Iran's Security Sector

7/24/2019 Iran's Security Sector

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GENEVA CENTRE FOR THE DEMOCRATIC CONTROL OFARMED FORCES (DCAF)

CONFERENCE PAPER

IRANS SECURITY SECTOR: AN OVERVIEW

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DCAF Conference Papers

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IRANS SECURITY SECTOR: AN OVERVIEW

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Introduction

The intention of this paper is to give an overview of the internal structure of the security

sector of the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI), one of the few states in the Islamic world in

which in general the security sector is submitted to the control of the civilian leadership.

This paper will not deal with the issues of WMD, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Irans

open and covert support for militant Islamic groups abroad, the systems fight against

exiled militant opposition groups or Tehrans policy towards Iraq prior to and after the

US invasion, although some aspects of the security sectors tasks are connected to

these issues. Instead the paper will focus on the relationship between civilian

leadership and the influential heads of the different branches of the security sector, a

relationship which is extremely complex and often defies explanation. Therefore it is

vital to offer some explanatory remarks on the overall political structure of the system

and its main features.2

The IRI came into being as the result of the Islamic Revolution of 1978-79, which was

driven by a broad coalition of divergent opposition forces of leftist, national, liberal and

religious orientation. Having succeeded in the overthrow of the Pahlavi-monarchy apoliticised and radical wing, the group of Shiite clerics under the leadership of the

charismatic Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, gradually ousted all competing forces from

the political scene and consolidated its monopoly of power by 1983.3 The

consolidation of its monopoly of power not only allowed the ruling elite to tolerate a

limited degree of political pluralism, including presidential and parliamentary elections

held every four years, but also enabled it to maintain a considerable degree of political

stability.

Regarding the foreign policy of Iran (which still conceives itself to be a self-professed

revolutionary state), in the first decade of the Khomeine era (1979-1989) this was

1Wilfried Buchta is a Research Fellow at the German Orient Institute in Hamburg2 Wilfried Buchta: !,9 P*#&7 T%.8U V,& =-%*+-*%& 9$ 59W&% "8 -,& T7#.3"+ P&6*L#"+ (Washington D.C.:

Washington Institute for Near East Policy, 2000), pp. 1-78 (quoted as follows as Buchta: !,9 P*#&7T%.8US

3See for a concise description of this period Mohsen Milani: Irans Islamic Revolution. From Monarchy toIslamic republic (Boulder: Westview Press, second edition. 1994), pp. 59-195.


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mainly driven by revolutionary Islamic dogma. But after the draw in the Iran-Iraq war

which meant the de-facto failure of Irans attempts to export its revolutionary model to

other countries and after Khomeinis death in 1989, revolutionary dogmatism in foreign

policy yielded gradually to the exigencies of the preservation of Irans national

interests. Today, Irans foreign policy with the exception of two, albeit important areas,

its relationship with the USA and Israel, is mainly dominated by pragmatic national

interests and not by ideological dogma. Under the presidency of Rafsanjani (1989-

1997) and even more under Khatami (since 1997) Iran took several steps to moderate

its confrontational foreign policy. Among these initiatives were the establishment of a

critical dialogue with the EU, later after the Mykonos-trial in Berlin this transformed

into a constructive dialogue, aimed at normalizing relations; active engagement with

neighbouring states to discuss and solve the crises in Armenia, Afghanistan and

Tajikistan and a general bringing-together (rapprochement) with the Arab Gulf States

which made considerable progress since President Khatami convened the OIC

Conference in Tehran in December 1997.

A multi-centred power structure and constant factional infighting

The Islamic Republics power structures are multi-centred and often opaque but they

are key to understanding the position and role of the security sector in it. One of its

three main features is the contradictions between theocratic and democratic elements

that are enshrined in the new Iranian Constitution of 1979. These contradictions are

personified by the co-existence of a popularly elected President and a religiously

appointed Supreme Leader, also called ruling jurisprudent (@.#"F>& $.X",). This

dualism between these two pinnacles of power is linked to the second feature, namely

the existence of parallel structures throughout the government, where the authority of

regular political and military institutions that are grounded in the Constitution are

circumscribed by revolutionary Islamic organizations which both operate inside and

outside the framework of the government and Constitution. The tensions resulting from

these dual structures are often compounded by the third feature, namely the

permanent struggle for power between several rivalling ideological factions of its

power-elite. This power-elite can roughly be divided into a socio-political conservative

camp on one side and an Islamic left-wing reformist camp on the other side, whereby

each camp consists of a broad spectrum of factions.4The leaders of both camps make

up the civilian leadership whereby at present the decisive powers lie in the hands of

4 See Buchta: !,9 P*#&7 T%.8UCpp. 11-21.


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conservatives. It is worth mentioning that among the civilian leadership it is not the

President but the Supreme leader who is the focal point of loyalty for the leaders of the

security sectors different components.

The Supreme Leader

The Iranian Constitution firmly establishes the authority and rights of the the @.#"F>&

$.X",or Supreme leader, who is elected by a clerical body, the Assembly of Experts for

his life-time. The Constitution gives him the responsibility to act as the Commander-in-

Chief of all the armed forces, to declare war or peace and mobilize the armed forces, to

appoint and dismiss the clerical jurists in the Council of Guardians, a kind of

parliamentary upper-house which vets legislation for its compatibility with Islamic law

and the Constitution and vets candidates for elected office. In addition, the Supreme

Leader is authorized to appoint the Head of the Judiciary, the Head of State Radio andTelevision, the Supreme commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, IRGC

(7&6.,F& 6.7'.%.8), the Supreme Commander of the Regular Military and the joint

staff of the armed forces.5.

The formal office through which Khomeinis successor, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, wields

his power is the Office of the Supreme Leader ('.$-.%F& 3.X.3F& 39.KK.3F& %.,L.%"),

which arranges his meetings, appearances, and visits, and keeps him up to date on

political developments in Iran. The Office of the Supreme Leader employs special

advisors upon whom Khamenei can call regarding questions relating to fields such as

culture, economics, military affairs, and the media.6 In addition, Khamenei has

personally appointed or approved clerical representatives (8&3.>.8'&,.) in all

important state ministries and institutions, as well as in most revolutionary and religious

organizations. These clerical commissars form an extended, nationwide network

designed to enforcing the authority of the Supreme Leader and to extend his influence

into the executive branch, armed forces, security services, and revolutionary and

religious organizations.

