Ahmadinejad's religious and political context & the Nuclear issue

The first article is an interesting analysis of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad dating from 2005; placing his figure in an ideological and political context which the second article, dating from March 2010, explores further (NB: Do bear in mind that 'Threats Watch' publishes articles on the topic of US National Security threats):

Understanding Ahmadinejad

By Steve Schippert | Threats Watch | November 28, 2005

On one hand, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s rhetoric is aggressive, frightening and violent. Yet, on the other, his direct manner presents openly the true intentions of the Iranian regime, even though it appears that some of his own aggressive designs stretch beyond that of even Ayatollah Khameini and the Guardian Council, ‘peaceful civilian nuclear power’ development notwithstanding.

Ahmadinejad is a true ‘1979 revolutionary radical’ who is in many ways in opposition to the mullahs of the Guardian Council, which hand-selected and approved his own presidential candidacy, as he believes they have lost touch with their revolutionary roots. He is opposed by the Mejlis (Iranian parliament) while he openly awaits the return of the 12th Imam.

It is the latter, the radical religious aspect, that makes Ahmadinejad potentially dangerously unpredictable in an international conflict/crisis management scenario.

After his election, Ahmadinejad met in Tehran with Hassan Nassrallah, the leader of Iranian-supported Hizballah. Ahmadinejad praised Hizballah as a "symbol of pure thought of Islam". In what seemed to be a signal of their coming increased active operational importance, he went on to say of Hizballah:

"Success, victories and progress of this popular and faithful force in political, cultural, social and military domains of Lebanon are results of purity and reliance on God's will which should be preserved and institutionalized as the main factor in the fight against enemies of Islam."

It is said that, as mayor of Tehran, he had city plans drawn up for the return of the 12th Imam. At his address to the United Nations General Assembly in October, he indeed ended his speech with a prayer imploring God to hasten the return of the 12th Imam for the good of humanity.

“From the beginning of time, humanity has longed for the day when justice, peace, equality and compassion envelop the world. All of us can contribute to the establishment of such a world. When that day comes, the ultimate promise of all Divine religions will be fulfilled with the emergence of a perfect human being [12th Imam] who is heir to all prophets and pious men. He will lead the world to justice and absolute peace. O mighty Lord, I pray to you to hasten the emergence of your last repository, the promised one, that perfect and pure human being, the one that will fill this world with justice and peace.”

For foreign policy and national security analysts, discerning the potential impact of his fundamentalist beliefs is crucial. From the information available, it points to a troubling predicament of a purist fundamentalism potentially even more radical and dangerous than that of al-Qaeda, which seeks to establish a global Islamist Caliphate. Ahmadinejad appears to go one step further than the Sunni al-Qaeda and possibly seek to usher in the ‘second coming’ of the hidden 12th Imam, the Mahdi.

"Our revolution's main mission is to pave the way for the reappearance of the 12th Imam, the Mahdi," Ahmadinejad said in the speech to Friday Prayers leaders from across the country.

It is important to be able to discern the degree to which he was either speaking in the general sense or in a more specific, concrete purpose, for to assume the former and be wrong could prove to be a fatal misjudgment.

Adding fuel to the ideological fire, Ahmadinejad’s statements at the Tehran al-Quds Day conference, “A World Without Zionism”, caused a worldwide commotion when he openly spoke of the need to ‘wipe Israel off the map’, which he went on to say was ‘very attainable’ and ‘very soon.’

“I do not doubt that the new wave which has begun in our dear Palestine and which today we are also witnessing in the Islamic world is a wave of morality which has spread all over the Islamic world. Very soon, this stain of disgrace [i.e. Israel ] will vanish from the center of the Islamic world – and this is attainable.”

Remember that, at the heart of the ‘wave of morality’ is Hezbollah, which he referred to as a "symbol of pure thought of Islam". The backdrop image for the conference was an hourglass, with the US broken at the bottom and a ball with the Star of David (Israel) falling through quickly behind.

