as the IRGC cements a commanding influence over political decision-making.

LEGAL FRAMEWORK

Within the Islamic Republic, the debate over the IRGC's political role is essentially a legal question. On December 4, 1979, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini formally created the IRGC by decree although it had existed in some form for several months before. (3) The statute of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps provided the earliest legal framework for the organization's operations. According to Payame Enghelab, the IRGC's official organ, the statute was prepared by "some brothers from the Guards" and ratified by the Council of the Revolution, (4) the de facto highest governing body, in the months after Khomeini returned to Iran. (5)

The Islamic Republic had ratified its first constitution the day before, on December 3, 1979. Article 150 declared,

 
   The Islamic Revolution Guards Corps ... is 
   to be maintained so that it may continue in its 
   role of guarding the revolution and its achievements. 
   The scope of the duties of this corps and 
   its areas of responsibility, 
   in relation to the 
   duties and areas of responsibility 
   of the other armed forces, are 
   to be determined by 
   law with emphasis on 
   brotherly cooperation 
   and harmony among 
   them. (6) 

A strict reading of Article 150 shows that the Guards' intervention in politics is not constitutionally mandated, yet at the same time such behavior is not legally prohibited. Nowhere does the constitution define the "enemies" against which the IRGC is obliged to guard the revolution. It is even unclear whether the IRGC's primary role will be defense against external threats, in which case it should act as an army, or internal threats, in which it might act as a police force.

Again, the Guards provided their own guidance on these issues. On March 19, 1980, "Obligations of the Guards" appeared in Payam-e Enghelab. (7) In it, the IRGC stated that