The current Supreme Leader is Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was elected into this

office by the Assembly of Experts following Khomeini`s death on 3 June 1989.

Irrespective of his overwhelming constitutional competences, the current Supreme

5 See V,&


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Leader is not as powerful as Imam Khomeini was, which can partly be attributed to the

fact that he lacks his predecessors unique personal charisma. But more important than

this is the fact that he also has a theological Achilles heel because his religious

qualifications are not officially recognized by the most high-ranking theological

authorities in Shiite Islam. In addition, contrary to Khomeini, who did not owe his rise to

the position of the revolutions guide to anybody and whose position of power therefore

was unassailable, Khamenei owes his election to a number of powerful individuals in

the conservative camp.7They have lent him support (and still continue to do) in his

endeavours to solidify his base of power but in return are strong enough to wield

considerable influence on Supreme Leader whose extent, however, is difficult to

fathom.

The President

In comparison to the Supreme Leader, the President, who is elected for a four year

term with just one additional extension possible, is only the second most powerful

official in Iran. The President` s competences focus primarily on the social, cultural, and

economic policies of the countrynot foreign policy, despite his nominal chairmanship

of the National Security Council. Owing to constitutional shackles, the power of the

President is circumscribed. In the Iranian system, the entire executive branch is

subordinate to a religious authority the Supreme Leaderand is, at least

theoretically, the executive organ for his directives; according to the Constitution, only

the Supreme Leader possesses competence in all general political issues. As a

consequence of this, the President does not have control over the armed forces, the

security services and the police forces.8

Since 1997, the President has been the liberal cleric and outspoken reformer

Mohammad Khatami, whose predecessor in the Presidents office Akbar Hashemi

Rafsanjani (1989-1997) now heads the powerful Expediency Council. According to the

Constitution, this body has two main tasks. The first one is to break stalemates

between the Parliament and the Council of Guardians and to advise the Supreme

Leader. If the Supreme Leader is unable to resolve a state problem through traditional

means, he may only act after consulting the Expediency Council a body that is

empowered to override both the constitution and its underpinnings of 7,.%".law, if it is

7 From an interview by the author with Dr. Ebrahim Yazdi, in 1979 Minister of Foreign Affairs in Iransprovisional revolutionary government, 28. 4. 2004, Tehran.

8Mohsen Milani: V,& B@9#*-"98 9$ -,& T%.8".8 5%&7"'&8+>Y O%93 ).8" =.'% -9 P.$7.8Z.8", in: )%"-"7, H9*%8.#9$ A"''#& B.7-&%8 =-*'"&7(Exeter), Vol. 20 (1993)1, S. 82-98.


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deemed such steps are necessary to preserve the interests of the Islamic state. This

Council currently consists of thirty-seven members from among the different ideological

currents in the leadership elite, who are appointed by the Supreme Leader.9 Since

assuming office, Mohammad Khatami advocated the protection of law and the

enforcement of constitutional rights and thereby initiated a reform process aimed at

reforming the system from within.

The Budget

The budget of the security sector, which was estimated at USD 5 billion in 2001,10 is

determined by the Parliament. As for the amount of the budget allocated for national

defence, security affairs and the expenditures of the Supreme Leaders office, a

complete lack of transparency prevails. The parliament as the institution which ratifies

annually the overall budget and forwards it to the Council of Guardians for final

approval does not mention the figures of these secret budgets which are only

discussed in special parliamentary committees, whose members irrespective of their

political affiliation and mutual conflicts observe the binding rule of secrecy in these

matters. Every single institution or organisation belonging to the sectors of security and

defence reports its annual needs to the planning and budget organisation which is part

of the presidential executive. The budget organisation in turn, after having checked the

exactness of the needs and compared them with expenditures of the last preceding

years, determines the amounts.11

1. The military forces and security apparatus in Iran

Composition of the security forces and their division of labour

The Islamic Republic has at its disposal an entire array of military forces and

revolutionary security forces besides a number of parastatal organizations, called

L98>.'(foundations). Among the most important defence and security forces are the

regular army (.%-&7,), the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (or IRGC), and the

Mobilization Army, or Basij militia and the Law Enforcement Forces, (LEF).Technically, the revolutionary reconstruction organization, the Ministry of Construction

Jihad, is also part of the security forces, because in emergencies it is also in a position

9 Buchta: !,9 P*#&7 T%.8UCp. 61.10 Daniel Byman, et al: T%.8[7 =&+*%"-> 59#"+> "8 -,& 597-FP&@9#*-"98.%> B%., Santa Monica RAND

2001, p. 31 (quoted as follows as Byman et al: T%.8\7 =&+*%"-> 59#"+>)11From an interview by the author with an anonymous source of the exiled Iranian opposition, Hamburg 25

April, 2004.


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to apply coercive means to implement Islamic order in rural areas. 12 Besides these

officially recognized forces in Iran we also find various gangs of men known as the

Helpers of God (.87.%F& ,&KL9##.,), who act as vigilantes aligned with extreme

conservative members of the power-elite. These vigilant groups attack and intimidate

critics and dissidents and usually go unpunished because of the bias of the judiciary

dominated by conservatives.13

In general every single organisation pursues a primary mission. But in several fields the

limits of competences and the overlapping of tasks give rise to mutual competition and

sometimes even a lack of unity of command. During and after the Iran-Iraq war,

division of labour emerged between the most important components of the defence and

security sector. This division of labour which has never actually formulated as the

systems official policy can be described as follows: The regular army retains its

primary responsibility for the defence of Irans borders. In contrast to this, the IRGC

keeps its major role as the defender of the system and its representatives against

internal enemies while it continues simultaneously to have an albeit secondary mission

of assisting the army to fend off external threats.14 In addition, the IRGC has some

other responsibilities too. One of them is safeguarding internal security in the border

areas, especially by waging the war against illegal drugs (in conjunction with the Law

Enforcement Forces) coming from Afghanistan and Pakistan. Another one is the

deployment of relief forces for natural disasters like floods and earthquakes. Still

another task is the active assistance of supporters of Tehrans Islamic revolution

abroad which sometimes goes hand in hand with the proactive fight against exiled

militant opponents of the regime. Regarding the Basij, its major responsibility is to

uphold security in major urban areas.