Iran’s government is run in a two-column structure. On one side, there is the Supreme Leader (Ayatollah Khamenei) and the Guardian Council, a collection of mullahs in place to ensure that the government (and all things in Iranian life) adheres to the religious beliefs of the revolution. On the other side of the structure, the Mejlis is the Iranian Parliament. While the parliamentary members are elected by the Iranian public, the candidates they have to choose from are strictly screened and controlled by the Guardian Council (read: democratic reformists need not apply). The Iranian Presidency sits essentially between these two bodies as chief executor of their dictates.

Ayatollah Khameini and the mullahs of the Guardian Council seem to unexpectedly have a tiger by the tail. The Tiger continues to effectively and boldly remove the mask from the regime on an international stage. At the same time, to the degree that the Guardian Council has desired to improve at least economic ties internationally, Ahmadinejad is making this exponentially and possibly perpetually more difficult. While he was hand-selected by them, he has proven to be even to the right of them.

The Mejlis is at odds with Ahmadinejad, most notably having rejected all of his Oil Minister appointments since assuming the presidency. They are very displeased with his continuous appointments of people almost exclusively from within his ‘inner circle’ and his shake-up of government positions, firing many ministers and diplomats, including seven bank presidents.

Internationally, the United States and the EU have agreed to postpone an Iranian referral to the UN Security Council for a vote on sanctions regarding their nuclear program, having brought Russia into the fold to offer Russian enrichment of Iranian fuel and limiting Iran to the initial process of uranium ore conversion. At first glance, this can appear another frustrating delay and advantage for Iran. However, it is entirely possible that this move was put forth in full expectations that Iran would reject anything that removes their ability to enrich uranium. They have, as would be expected, accepted to ‘talk about having talks’ on the Russian solution. That in itself buys operations time and forestalls sanctions. But eventually, Iran will surely reject it, putting the final nail into the Iranian/Security Council coffin. It will have effectively brought Russia (and its veto power) on board.

Probably not by coincidence, it was released that Western intelligence reports indicate that Iran is training Chechen terrorists inside Iran near Qom and sending them back to Chechnya to fight Russian troops there. While entirely conceivable, the report’s validity is not the immediate issue. What is the issue in the context of the coming Iranian/EU-US-Russian negotiations is that intelligence agencies do not accidentally leak things to reporters. It was made publicly available for a reason: To solidify the Russian stance with America and the EU on Iran. The Russian vote at the Security Council would leave China to stand for Iran alone with a veto. China is not likely to choose this route and will therefore abstain. UNSC coffin nailed shut.

Ahmadinejad has made repeated statements (as have many Iranian officials) regarding Iran’s “right” to a full nuclear fuel cycle. He is being internationally boxed in.

Ahmadinejad is dangerous as it is, given his apparent disposition, as the president of the world’s foremost state sponsor of terrorism. But as the president of a nuclear armed nation, the situation could be untenable.

Considering his aggressive radicalism in context with the potential convergence of nuclear opportunity, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad could be the most dangerous foreign leader we have faced. He must be seen and analyzed as more than just ‘potentially’ irrational, as his religious beliefs must be clearly and thoroughly understood. His openly stated desires to “wipe Israel off the map” and “pave the way for the reappearance of the 12th Imam” open the possibility that, with the power of nuclear weaponry at hand, he could unthinkably forsake the well-being of his own nation. In order to serve a ‘greater purpose’, he may be capable of creating a situation so cataclysmic that it would usher in the 12th Imam, thereby, potentially in his mind, saving the world and restoring Islam.

Iran Cleric Calls for "Special Weapon"

By Steve Schippert | Threats Watch | March 2, 2010

Describing Ayatollah Mezbah Yazdi as Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's spiritual mentor is accurate, but hardly enough for a real understanding. Yazdi is a powerful leader within Iranian political and religious circles. Perhaps the best way to describe the nature of Yazdi's (and thus Ahmadinejad's) messianic belief structure is to imagine the most radical form of Islamic beliefs merged with a mixture of supernatural mysticism. (Have a look at the pious Ahmadinejad's ring finger, for instance.)

It is a scary sight to behold, and one so frightening that many cannot quite come to grips with the fact that such a radical, even nutty, group of individuals has fingers on the levers of state power anywhere in the world. It remains a fact, regardless of reluctance to acknowledge.

