IRGC Revamps To Counter Enemy Within
Fox News, July 24, 2008
Transcript
The ayatollahs continue to
enrich uranium, despite the high-profile meeting on July 19,
2008 in Geneva between Tehran's top nuclear negotiator and
senior western diplomats representing the Group of 5+1. No
surprise there. They are banking their regime's survival on
nuclear capability. Ali Larijani, Iran's former nuclear
negotiator, once said that giving in to the West's demands
that Iran suspend its enrichment would be suicide.
But, however much their regional role is tied to developing
a nuclear weapon, domestically their grip is being
challenged on a daily basis. Indeed, the backbone of the
ayatollahs' regime, the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps
(IRGC), is being revamped at great haste, primarily to cope
with rising dissent. The region's changing geo-strategic
dynamics coupled with sanctions targeting the IRGC, and its
terrorist elite unit, the Qods Force, are also factors.
According to intelligence gathered by the Iranian
Resistance's network inside Iran, on June 28, 2008, Mohammad
Ali (Aziz) Jafari, the IRGC Commander-in-Chief, launched a
major reorganization of the Corps. The scale of this re-org
is unprecedented since the 1985 re-vamp, when the clerical
regime's founder Ayatollah Khomeini ordered the IRGC split
into three branches - Army, Navy and Air force.
The new structure changes the IRGC from a centralized to a
decentralized force with 31 provincial corps, whose
commanders wield extensive authority and power. According to
the plan, each of Iran's thirty provinces will have a
provincial corps, except Tehran Province, which will have
two.
The key questions are why, and why now. A look back at the
summer of 2005, when Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was propelled to
the presidency, provides some insight. His rise came about
through a "complex and multi-layered" plan devised by the
Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, and the IRGC top brass. With
Khamenei's backing the IRGC had already taken the reins of
power in most key areas. Ahmadinejad's presidency placed the
IRGC atop the executive branch, and the metamorphosis of the
IRGC into a politico-military force was complete.
Khamenei then sought to implement a strategy reflecting the
new pecking order. To this end, on August 21, 2005, just
days after Ahmadinejad's inauguration, he ordered the
formation of the IRGC Strategic Research Center and
appointed then Brig. General Jafari as its head.
Within two years, the Strategic Research Center developed
the new strategy, whose main components are: 1) A reign of
terror on the populace; 2) Terrorist suicide operations
capable of striking at the "enemy", including on "enemy"
soil; 3) Increasing Iran's missile strike capability; 4)
Acquiring nuclear weapons capability.
With a new strategy at hand and the IRGC in control,
Khamenei felt all the pieces were in place. He was mistaken.
According to reports from within the IRGC, Khamene'i soon
realized there were growing problems with IRGC personnel.
With Ahmadinejad's cabinet at the helm, many veteran IRGC
Brig. Generals gravitated toward political, cultural and
naturally, economic realms. Not only were they disinclined
to fight, but they were also reluctant even to wear the IRGC
uniform.
Almost a year ago, feeling the effects of internal unrest
and foreign pressure worsening, Khamenei dismissed Major
General Rahim Safavi, once a darling of the radical factions
but later described by Ahmadinejad's cronies as a "liberal"
and softy.
On September 1, 2007, Khamene'i promoted Mohammad Ali Jafari,
a friend of Ahmadinejad, to the rank of Major General and
appointed him IRGC Commander. On October 20, 2007, in his
first public statement following his appointment, Jafari
explained that "According to the judgment of the Supreme
Leader of the Islamic Republic, the Guards' strategy has
changed. Accordingly, the Guards' primary mission at this
juncture is to fight the internal threats."
He added: "Internal security and its preservation are the
tasks of the State Security Forces and other security
organs. But if the problems go beyond a certain point, then
the Guards - with the permission of the Supreme National
Security Council and the Supreme Leader - will take charge."
According to one of the regime's analysts, "The whole
security environment is intended to really suffocate or
torpedo any possible change from within." In February 2008,
Jafari acknowledged the regime's inability to uproot the
opposition, saying, "Animosity toward our revolution is
never-ending. As we move forward, the battle between the
revolutionaries and counter-revolutionaries becomes more
critical and complicated."
Jafari has stressed that the IRGC's new strategy entails two
essential components: accurate intelligence about enemy
activities, and an increase in the regime's missile
capabilities. Earlier this month, he told reporters that the
IRGC "is equipped with the most advanced missiles that can
strike the enemies' vessels and naval equipment with fatal
blows." Back in May, he was quoted by the state-run Fars
news agency as saying that "An independent command might be
created in IRGC in order to fortify the structure and
activities of the missile section."
Another of Jafari's priorities during the past ten months
has been dealing with the wave of retirements, buy-outs, and
resignations by IRGC Brig. Generals. Obviously, these
coincided with Khamenei's efforts to tune the regime's
military apparatus with the threat of a military
confrontation. Khamenei found he had no option but to purge
most of the commanders of the eight-year Iran-Iraq war and
replace them with post-war commanders. This explains why a
good many of the twenty provincial commanders announced
since June 28 have lower ranks than Brig. General, which
means they were lower-ranking officers during the Iran-Iraq
war.
In May, Jafari alluded to Khamenei's unhappiness with the
old-timers. Speaking at a ceremony introducing the new
commander of Tehran's paramilitary Bassij Force (tasked with
internal security), Jafari said that "in the past few years"
there had been "negligence" about "domestic security" in the
IRGC. Calling for a reorganization and review of the IRGC's
mission, he added that the negligence was due to "a few good
years" during the Iran-Iraq war, when the IRGC pursued
mainly "military activities" and paid "little attention to
other aspects" of its responsibilities, meaning preserving
the theocratic regime against popular dissent. Strengthening
Bassij Force has been the core element in the IRGC re-org.
The revamping of the IRGC underscores the reality that while
the ayatollahs' foreign policy imperatives are to establish
a client state in Iraq and acquire a nuclear weapon,
domestically they are at risk from the Iranian people and
their democratic resistance movement - the enemy within. The
success of this domestic movement is the key to a
non-nuclear, peaceful Iran and to an independent and
democratic Iraq.
Alireza Jafarzadeh is a FOX News Channel Foreign Affairs
Analyst and the author of "The
Iran Threat: President Ahmadinejad and the Coming Nuclear
Crisis" (Palgrave Macmillan, 2007).
Jafarzadeh has revealed Iran's terrorist network in Iraq and
its terror training camps since 2003. He first disclosed the
existence of the Natanz uranium enrichment facility and the
Arak heavy water facility in August 2002.