The regular military (artesh)

The regular military took shape in the 1920s when the first King of the Pahlavi dynasty

ascended to the throne and founded the new army on the model of European armies.

The army grew in size considerably after the 1953 American-organized coup d`tat

against the government of Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddeq, following the arrival

of great numbers of US-military advisors. Prior to the revolution of 1979, more than

12See Asghar Schirazi: V,& T7#.3"+ M&@&8- 59#"+>Y V,& N2%.%".8 ]*&7-"98 "8 T%.8 (Boulder,Colorado.: Lynne Reiner, 1993), pp. 147163.

13See Michael Rubin: Into the Shadows: Radical Vigilantes in Khatamis Iran14Michael Eisenstadt: T%.8".8 A"#"-.%> 59W&%0


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20000 American military advisors, equipped with extra-territorial rights and thereby

impunity from prosecution under Iranian law, were working for the Shahs army.15The

air force and the navy, in particular, were equipped with very advanced and costly US-

weaponry at that time. The army and the SAVAK, the notorious secret service of the

Shah, which was established with the assistance of the American CIA and the Israeli

Mossad,16were the two main pillars of power of the Pahlavi monarchy.

Due to the lack of decisiveness of the Shah to order the full-scale bloody repression of

the non-violent demonstrations of the opposition in 1978, the army was essentially

paralyzed during the revolution. After Khomeini ascended to power, the formal

structure of the army, although it had been built up and indoctrinated by the Shah,

remained almost intact. But while most of its generals were dismissed, the regime

carried out succeeding purges in the ranks of its officers. Up to 1986, an estimated

17000 officers, representing 45% of the entire officer corps, fell a prey to these

purges.17The younger and low-ranking officers took over the command of the army,

and those with a background of religious and revolutionary militancy were appointed to

strategic posts. In addition to that, the regime created the Politico-Ideological Bureau

(PIB) with branches in all sections of the army. The Bureaus offices are supervised by

clerical figures and they have the task ensuring that the military conforms with the

Islamic ideology as well as carrying out the Islamic indoctrination of the officers corps.18

These Bureaus control the conduct of officers in co-operation with the Counter-

Intelligence Unit, otherwise known as the Second Bureau of the Army.19

The history of relations between the regular army and the IRGC is characterized by

mutual suspicion and rivalry. As the clerical leadership of 1979 mistrusted the army as

a potential counter-revolutionary force and therefore created the IRGC and the Basij as

the main pillars of armed support for the new revolutionary system, it placed the regular

military at a disadvantage in relation to the IRGC. It took more than fifteen years of

steady Islamisation and indoctrination until the top politicians gradually overcame their

mistrust of the army, which nowadays is not regarded a serious threat to the ideological

system. To the contrary, having exposed to numerous purges in its officer corps, theregular military as a professional army remains loyal to the current political leadership

15 James Bill: V,& B.2#& .8' -,& ^"980 V,& V%.2&'> 9$ N3&%"+.8FT%.8".8 P.-"987, New Haven: YaleUniversity Press, 1988, pp. 155-157.

16See Abbas W. Samii: V,& P9#& 9$ =N_N` "8 -,& DabcFba T%.8".8 P&@9#*-"98 , PhD Thesis University ofCambridge, February 1994, pp. 50-53.

17Nicola Schahgaldian: V,& T%.8".8 A"#"-.%> *8'&% -,& T7#.3"+ P&6*L#"+, Santa Monica RAND 1987, p. 2618Sepehr Zabih: V,& T%.8".8 A"#"-.%> "8 P&@9#*-"98 .8' !.%, (London: Routledge, 1988), 137-163.19d&.%L99: T%.8 caFaI (Bonn: MRB Publishing Co. LTD, 1989), p. 6.


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competitor and thereby violated the IRGCs neutrality obligation.23 Although Khatami

was successful, the change in IRGC leadership did not result in structural changes

within the IRGC since the new Commander appointed by Khamenei, Yahya Rahim

Safavi, continued the policies of his predecessor. In July 1999, at the height of the

student protests it became obvious that the IRGC perceived the reform movement of

Khatami as deadly threat to the systems stability. At that time, in an open letter to

Khatami, twenty-four commanders of the ground, sea, and air forces of the IRGC

alluded their determination to stage a military coup in case he should does not comply

with their wish to support the violent quelling of the protests.24Faced with this threat of

a military coup, Khatami distanced himself from the students, a move which cost him

much credibility among his most eager followers.25

The Army and the IRGC compared

Today the regular military, which has about 400000 men on active duty, and the IRGC,

which has about 120000 men, each possesses ground, air, and naval forces.

Compared in terms of magnitude and armament, the army is not only a much larger

and better equipped organization than the IRGC, but the armys ground formations are

much bigger and heavier armed than their counter-parts in the IRGC. 26Moreover, the

best equipment is in general allocated to the army. Notwithstanding its smaller size, the

IRGC is a more powerful institution in Iran due to its role as the guardian of the

revolution and due to the fact that many senior IRGC officers have close personal and

family ties to top politicians in Irans clerical power elite.27 Besides that, the IRGC

wields considerable influence on the ideological indoctrination, professional

development and advancement of future senior officers of the regular army. One of the

means of the IRGCs influence is the regular armys formal subordination to the

Ministry of Defence whose current Head, Admiral Ali Shamkhani, an IRGC officer, is

affiliated to the hard-line faction of the conservative camp of Irans power elite.

Shamkhani in an act of disloyalty ran for the presidency in 2001 against his own Chief

of Cabinet, President Khatami.

23For the background of Rezais removal see Buchta: !,9 P*#&7 T%.8UCp. 124f.24 For the text and analysis of the letter see Navid Kermani: The Fear of the Guardians. 24 Army

Officers Write a Letter to President Khatami, in Rainer Brunner et al V,& VW@& =,". "8 A9'&%8 V"3&7,Leiden Brill 2001, pp. 354 364.