Within that context, incomprehensible as it may seem to many, consider the latest development coming out of Iran.

Ayatollah Mezbah Yazdi wrote a book, The Islamic Revolution - Surges in Political Changes in History, for limited internal distribution (approximately 3,000) around the time of the Iranian elections. A copy of this book has surfaced and the Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center has translated the Farsi to English and released portions.

On top of past hints of nuclear weapons ambitions by the most radical religious leaders and parts of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), Yazdi suggests that Iran not only has the right to but must develop "a special kind of weapon," an unmistakable reference to nuclear weapons. Judge for yourself.

"We have to produce the most advanced weapon inside the country, even if our enemies don't like it. There is no reason that they have the right to produce a certain special type of weapon, but that other countries not have that right" (The Islamic Revolution - Surges in Political Changes in History, p. 337).

Some may draw comfort in the belief that 'crippling sanctions' are on their way as mentioned by President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton among others. But China and Russia both have come out against any 'crippling' sanctions, true to form and past patterns of behavior. Consider that both have veto power at the UN Security Council - the origin of any 'crippling' sanctions. Consider that it has been recently revealed that a Chinese firm - through obscuring shipping, payment and other trails - has recently provided Iran with banned sensitive equipment for its nuclear operations. Consider that Russia is still building Iran's Bushehr nuclear facility.

Consider also that Iran has been the subject of sanctions for decades, yet has been wholly undeterred by Western actions, whether penalties or incentives.

Furthermore, consider the words which directly followed the above excerpt from Yazdi's revealing book, which was never meant to be made widely public.

"In seeking to acquire the [necessary] technology Iran must be patient and not be deterred by economic shortages: Divine, messianic support has been the determining factor in the success of the Iranian regime during the various trying periods which have plagued it since its foundation...We cannot be broken because of temporary difficulties, they will pass, and Muslims must be patient and not be deterred by material or economic shortages, because if they do, it may lead them to be separated from [Islam]."

[...]

Credits: Threats Watch: Understanding Ahmadinejad / Iran Cleric Calls for "Special Weapon"

The Pasdaran: Iran's Revolutionary Guards

The Regime's Shadow Warriors

Revolutionary Guards Keep Stranglehold on Iran

By Dieter Bednarz and Erich Follath, 16 February 2010

Iran's Revolutionary Guards, also known as the Pasdaran, are the regime's most important source of support. The powerful militia organization puts down street protests, spies on opposition members and controls the nuclear program. They are also the target of planned new United Nations sanctions.

Can 44 Nobel Prize winners be wrong?

The group of Nobel laureates, which included such luminaries as Nobel Peace laureates Betty Williams and Jody Williams, the writer Wole Soyinka and the economist James Heckman, as well as many leading figures from the fields of medicine, chemistry and physics, made a dramatic appeal in a full-page ad published in the International Herald Tribune on Feb. 9. "Dear President Obama, President Sarkozy, President Medvedev, Prime Minister Brown and Chancellor Merkel," it began. "How long can we stand idly by and watch this scandal in Iran unfold?"

In their appeal, the 44 laureates called upon the world leaders to finally respond to the atrocities of the Iranian regime, with its "irresponsible and senseless nuclear ambitions," with sharper sanctions, and to throw their full support behind Iranian opposition protesters. "They deserve nothing less," the open letter ends. The ad was paid for by the human rights foundation of Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel, winner of the 1986 Nobel Peace Prize.

Various politicians promptly responded, each in his own way, to the unusual appeal. US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said that the only option left was to apply pressure on Iran, while French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said: "Because negotiations are impossible, only sanctions remain." Israeli politicians and the influential US Senator Joe Lieberman, an independent, support a military solution. It appears that the nuclear conflict with Tehran has been escalated to a new level.

Cat and Mouse

It was preceded by a roller-coaster week that began with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's surprising indication of a willingness to compromise. But then Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki set new preconditions for a deal and strengthened the impression, at the Munich Security Conference, that Iran was back to playing cat-and-mouse with the West and planned to push forward with its suspected military nuclear program.

