Iran's revolutionary guards--a rogue outfit?(Insight on Iran)(Essay)

There is a tendency in Western capitals to dismiss adversarial Iranian behavior as the work of rogue regime factions, which are not representative of Tehran's true intentions. Following a Baghdad press conference providing evidence of Iranian weapons shipments to Iraq, (1) U.S. officials raised doubts about Iran's actual culpability. The weapons shipments do "not translate to that the Iranian government per se, for sure, is directly involved in doing this," Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, noted the next day. (2) On February 14, 2007, President George W. Bush said, "What we don't know is whether or not the head leaders of Iran ordered the Qods Force to do what they did." (3) Likewise, when the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) seized fifteen British sailors patrolling a waterway between Iran and Iraq, commentators suggested that responsibility may rest more with freelancing commanders than the Iranian government. (4)

Identifying the tree decision-makers in the Islamic Republic is essential not only for accountability but also to ensure that any Western diplomatic outreach is targeted at those who have the power to affect regime behavior. Unfortunately, as U.S. officials again debate negotiations with the Islamic Republic, they simultaneously embrace Iranian reformists and dismiss pariah behavior as the actions of isolated rogue elements. Such an assessment is backwards, though. The IRGC represents the core of the Iranian state, and Ivan's reformists are those who, by acting on their own without either state support or any ability to deliver on promises are, in the Iranian context, the true rogue elements.

A CONVOLUTED POWER STRUCTURE

The Islamic Republic's overlapping and sometimes parallel power structures often confound Iranians, let alone outside observers. Since revolutionary leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini's 1989 death, Western officials have often focused their hopes for engagement and their anger at Iranian behavior on the president. Whether Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani's advocacy of market reforms, Mohammad Khatami's call for a "dialogue of civilizations," or Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's Holocaust denial, the Iranian president frequently makes headlines in the West. Such attention is deceptive. Iranian presidents appoint cabinets but remain subservient to the Council of Guardians and the Expediency Discernment Council. Revolutionary foundations, which together may control more than half the state budget, (5) operate outside the purview of Iran's executive structure. The judiciary is also a power center, able to wield immense influence beyond even the confines of the court system.

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Over all these, however, the "'supreme leader" (rahbar) has ultimate control. Khomeini was the first supreme leader, but upon his death, Ayatollah All Khamenei assumed the role. Article 107 of the Islamic Republic's 1979 constitution defines the responsibilities of the leader: "He is to exercise governance and all the responsibilities arising therefrom." (6) Article 110 makes the supreme leader "supreme commander of the armed forces" with the power to appoint and dismiss the chief of the general staff and the commander in chief of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. In addition, the supreme leader forms the Supreme National Defense Council and appoints the supreme commanders of the army, navy, and air force. He also appoints the heads of the judiciary, the president of state radio and television, the editor of Kayhan daily, executives to oversee editors of nominally independent newspapers, (7) and Friday prayer leaders who act as his de facto representatives on a provincial or town level. Unofficially, myriad vigilante groups also enable the supreme leader and his followers to enforce domestic discipline outside constitutional parameters. (8)

On a day-to-day basis, the supreme leader exerts control through the Office of the Supreme Leader and a system of handpicked representatives who act as his commissars. Very little is known about the internal functioning of this office, but it probably controls at least 2,000 clerical commissars who permeate every bureaucracy and power center inside Iran and, quite possibly, a few Iranian embassies and cultural centers outside the Islamic Republic's borders. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's network of representatives allows him to manage the structure and trajectory of state policy without controlling every lever of power. (9) Should any political or policy problem arise, Khamenei's network warns him long before the news would reach his level through the formal hierarchy of power. Khamenei can, therefore, maintain control through veto.