25See .#Fe.>.-, July 21, 1999, p. 1.26Michael Eisenstadt: *The Armed Forces of the Islamic Republic of Iran> Assessment*, in: ABPTN, Vol. 5,

No. 1, March 2001, P. 7.27Daniel Byman, et al: T%.8f7 =&+*%"-> 59#"+> "8 -,& 597-FP&@9#*-"98.%> B%., Santa Monica RAND 2001, p.

26.


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In theory, there is a coordinating body between the IRGC and the army, namely the

Joint Armed Forces General Staff, which was created in 1988 after some battle-field

set-backs in the war with Iraq resulting from mutual rivalry and lack of coordination

between the two forces. This organ brought together the leading officers of the two

armed forces and was keen on ensuring a unity of command. However, this situation

altered in the aftermath of the war, Imam Khomeini`s death and the assumption of

office of a new Supreme Leader, Khamenei, whose base of power in the first years was

not absolutely secure. In his search for loyal supporters, Khamenei tried to win over the

IRGC and approved the reestablishment of a separate IRGC Headquarters. By this

measure, which devaluated all previous efforts of the regimes leadership to create a

unity of command, the IRGC retained its autonomy in terms of internal command

structure.28This autonomy goes back to its inception in 1979 when the IRCG obtained

the right to have a Supreme Commander, a post which was filled for the majority of its

existence by Mohsen Rezai (1981-1997). In contrast to this, until 1998 the regular

military never had a Supreme Commander. Since April 1995, the highest-ranking

regular military officer had been under the command of Hasan Firuzabadi, the Head of

the General Staff of the Combined Armed Forces, a physician and former IRGC

officer.29 And although the Supreme Commander of the IRGC was theoretically

subordinate, in truth he functioned independently of Firuzabadis command. At the

height of a political crisis with the Afghan Taliban militia, when the threat of an outbreak

of a war was imminent and the regime needed the more professionalized army,

Supreme Leader Khamenei appointed General Ali Shahbazi in October 1998 as the

Supreme Commander of the regular military. This put Shahbazi at least formally on an

equal footing with the IRGC Commander, Yahya Rahim Safavi, the successor of

Mohsen Rezai. It further meant a de facto strengthening of the fighting power of the

regular military, whose three separate combat arms were now joined under one unified

command.30However, according to reliable sources of the opposition only one of its

three separate combat arms, namely the ground forces, really enjoys independence

from the IRGC, while the air force and the navy are put under the command of former

IRGC officers.31

28Michael Eisenstadt: The Armed Forces of the Islamic Republic of Iran> Assessment, in: ABPTN, Vol. 5,No. 1, March 2001.

29David Menashri, P&@9#*-"98 .- .


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The Law Enforcement Forces (LEF)

The LEF, a kind of revolutionary police, came into being in 1990 as the result of a

merger of three formerly separately organized forces with internal administrative

autonomy, e.g. the city police, the gendarmerie (country-side police) and the

revolutionary committees. While the two aforementioned forces were founded by the

Shah and were therefore subject to permanent suspicion of lack of allegiance towards

the new order, the later force was an offspring of the revolution and responsible for

pursuing drug-dealers, oppositionists and anti-Islamic lawbreakers. According to well-

informed Iranian sources, the merger proved a failure in-so-far as the desired

objectives of achieving a greater degree of effectiveness in the up-keeping of law and

order and the protection of the citizens by building up a new de-politicised force were

not achieved. To the contrary, within the newly established LEF, the regular Shah-

trained police forces were sidelined and all influential positions in the LEF wereassigned to former committees-members.32After Khatami became President, a number

of high-ranking LEF commanders turned out to have been involved in acts of violation

of the law, for example by carrying out physical attacks on close aides of Khatami in

1998. The LEF play a crucial role in the maintenance of internal security. This became

obvious when it quelled the student protests in Teheran in July 1999. However,

although the LEF are formally subordinate to the Ministry of the Interior, the Head of

the LEF, General Qalibaf, is directly appointed by the Supreme Leader who in turn

appoints the higher echelons of its officers, who are all hard-line conservatives.

Consequently, the present Minister of the Interior, the reformist, Abdalvahed Musavi-

Lari, openly confessed in a December 1999 press conference that he does not wield

control over the LEF, since their officers dont obey his orders. 33Although exact official

figures are not available, it is generally assumed that the number of personnel of the

LEF today amounts at about 100000 to 120000 men.

The Basij Militia

The Basij militia is the most powerful paramilitary organization in Iran next to the

Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRCG). It was founded by a decree of Ayatollah

Ruhollah Khomeini on 26 November 1979, in which he ordered the establishment of an

Army of Twenty Million to protect the Islamic Republic against U.S. intervention from

32International Crisis Group: Iran: The Struggle for the Revolutions Soul, 5 August, 2002, p. 8.33Wilfried Buchta: !,9 P*#&7 T%.8U, p. 143.


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without and enemies from within.34 The Basij recruits youthful volunteers, most of

whom are between the ages of 11 and 17 and come from rural regions or the poorer

quarters of cities. Ideologically motivated and deeply religious, most Basijis possess

only a limited education. During the IranIraq War, after military crash courses by the

Revolutionary Guards and ideological indoctrination by clerical commissars, these

Basijis, threw themselves into mine fields in human waves in the hope of achieving

martyrdom. Formally, the Basij is under the command of the IRGC. Due to the value of

the unabated revolutionary zeal of the Basij, the Iranian Government often employs the

Basij in conjunction with special IRGC units in cases that require the merciless

suppression of unrest among the civilian population in urban areas.

This happened for instance in cases when the leadership of regular army and the IRGC

refuses to use violence against massive uprisings of local populations such as in the

social unrests of Qazvin in October 1994 and Islamshahr in January 1995. According

to U.S. estimates, the Basij currently comprises approximately 90.000 armed men.35

Besides this hardcore of trained armed fighters the Basij-Militia has about 200000 to

300000 unofficial collaborators and informers at their disposal who mostly work in rural

areas of the large cities and are affiliated to the local Mosque network of the ruling

clergy, which are both responsible for distributing subsidised food and other items and

for monitoring the population of these areas. The current Head of the Basij is Ali-Reza

Afshari, a member of the IRGC command council, who holds the rank of General.

Given the close relationship of IRGC and Basij on the level of leadership it can be

assumed that in times of exigency, be it nationwide social unrest or be it the outbreak

of violent intra-elite conflicts, the Basij will probably act as an extended arm of the

IRGC.