Ahmadinejad broke off all negotiation efforts until further notice. He instructed his scientists to ramp up a portion of the production designed for 3.5-percent uranium enrichment, allegedly to produce isotopes for medical purposes. Although 90-percent enriched uranium is needed for a functioning nuclear weapon, the production of 20-percent enriched uranium that has now been approved "brings Tehran an important step closer to weapons-grade fissile material," says US nuclear expert David Albright, noting that the Iranian scientists now have "only a tenth of the way" to go to make a bomb.

Can sanctions deter the Iranian agitators from building the bomb, or will the world have to live with Iran as a nuclear power? The rulers in Tehran have already survived three rounds of UN sanctions without any apparent effect, which raises the question of what "smart" sanctions must look like to sharply penalize the representatives of the government while harming the Iranian people as little as possible.

Under the chairmanship of France, the UN Security Council will begin negotiations on the issue next week, and it is expected to approve sanctions before the end of March. The prospects of getting Moscow on board appear to be good, but whether the People's Republic of China, which has signed billions of dollars' worth of natural resource deals with Tehran, will play along is questionable.

The Extended Arm of the Regime

The only thing that is clear is the target of the sanctions, which are intended to strike primarily at an organization that is both powerful and clouded in secrecy: the Sepah-e Pasdaran-e Enghelab-e Islami, or Army of the Guardians of the Islamic Revolution, which has defended the theocracy against its enemies -- including its domestic opponents -- for the past 30 years. Like an octopus, the Pasdaran, also know as the Revolutionary Guards, has its arms extended into all of Iran's key power centers. It controls important economic sectors, including the nuclear industry, and it is more effective than the regular army. Wherever it goes, it acts as the extended arm of the regime.

The elite militia force demonstrated its clout once again on Thursday of last week, when it relentlessly hunted down opposition members who were using the show of government propaganda surrounding the 31st anniversary of the revolution to stage protests against the regime. Opposition leader Mehdi Karroubi was attacked. When it comes to the legacy of the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the Pasdaran knows no mercy.

It was Khomeini himself, the man who brought down the shah, who ordered the establishment of the Revolutionary Guards on May 5, 1979. With this "people's army," Khomeini wanted to create a counterweight to the military, which had been built up by Shah Mohammad Reza. Unlike the soldiers, who tended to be secular, the Revolutionary Guards were all religious zealots and sworn supporters of their leader.

'One of the World's Most Powerful Cartels'

Mohsen Sazegara, 55, is a former close associate of Khomeini who was one of the original Pasdaran leaders. Today, from his exile in the United States, he is one of the organization's harshest critics. The original plan was to establish a group of 500 officers who were to lead about half a million volunteers, Sazegara says. But today the Revolutionary Guards are much more than just a militia. "The Pasdaran is a unique mixture of army and militia, terrorist organization and mafia -- a state within a state," he told SPIEGEL.

The Pasdaran's rise to become what Sazegara calls "one of the world's most powerful cartels" began in 1981, under the command of Mohsen Rezai, who led the Revolutionary Guards for 16 years. The general took advantage of the war Iraq had instigated against Iran to expand the militia into an extremely well-armed auxiliary army. The organization soon had its own intelligence service, which collected information about regime critics and took action against suspected subversives.

The Quds Force, named after the Arab name for Jerusalem, became legendary, and it is still responsible for operations in enemy territory today. President Ahmadinejad was a member of the Quds Force in the war against Saddam Hussein, and he is believed to have led operations in the Kurdish region. Members of the Quds Force are also believed to have later been involved in the murders of opposition members abroad. The group cooperates with other extremist organizations, including Hezbollah in southern Lebanon.

Iran's Most Powerful General

From the beginning, one man oversaw the Pasdaran and promoted its rise to power: Ayatollah Khamenei, Khomeini's personal representative and successor who has been Iran's supreme leader for the last 20 years. He recognized early on that the Revolutionary Guards could become his most important source of support, and he made sure that it received privileges right from the start of his time in office.

