An Iranian PLA?
Several times while I was reading the first article below about the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, I was reminded of the PLA before Deng Xiaoping "tamed" it.Kevin James pointed out the second article in his blog, "AHS Comparative Governemnt." It's "The blogsite of Albany High School's AP Comparative Government and Politics course."
Hard-Line Force Extends Grip Over a Splintered Iran
As Iran’s political elite and clerical establishment splinter over the election crisis, the nation’s most powerful economic, social and political institution — the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps — has emerged as a driving force behind efforts to crush a still-defiant opposition movement.
From its origin 30 years ago as an ideologically driven militia force serving Islamic revolutionary leaders, the corps has grown to assume an increasingly assertive role in virtually every aspect of Iranian society.
And its aggressive drive to silence dissenting views has led many political analysts to describe the events surrounding the June 12 presidential election as a military coup...
The corps has become a vast military-based conglomerate, with control of Iran’s missile batteries, oversight of its nuclear program and a multibillion-dollar business empire reaching into nearly every sector of the economy. It runs laser eye-surgery clinics, manufactures cars, builds roads and bridges, develops gas and oil fields and controls black-market smuggling, experts say...
Since 2005, when he took office, companies affiliated with the Revolutionary Guards have been awarded more than 750 government contracts in construction and oil and gas projects, Iranian press reports document. And all of its finances stay off the budget, free from any state oversight or need to provide an accounting to Parliament...
The corps is not large. It has as many as 130,000 members and runs five armed branches that are independent from the much bigger national military. It commands its own ground force, navy, air force and intelligence service...
The corps’s two best-known subsidiaries are the secretive Quds Force, which has carried out operations in other countries, including the training and arming of the Hezbollah militia in Lebanon; and the Basij militia. The Basiji, who experts say were incorporated under the corps’s leadership only two years ago, now include millions of volunteer vigilantes used to crack down on election protests and dissidents.
Members of the Revolutionary Guards and their families receive privileged status at every level, which benefits them in university admissions and in the distribution of subsidized commodities, experts said...
What is less quantifiable is the corps’s black-market smuggling activity, which has helped feed the nation’s appetite for products banned by sanctions, while also enriching the corps. [A] Rand Corporation report quoted one member of Iran’s Parliament who estimated that the Revolutionary Guards might do as much as $12 billion in black-market business annually...
Thirty-six army officers arrested in Iran over protest plan
The Iranian army has arrested 36 officers who planned to attend last week's Friday prayer sermon by former president Hashemi Rafsanjani in their military uniforms as an act of political defiance, according to Farsi-language websites.
The officers intended the gesture to show solidarity with the demonstrations against last month's presidential election result...
While the army is considered to be secondary in importance to the revolutionary guards in the regime's military hierarchy, it is still under the command of Khamenei, who yesterday appointed a cleric, Hojatoleslam Mohammad Ali Al-e Hashem, as the new head of its political ideology section...
See also:
- Layers of Armed Forces Wielding Power of Law
- Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps
- Tehran: a coup by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps?
- Iran's Revolutionary Guard acknowledges taking a bigger role in nation's security
- The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps
- Pasdaran - Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRCG)
Labels: Iran, leadership, military, regime
posted by Ken Wedding @ 7:02 AM
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