It was a surprising turn-around that suggested Ahmadi-nejad felt under siege by the Pasdaran and was striking back at a perceived weak point.
It has been conventional wisdom for years that Ahmadi-nejad was the Pasdaran’s choice for president back in 2005 and that that organization finagled votes for their man in the election. Many said Ahmadi-nejad had long been a member of the Pasdaran and was a favorite. Others noted that he appointed many Pasdar veterans to public posts after his election.
However, much of the evidence is weak. To begin with, one of Ahmadi-nejad’s opponents was Mohsen Rezai, who was commander of the Pasdaran for 16 years. If the Pasdar establishment was picking candidates, he would be a more logical one than Ahmadi-nejad.
Ahmadi-nejad did not spend a career in the Pasdaran. He was a member only during the Iran-Iraq war, when he served in engineering units, not in a combat role. And the biographies of many of the Pasdar veterans he named to posts after his election show they were also engineers. Engineers are a fringe group in the Pasdaran, which is run by officers with combat experience.
In recent weeks, since it became open season on Ahmadi-nejad, many Pasdar officers have spoken out publicly against Ahmadi-nejad, demanding that he obey the edicts of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenehi instantly.
On Saturday, Ahmadi-nejad struck back. The event was a conference called to combat smuggling.
For years, the Pasdaran have been accused of operating their own private ports or their own docks at existing ports at which goods are imported or exported without the payment of any customs duties. This is seen as a mechanism by which the Pasdaran allow officers to pad their incomes.
Most of the complaints have come from reformists, but a number of “principleists,” as the conservatives call themselves, have also complained. Until Saturday, Ahmadi-nejad had been silent.
But on Saturday, the president spoke out. He avoided citing the Pasdaran by name, which is the norm in Iranian political discourse, but in context it was clear whom he was speaking about.
“Right now some volume of cargo comes into the country undeclared,” he said. “We cannot hide this fact.… All illegal ports should be closed.
“Some individuals have created passages through our borders, importing and exporting goods, saying: It is for such and such a company, body or organization. This is wrong. No one should be above the law.”
The president said, “No ministry has the right to have a dock or port outside the control of Customs and Excise. If certain goods are exempt from customs duty, that is not a problem if it is in line with the law. But it does not mean the imports should not be recorded.”
Everyone knew that Ahmadi-nejad was talking about the Pasdaran—including the Pasdaran. Just one day after Ahmadi-nejad spoke, General Mohammad-Ali Jafari, the Pasdar commander, responded. “This institution, like other military institutions, controls a number of piers. But no financial transactions are conducted there,” he said.
That was a rather odd response given that Ahmadi-nejad had been complaining precisely that financial transactions—specifically the payment of customs duties—did not take place at Pasdar piers.
Jafari went on to charge that “certain people” raise complaints against the Pasdaran in order to divert attention from the places where smuggling is really taking place.
The attack on the Pasdaran by the president was a change in tactics for Ahmadi-nejad. In the six weeks since his political fortunes changed, Ahmadi-nejad has consciously avoided getting into verbal sparring matches with his critics. He even said publicly that he has chosen to remain silent.
He has increased his anti-American rhetoric (if that is possible) and appears to be trying even more to focus public attention on the satanic foreign enemy in order to fend off the attacks focused on him by presenting another target for anger. On the domestic front, he has minimized the rhetoric while making concessions to his critics in the Majlis in an effort to satisfy them.
The attack on the Pasdaran does not seem to fit into that pattern. But some analysts said it did fit the pattern in the sense that Ahmadi-nejad was trying to raise a new target to replace himself. The question is why he thought the Pasdaran would be an acceptable new target.
Many people, including those within the regime, are concerned at what they see as the rising power of the Pasdaran—militarily, economically and politically. Reformists have never liked that, but many principleists have become concerned recently.
Militarily, it isn’t that Pasdar power is rising vis-à-vis the nation’s enemies, but rather that it has eclipsed the regular military as a national institution.
Economically, the Pasdaran have bought up many state-owned firms as they were “privatized.” With European firms bowing out of the oil and gas development business in Iran, Pasdar-owned firms have been getting an increasing share of those contracts. And the Pasdar engineering arm—Khatam ol-Anbiya, its Corps of Engineers—has been gobbling up construction contracts all across the country.
Politically, many in the regime worry about what they perceive as growing influence by the Pasdaran over political developments. That was underscored Tuesday when the Mehr news agency reported that Pasdar Commander Jafari said former President Mohammad Khatami would be allowed to return to the political scene only if he denounced his former allies, defeated presidential candidates Mir-Hossain Musavi and Mehdi Karrubi.
That was an astounding statement. The armed forces are supposed to stay out of politics. Supreme Leader Ali Khamenehi has said that many times. While many Iranians believe the Pasdaran tinker in politics clandestinely, Jafari was making a very public statement clearly outside his realm of responsibility.
In other political development this past week, Khamenehi continued to give speeches telling politicians to calm down and cease inflaming passions—clearly a call on the Majlis to stop attacking Ahmadi-nejad. The Majlis deputies, however, have just ignored Khamenehi’s numerous appeals. That is ironic because the attacks on Ahmadi-nejad were launched in the first place to denounce him for failing to salute and obey the leader’s command in May to accept Heydar Moslehi as intelligence minister.
The Judiciary has arrested dozens of people—including at least four public officials last week—identified as Ahmadi-nejad’s allies. The Judiciary has not moved against Esfandiar Rahim-Mashai, the president’s chief of staff, or Hamid Baqai, another aide. Those two men are the main targets of critics, but the Judiciary feels constrained—for some reason—from moving against them and has only gone for the small fish thus far.
Those arrested last week were: Mohammad-Sharif Malekzadeh, who was a deputy foreign minister for a few days last month until an uproar from the Majlis forced his resignation; Ali-Asghar Parhizkar, director of the Arvand Free Trade Zone in southern Iran; Ali-Reza Moqimi, director of the Aras Free Trade Zone in the north; and Abbas Amirifar, the chief of staff of a state cultural committee.
Ahmadi-nejad made a speech last week denouncing the arrests as politically motivated. But in that speech he effectively abandoned those who have already been arrested when he proclaimed that the “red line” that would move him into action if crossed would be the arrest of anyone in the cabinet.
(State television ran extracts from Ahmadi-nejad’s speech, but did not include the key portion with the “red line” reference.)
The effort to call Ahmadi-nejad before the Majlis has not halted. Deputy Ali Motahari, the man who assembled the signatures demanding Ahmadi-nejad’s presence in the well of the Majlis, said he has been asked by the Majlis leadership to withdraw his summons, but has refused to do so.
Others have expected the Majlis leadership to twist enough arms of deputies to remove their names from the summons so it will not have validity. But the Majlis leadership has fallen silent, suggesting it has not been able to accomplish that yet.
While there is much talk of Ahmadi-nejad being removed from office before his term ends in August 2013, most respected analysts do not think that is likely. Ray Takeyh, of the New York-based Council on Foreign Relations, is typical. He said, “The president now knows he lacks institutional power to challenge the prerogatives of the Supreme Leader. And Khamenehi appreciates that an impeachment crisis would prove destabilizing for the system. Thus, a weakened Ahmadi-nejad who stays in his lane is good for the Supreme Leader.”