The Pasdaran now counts 125,000 men, making it about a third the size of the regular army. Nevertheless, its leader, Mohammad Ali Jafari, is indisputably the most powerful general in the country. He also controls 300,000 reservists and, more important, the fanatics of the voluntary Basij militia, which has an estimated 100,000 members. In times of crisis, however, the Basij is believed to be able to muster up to 1 million activists. It is these "moral police" who, under the command of the Pasdaran, have been most active in violently assaulting the opposition since last summer.

The general has become the backbone of the regime. Unlike his counterparts in the regular army, Jafari also controls a gigantic economic empire. The Pasdaran has ruthlessly hijacked the economy of its own country, with the support of its leader Khamenei. No one knows how many companies the Revolutionary Guard has already taken over, but co-founder Mohsen Sazegara estimates that it "controls more than 100 different businesses" -- from export companies for household goods to producers of automobile spare parts. The Pasdaran is believed to have established more than 500 offices of Iranian companies worldwide.

According to the People's Mujahedeen of Iran, which opposes the regime from abroad, the Revolutionary Guard controls more than half of the entire import business and close to a third of Iran's export business -- which doesn't include its holdings in the lucrative oil business, with estimated annual profits of $5 billion. Conveniently, it also controls the country's biggest container port, Bandar Abbas, and the airport in the capital Tehran.

Lucrative Business Interests

A profit center of the Pasdaran conglomerate of trading companies and industrial plants is Khatam al-Anbiya, a construction company that employs and pays 55,000 members of the Pasdaran and Basij. The company began its business by expanding roads and military positions in the war, and then it built barracks for the army and runways for the air force. Today Khatam is a mixed conglomerate with about 800 holdings and subcontractors, and estimated annual sales of $7 billion. On Wednesday of last week, the United States expanded its existing sanctions against Khatam to include four subsidiaries.

To penetrate into the highly lucrative oil business, the Pasdaran has not shied away from waging small private wars. Iranian business owners in Tehran still remember how, in August 2006, Revolutionary Guards, their weapons at the ready, took a military boat out to the Orizont drilling platform and boarded the platform. A short time later, the largest privately owner Iranian oil producer abandoned the well, and from then on the proceeds from Orizont's oil went directly into the coffers of the Pasdaran.

Last fall, the militia leaders discovered the communications industry as a profitable area of business. A consortium affiliated with the Revolutionary Guard acquired a majority stake in Telecom Iran. As a result, the Guard now controls the fixed network, two mobile telephone companies and Internet providers, and it is now expanding its role in one of the country's biggest growth markets.

Most of all, however, the Guard has taken over politics, in what Tehran-based political scientist Davoud Bovand calls a "gradual military coup." While many Iranians were pinning their hopes for liberalization on reformist Mohammad Khatami, who was president of Iran from 1997 to 2005, the Guard, with the blessing of its patron Khamenei, prepared to strike back -- and in 2005 helped Ahmadinejad become president. In his first administration, five of the 21 cabinet posts went to members of the Pasdaran, and the group received lucrative contracts from the government, including the construction of a pipeline to Pakistan. In Ahmadinejad's new government, Revolutionary Guard members received 13 cabinet posts.

Nuclear Responsibilities

The manager of the world's third-largest oil reserves is Oil Minister Masoud Mir-Kazemi, the Revolutionary Guard's former head of logistics, who had already exhibited little aptitude during his previous four-year post as trade minister. The Pasdaran is believed to have recently diverted $7 billion from oil revenues.

The Pasdaran also controls a third of the Iranian parliament, the Majlis. Ali Larijani, speaker of the parliament and previously Iran's chief nuclear negotiator, was formerly a high-ranking officer in the Revolutionary Guard, as is his successor as chief nuclear negotiator, Saeed Jalili. It makes sense that both men are former Pasdaran members, because the organization has a particularly large stake in the nuclear projects.

Its companies are charged with building the hidden tunnels, such as those at the planned enrichment facility near Qom. Its scientists are enriching the uranium, its elite troops are protecting the nuclear plants and its leaders are warning the United States and its ally Israel against attacks. "If their fighter jets manage to evade the Iranian air defense system," the head of the Pasdaran air force, Amir Ali Hajizadeh, said, "our surface-to-surface missiles will destroy their bases before they land." Iran's secret nuclear program, the subject of a recent SPIEGEL report based on classified documents, is run by Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, who is a high-ranking officer in the Revolutionary Guard.