The Ministry of Information and Security (MOIS)

The MOIS is the successor of the SAVAK, which was dissolved in February 1979 after

the Shah regimes downfall.36 Following the SAVAK`s dissolution, some of its tasks

with regard to counter-espionage and disclosure of conspiracies were assumed by a

number of diverse and often antagonistic Islamic revolutionary organizations, above all

by the IRGC`s intelligence unit. But due to the lack of professionalism of these

organizations and a lack of coordination between them, the results of their work was

34 For information on the origins of the ).7"Z, see Nikola Schahgaldian, V,& T%.8".8 A"#"-.%> g8'&% -,&T7#.3"+ P&6*L#"+C(Santa Monica, Calif.: RAND, 1987), pp. 87100.

35See Anthony Cordesman, Threats and Non-Threats from Iran, in Jamal al-Suwaidi, ed., T%.8 .8' -,&?*#$Y N =&.%+, $9% =-.L"#"->(Abu Dhabi: Emirates Center for Strategic Studies and Research, 1996), p.232.

36Abbas W. Samii: The SAVAK, xx. 1994, Cambridge, pp.


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often insufficient and this caused the regimes leadership to approve the establishment

the MOIS, which at present is the largest, but not the only intelligence agency of Iran.

Since its inception in 1984, based on a foundation law passed by the parliament in

1983,37the MOIS has emerged as one of the most influential and powerful entities in

Iran. With its fifteen departments and 30000 employees, it is believed to belong among

the largest intelligence services in the Middle East.38According to the foundation law of

the MOIS, passed by the Iranian Parliament in 1983, the MOIS is responsible for the

coordination of intelligence operations among all the information agencies (LEF, IRGC,

the Second Bureau of the regular army, Basij) on the one hand and the Ministry of the

Interior and the General Prosecutor on the other hand. Article 10 of that law describes

the main tasks and functions of the MOIS as follows: (a) gathering, procurement,

analysis and classification of necessary information inside and outside the country and

(b) disclosure of conspiracies and activities pertaining to coup dtats, espionage,

sabotage, and the incitement of popular unrest, which would endanger the security of

the country and the system.39 The same law stipulates that the allocated financial

means of the MOIS are exempt from the public law of accountability. Also, the law does

not lay down any system of checks and balances that would require the MOIS to be

supervised by the judiciary or any other state organ. A separate special law stipulates

that the Head of the MOIS must be a high-ranking cleric. By stipulating that only a

cleric can be at the helm of this key Ministry, the regime obviously intended to further

strengthen its grip on power.40

The top theological cadres from the MOIS all come from a single theological school, in

Qom, the Madrase-ye Haqqani, which is led by prominent clergies who belong to the

hard-line faction of the conservative camp.41From its inception in 1984 until 1989 the

MOIS was run by Mohammad Mohammadi Raishahri, under whom it gained a

formidable reputation of being a highly efficient apparatus that exercised repression in

a strictly selective and controlled manner. According to well-informed insiders, the

MOIS changed its character after President Rafsanjani dismissed Raishahri in

September 1989 and replaced him by his deputy Ali Fallahiyan. Fallahiyan is believed

to have turned the MOIS into an overtly repressive apparatus exercising terror and

37On the MOIS foundation law and its by-laws see Wilfried Buchta: !,9 P*#&7 T%.8U, op. cit. p. 164-165and p. 174.

38N#FA*Z.K .8 T%.8, (London), No. 68. (May 1997), p. 20.39See Qanun-e ta`ssis-e vezarat-e ettela`at-e jomhuri-ye eslami (Foundation Law of the Islamic

Republic`s Ministry of Information) in: Majmu`e-ye qavanin-e avvalin doure-ye qanungozari-ye majles-eshura-ye eslami 1359-1363 (Compilation of Laws from the First Legislative Period of Lawmaking ofParliament 1980-1984) (Tehran: Eadare-ye Koll-e qavanin, March 1984), pp. 517-520.

40Buchta: !,9 %*#&7 T%.8UC p. 166.41Buchta: !,9 %*#&7 T%.8UC p. 166.


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intimidation at a much larger scale than before and expanding its autonomy to such a

degree that it -at least partly- escaped the full control of the regimes senior decision-

makers.42During Fallahiyans era as Minister (1989-1997), the MOIS reportedly killed

about 80 dissidents inside Iran in addition to an unknown number of opposition figures

abroad. Moreover, under Fallahiyan the MOIS has reportedly been deeply entangled in

illegal economic and commercial transactions.43One of the most adamant critics of the

MOIS is Ayatollah Hosein-Ali Montazeri who as Supreme Leader was Khomeinis

designated successor between 1985 to 1989 and was suddenly dismissed in March

1989 by a letter ascribed to Khomeini, but whose authenticity is doubtful. When under

house-arrest (from 1997 to 2003), he published his political memoirs in which he wrote

that during the last years of Khomeini and in the era of Fallahiyan, the MOIS had

turned into a terrifying and impenetrable organization over which no outsider wielded

full control or was informed of what was really going on in it. Montazeri contends that

the MOIS, in addition to the unlimited budget allocated to it by the state, had

augmented his financial resources by diverse activities in trade and commerce. For

Montazeri the MOIS had become an independent state in state which no organ of the

state was powerful enough to call it to account.44

That Fallahiyan even after his ousting from the MOIS was able to continue these

activities was indirectly confirmed in January 2002 by a public speech of parliament

speaker Mehdi Karrubi on economic corruption, in which -without mentioning the MOIS

by name but conspicuously alluding to it he pointed to a parliamentary record of

numerous places of shipments on Irans border. According to him certain persons use

these places, which are not subject to any supervision of authorities belonging to

parliament, the customs, or the ministries of economy, finance, and trade, in order to

import and export goods in great quantities to unknown destinations.45

Since the inauguration of President Khatami in August 1997, the MOIS has undergone

remarkable transformations beginning with Khatamis dismissal of its Head, Ali

Fallahiyan, as Khatami no longer wanted to include him in his list of cabinet members.

Ever since the ruling in the Mykonos terrorism trial in Berlin on 10 April 1997, therehad been aGerman warrant out for his arrest,46a fact that had begun to put a strain on

42 Rafsanjani reportedly tolerated Fallahiyans murderous acts in order to neutralize the opposition ofconservative hardliners against his moderation in foreign and economic policy. Interview by the authorwith a confidential source, 25 February, 2002, Tehran

43N7,F=,.%X .#FNW7.-(London), 8 June 2001, p. 3.44Khaterat- e Ayatollah Montazeri, 2000, p. 599f.45See e.>.-F& Q9*(Tehran), no. 507, 31 January 2002, p. 2.46O%.8:$*%-&% N##2&3&"8& h&"-*82, April 10, 1997, p. 1.


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Tehrans relations with Bonn and thus also with the remainder of the European Union.

Yet, Khatami replaced Fallahiyan with Hojjatoleslam Qorbanali Dorri Najafabadi, a

conservative follower of Supreme Leader Khamenei. Najafabadis appointment

demonstrated that despite his overwhelming victory in the election of 1997, Khatami felt

compelled to make a substantial compromise to his opponents in this sensitive

ministry. Moreover, Khatami also left the defence portfolio in the hands of the

conservatives. Its new leader, Ali Shamkhani, was formerly Commander of the Naval

Forces of the 7&6.,F& 6.7'.%.8 (Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, or IRGC).

Nonetheless, despite Fallahiyans dismissal the new Head, Dorri Najafabadi, could not

hold sufficient authority within the Ministrys bureaucratic apparatus, since in most

cases they were still controlled by loyal confidents of Fallahiyan.

In November 1998, the reformist press reported the enigmatic serial murders of four

political Iranian dissidents in Teheran, an announcement which raised enormous

attention inside and outside Iran. Following the serial murders, President Khatami

appointed a tripartite investigating committee whose work and findings incriminated the

MOIS and elicited a tough behind the scenes tug-of-war between the Heads of the

conservative and the reformist camps. As a result, on 5 January 1999, the MOIS was

forced on to admit in a public statement, that a number of irredentist members of the

Ministry, who held deviating opinions and who acted independently had committed the

crimes and that the MOIS had handed them over to the law. Having been exposed to

mounting criticism, Dorri Najafabadi was forced to resign in early February 1999 and

was replaced by Ali Yunesi, who, until that time had been Irans Supreme military judge

and member of the tripartite investigating committee.47 Upon taking office, Yunesi

announced that reforms within the Intelligence Ministry were inevitable, and he swore

loyalty to the policies of the government and the President. Despite having the

reputation of being inclined to the conservative camp, Yunesi kept his word. By purging

the Ministry of most of Fallahiyan`s collaborators he managed to depoliticise the MOIS

and to make it a useful law-abiding instrument of regular government policy. This far-

reaching cleaning of the MOIS can be regarded as one of the few genuine

achievements of the reformist presidency of Khatami which came out of his conflictswith the conservative power structure. That said, its positive effect was at least partly

offset by the emergence of new parallel intelligence organisations outside the MOIS. A

number of prominent reformists in the Iranian Parliament, among them the then deputy

Speaker of Parliament and the President`s brother, Mohammad-Reza Khatami, pointed

47N#FA*Z.K i.8 T%.8, no. 90 (March 1999), p. 20; see also .#F=,.%XC .#FNW7.-, February 11, 1999, p. 1


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out this phenomenon in the Autumn of 2003. They announced that most of the persons

who had been purged from the MOIS after the serial murders of November 1998, had

joined these new autonomous intelligence agencies which have expanded their

activities over the course of time. According to them, one of these parallel

organizations had three times the personnel that the MOIS has throughout the

country.48

M&+"7"98FA.:"82 "8 7&+*%"-> .$$."%7 .8' -,& =*6%&3& Q.-"98.# =&+*%"->


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centres of power combined with the existence of informal rules known only to insiders

which enable certain security institutions to exercise their influence, account for the

opaqueness of decision-making processes in this field. But this seemingly chaotic

structure of decision-making is to a large extent offset by a cultural and procedural

emphasis on consensus within Irans power-elite, whose members despite their often

fierce mutual rivalries only very seldom go so far to eliminate particular competitors by

force but try to preserve some solidarity.51Driven by the fear that their mutual conflicts

escalate to a point of no return, the systems survival might be at stake, they prefer

instead to compromise, which in turn stabilizes the system.

As a general rule, it can be said that informal networks and mechanisms for influencing

decision-making are as important or sometimes even more important than the formal

system of decision-making. That means that leaders of security organisations not only

use official forums and avenues for influencing decision-makers, like their participation

in the SNSC, advisory meetings with the Supreme Leader and the President, their

recommendations for the Parliaments committees for security and foreign affairs.

Besides that, they have at their disposal other means for gaining access to important

members of Irans power-elite with whom they often have strong common

denominators by virtue of common family and religious ties. This fact implies that

informal personal networks are strong while many institutions in Iran are relatively

weak.52

As a consequence of the existence of multiple centres of power and the importance of

informal patterns of exercising influence, the decision-making process is in a constant

back-and-forth process due to the permanent renegotiating of contentious issues. An

example for this is the internal dispute over a rapprochement towards the USA. Since

single influential group or members of the power-elite can refuse their support, thereby

preventing major changes in particular fields of policy even if it has the backing of the

majority of the power-elite. Moreover, they can even sometimes implement measures

which seemingly contradict the official foreign policy of the government and thereby

create the impression that Irans foreign policy is inconsistent and uneven. One goodexample is the Salman Rushide fatwa. While the government refrains from

implementing Imam Khomeinis decree by sending death squads abroad, a

revolutionary foundation close to the Supreme Leader, the 15thof Khordad, regularly

51One of these rare examples is the elimination of Mehdi Hashemi and his group in 1986. See for thisWilfried Buchta: Mehdi Hashemi, in B8+>+#96.&'". T%.8"+., forthcoming.

52Daniel Byman, et al: Iran`s Security Policy in the Post-Revolutionary Era, RAND 2001, pp. 24-27.