New Sanctions

The UN sanctions could go beyond previous punitive measures by personally affecting senior members of the Revolutionary Guard -- in the form of travel bans for Western countries and the freezing of bank accounts. Sanctions against Pasdaran-owned companies could put a stop to urgently needed investments in the oil industry, while a general freeze on banks could even cripple the country. Many Iranians are already emptying out their accounts, and inflation is apparently as high as 25 percent.

In the past, neither new threats of sanctions nor mass protests and street battles could deter the zealots surrounding Khamenei and his supporters. In his propaganda speech on the anniversary of the Revolution, Ahmadinejad defiantly announced new successes: "Thanks to the grace of God," he said, the first batch of uranium had already been enriched to 20 percent.

Translated from the German by Christopher Sultan

Credits: Der Spiegel Online: The Regime's Shadow Warriors

Iranian official defiant against international condemnation of Human Rights violations by Iran

Iran official: Clinton 'inconsistent'

February 17, 2010

The Secretary General of Iran's High Council for Human Rights, Mohammad Javad Larijani, on the AMANPOUR. set

By Tom Evans; Sr. Writer, AMANPOUR.

(CNN) - U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's policy on Iran is "dubious, inconsistent, and naive," one of Iran's most influential officials declared Tuesday.

Mohammad Javad Larijani, a member of a powerful political clan in Iran, rejected an assertion by Clinton on Monday that the Revolutionary Guard is supplanting the Iranian government, and Iran is moving toward a military dictatorship. One of Larijani's brothers is speaker of the Iranian parliament and another is head of Iran's judiciary.

"On the one hand she (Clinton) is worried about democracy in Iran, on the other hand she's offering the most generous military help to states which don't run a single election," Larijani told CNN's Christiane Amanpour just after Clinton had completed a three-day tour of Arab countries in the Persian Gulf.

Larijani said the Revolutionary Guard, which has extensive business interests in Iran, is answerable to legal structures of the state.

"The Revolutionary Guard is part of our defense system, they have a legal status, they have a legal command, and they are legally answerable to Parliament," he added.

Larijani, whose title is secretary general of the Iranian High Council for Human Rights, also rejected Western criticism of Iran's rights record, declaring that his country is "the greatest and ... only democracy in the Middle East."

He said he explained Iran's position in full this week to the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva, Switzerland, where the U.S., Britain, France and other nations strongly attacked Tehran's record, as they stepped up pressure for new international sanctions against Iran over its nuclear ambitions.

"It is true that the United States and a number of Western countries aired their criticism toward us, but it was mostly a kind of cliche," Larijani said.

"But on the other side, a lot of nations also supported and commended our position," he added - a reference to countries including Cuba, Venezuela, and Sri Lanka.

Despite the government's massive crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators since the disputed presidential election in June last year, Larijani said Tuesday that no one is jailed because of protests in Iran.

"The only reason for jailing is the violence which was attached to the protests, a violence which got the life of more than 20 policemen and 13 civilians and also damaged the properties and also people's life and health," he asserted.

"I think the beating of our police is much less than the New York and Los Angeles police ... the violence in Tehran was much less that the violence in Paris.. (which) was in flames for three months."

He also rejected criticism of Iran's policy on executing people who, he said, were engaged in violence. "Those who indulge in terrorist activities, they are pursued by the law. They will face a very harsh sentence, if it is proved by the court."

Larijani acknowledged that official wrongdoing and unlawful acts do occasionally happen in Iran, but insisted the authorities take quick action to address problems when they are identified. He cited the example of what happened after the deaths of three protesters who were jailed at the Kahrizak Detention Center in Tehran. One of those who died was the son of a leading conservative politician.

He said the prosecutor-general, Saeed Mortazavi, who was linked to those deaths by a parliamentary committee could now face further investigation by the judicial authorities.

"Nobody will replace the court and their final decision," Larijani asserted.

Credits: Amanpour/CNN: Iran official: Clinton "inconsistent"