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18

states the validity of the fatwa in public, calls upon believers to execute those found to

not be following has been said in the fatwa. However, since safeguarding the systems

survival takes precedence over anything else which requires the preservation of

consensus among the power-elite on the most crucial issues, few actors risk to carry

out important operations autonomously without the tacit endorsement of the senior

leadership, especially that of Supreme Leader Khamenei.53

Although the details of the decision-making process of Iran are unknown to outsiders it

is generally assumed, that the leader of the security sectors components comply with

the civilian leaderships wishes due to their relative lack of military autonomy, although

they champion their own agendas as much as they can. Moreover, Heads of the

various sections of the security sector keep to the agreed-upon objectives of the civilian

leadership, whose two top objectives are to safeguard the systems survival while at

the same time remaining loyal to the Islamic revolutionary ideology. However, in

practise real politics and national interests nearly always take precedence over Islamic

ideology and this accounts for Tehrans prudent foreign policy aimed at preserving the

territorial status quo of Iran and its geographic neighbours and avoiding major military

confrontations with any state which would be costly and deeply unpopular in Iran.54 It

can be assumed that the Heads of the Iranian security forces, especially the regular

army, advocate restraint in times of crisis, a pattern of behaviour which can be

attributed to the fact, that in those times, for example during the tensions with the

Taliban Regime in Afghanistan in the Summer of 1998, the security forces preferred

shows of force to active confrontation. The only exceptions to this increasing

moderation in Irans foreign policy are the policies towards the USA and Israel, which a

considerable part of the Iranian leadership still deem Irans arch-enemies. The political

ban on any step towards the resumption of diplomatic ties to both countries remain one

of the strongest remnants of the revolutionary ideology and the greatest obstacle for

Irans full integration in the international community.

2. Civil management and control of the security apparatus

Constitutional and legal framework

53Daniel Byman, et al: Iran`s Security Policy in the Post-Revolutionary Era, RAND 2001, p. 2.54Ibid, p. 2.


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19

Irans Constitution and laws only provide relatively broad instructions and rules for the

control of the security apparatuses, which to a certain degree have often retained some

autonomy in matters of internal management. However, in general there is no

immediate threat that these organizations might evade civilian control and become fully

independent of the main political protagonists. The new ambitious role for which the

IRGC strive for recently and which will be dealt with later on is an exception to this rule.

Due to the neutralization of the army as a potential dangerous counter-force and due to

the loyalty of the IRGC leadership to the safeguarding of the systems survival including

its theocratic ideology, which is the raison d`tre of the IRGC, the civilian ruler reign

uncontested. Regarding the parliamentary oversight of the security apparatuses it is a

matter of fact that the parliament does not wield any noticeable influence over them.

During the era of Khatami, in an unprecedented move the reformist parliament

established several times investigation committees to examine special issues related to

illegal acts committed by members of the security apparatuses. Despite the fact that

the committees work did not lead to any convictions of putative culprits by the biased

conservative judiciary, their establishment may be regarded as a first successful

attempt of enforcing its authority over the security apparatuses and making them more

accountable to the legislative power. The same is true with regard to the harsh critique,

which the reformist press in the era of Khatami often levelled against illegal acts of

members of the security apparatuses and which heightened the Iranian peoples

awareness of their own rights. However, whether these activities of the parliament and

the reformist press have in fact established a lasting and permanent tradition of

enforcing greater accountability on the security sector, which will survive the era of

Khatami is rather doubtful. For the reformers have not only lost in the parliamentary

elections of February 2004 their second most important stronghold, the parliament but

the reformist press has been silenced to a large extent because the judiciary has

closed down since April 2000. More than 80 of the most critical newspapers had put

hundreds of courageous journalists and publishers on trial. In addition, Khatami`s

presidency will reach its end in August 2005, and it can in all likelihood be ruled out that

the conservative power-establishment will allow a promising reform minded candidate

to run again for the presidential elections.

3. Challenges to the Security Sector

Iran is situated in an instable and diverse geo-strategic environment. It is surrounded

by a number of neighbouring states like Pakistan, Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Azerbaijan,


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and Armenia, which are threatened by internal instability due to low-level conflicts

between ethnic or religious groups, lawlessness and internal turmoil, which may have

dangerous destabilizing spill-over effects for Iran, be it in the shape of refugees, drug-

trafficking or other forms. With approximately 2 Million refugees from Iraq and

Afghanistan, Iran already plays host to some of the greatest numbers of refugees

world-wide. Moreover, after the USA succeeded in 2001 and 2003 in the military

overthrow of the Taliban Regime in Kabul and the Baath-regime in Baghdad, Iran is

confronted in Afghanistan and Iraq with the presence of a considerable number of

troops of the USA. Iran as a self-professed revolutionary state is since 1979 entangled

in a mutual hostility with the USA which the Iranian leadership depicts as its ideological

arch-enemy. Nevertheless, although all these mentioned issues pose sources of

considerable concern for the Iranian leadership, Tehran doesnt conceive them to be

an existential menace for the systems survival.55

Instead most Iranian top politicians think that domestic threats are more serious than

the external ones. Doubtlessly, the Iranian system faces a number of internal threats

which have to do with its domestic social, economical and political problems which the

security sector cannot solve by means of force. One of them is the drug problem, which

is interwoven with the chronic economic crisis. Iran is suffering from a nationwide

growth in drug addiction. This, in turn, has led to an overload of court cases,

overcrowded prisons and an overwhelmed health system, as well as increasing

incidence of HIV/AIDS. Today, with about 2.5 million drug addicts, Iran has one of the

highest numbers of heroin and opium addicts in the world. Another attendant harm has

been the increased amounts of opiates transiting Iran from Afghanistan to markets in

Europe, the Middle East and beyond. As a result, Iran suffers significant casualties

among its security personnel and soldiers deployed along its borders with Afghanistan

and Pakistan due to violent clashes with heavily armed smugglers.

The growing drug addiction among Irans youth is an indicator of the widespread

political and social dissatisfaction of great layers of society and their desire for change,

which the reform government of Khatami tried to address more seriously than anyprevious government. Although the reform process is today virtually dead, the drivers

which brought about Khatami`s victory in the ballot box in 1997 are still in place. The

first important factor which had driven the reform movement is the decline in the

revolutionary passion that swept Iran in the early 1980s and drove the anti-Shah

55Shahram Chubin: !,"-,&% T%.8U P&$9%3C M93&7-"+ 59#"-"+7 .8' Q.-"98.# =&+*%"->, IISS Adelphi Paper342, New York, 2002, p. 43f.


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revolution. Although most Iranians still appear to embrace the essential achievements

of the 1979 revolution, revolutionary passions to dim among much of the population.

After Ayatollah Khomeinis death in June 1989, Irans sense of revolutionary fervour

began to yield to a spirit of pragmatism, symbolised by the accession of Hashemi

Rafsanjani to the presidency in July 1989 and even more by the elective victory of

Khatami in 1997.

Demographics are the second major factor driving the continued impetus for change in

Iran. A general sense of disappointment with the Islamic Government has become

quite common among the large generation of Iranians who were born in the 1970s and

1980s and have recently become eligible to vote. Irans younger population appears

quite eager for economic and political liberalisation, and less amenable to propaganda

than previous generations. With a voting age of 16 and about 60 per cent of the

electorate under 30, Irans youth constitute a formidable force and the driving engine

behind much of the reform movement.

Since 1997, Khatami`s government has focussed on four primary sets of issues, the

first and foremost of which has been the economy. Iranians expect economic reforms

that will provide jobs, curb inflation and improve living standards. Second is the issue of

the strict socio-cultural restrictions that govern the lives of many Iranians, most notably

in terms of womens Islamic dress codes, gender relations and access to Western

culture and media. The third focus for many reformers has been the hope that relations

with the West, including the United States, can be improved, in order both to ameliorate

the current economic situation and to reinvigorate contacts between Iranians and their

relatives abroad. Finally, reformers have pushed for political liberalisation, including

greater public accountability and broader political pluralism.56 All in all these driving

factors for change among the population constitute a potential for social unrest and

political instability which heighten the sense of vigilance of the leaders of the security

sectors components.

Indicators for a new political ambition of the IRGC

In retrospect to the political events which occurred since the beginning of the reform

movement in 1997 one can discern indications for a new ambition of the IRGC

unknown hitherto aimed at playing an independent role in Irans political life. This

56 International Crisis Group Middle East Report No. 5: T%.8Y V,& =-%*22#& $9% -,& P&@9#*-"987[ =9*#, 5August, 2002, p. 2f.


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phenomenon is obviously linked to the increased demands of an ever growing younger

populations for reforms of the political system which the IRGC leadership conceives as

deadly threat to the systems survival, whose protection is the raison d tre of the

IRGC. During Khomeini`s lifetime, he has repeatedly forbidden the IRGC from

becoming involved as partisans in the power struggle between Irans ideological

currents in public statements and written declarations. This ban on political activities

was valid in general for all armed forces since the regimes inception. As a matter of

fact, a great part of the conservative establishment of power has in the course of the

last few years become even more reliant on the IRGC perceiving them as the last

resort which enables them both to stem the growing tide of domestic discontent and to

protect the national security interests against new external threats manifested in the

military presence of US troops in two neighbouring countries, Iraq and Afghanistan.

The IRCG in turn is believed to have come to the conclusion that the survival of the

regime is at stake because the Iranian civilian leadership elite including the Supreme

Leader has grown too weak to deal with the diverse domestic and external challenges

of national security properly. Based on their self-image as the last saviours of the

system, the IRGC leadership reportedly decided to transform the IRGC into one of the

major independent protagonists in the political arena.57

Prior to the recent parliamentary elections in February, when the outcome was a

landslide victory of the conservatives whose candidates won more than two thirds of

the 290 seats, the IRGC encouraged its personnel to run for parliament.58Indeed, the

newly established conservative faction, the so called Abad-garan-Group, fielded a

great number of former IRGC commanders and founders of the Basij as their

candidates for the first time in the Islamic Republics history. This raised the

anxiousness of many Iranians who regarded it an indication for the IRGC plan to

intervene more assertively in politics in future.59 According to one Iranian reformist

newspaper the new parliament is believed to be comprised of about 90 persons having

been affiliated before to the IRGC or other revolutionary organisations.60 By the

powerful presence of numerous former IRGC commanders in parliament this lobbymay be able to intimidate critics inside and outside the legislative. Moreover, in May

2004 another former IRGC Commander, Ezatollah Zarghami, was appointed by the

57 Interview by the author with a well informed anonymous Iranian source from the ranks of the exiledopposition, Hamburg 15 June 2004.

58Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty: T%.8 P&69%-, 20 October 2003, Vol. 6, No. 3, p. 5.59Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty: T%.8 P&69%-, March 1, 2004, Vol. 7, No. 9, p. 5f60V,& B+9893"7-, June 17, 2004.


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Supreme Leader to the key post of the Head of the national television and radio.61 It

should not go unnoticed as well, that with the help of the conservatives who had won

the communal elections in February 2003 a former IRGC Commander, Mahmud

Ahmadi-Nejad, has become Tehrans mayor, thereby occupying the important post of

the administrative chief of Irans capital with 10 million inhabitants.62Quite apart from

its growing political influence, the IRGC also is believed to have been involved since

the 1990s in an array of financial and economic enterprises aimed at establishing itself

as an economic force which is at least partly independent of the state coffers. The last

reformist parliament, which several times raised the issue of about 72 illegal jetties at

Irans border controlled by the IRGC proved to be powerless to stop the smuggling of

goods into the country carried out by these jetties. It is estimated that about USD 9.5

billion worth of goods are smuggled into Iran by these jetties on an annual basis. 63

What further enhanced the domestic prestige of the IRGC is the fact that they manage

Irans nuclear programme, which is under intense international scrutiny because of its

arms-making potential. At the same time, the nuclear programme is a source of

considerable national pride among the regimes supporters and many of its ardent

critics alike.64

While one can argue that the new forceful advancement of former IRG commanders

into prominent second rank positions of the political arena is just an ephemeral and

accidental phenomenon, some observers and Iranian exiled oppositional figures give a

different explanation. To them it is an indicator for the IRGC leaderships new ambition

to follow the path of their military counter-parts in Turkey and Pakistan. In both states,

the military does not confine itself to being an instrument for the defence of national

borders but plays a high-profile political role and often determines what the respective

nations` security interests are.65But given the lack of reliable data from Iran it is still too

early to give a final judgement as to whether the IRGC really intends to implement a

militarization of Iranian politics or not. In any case, this new development deserves to

be regularly analysed.

61B*%.7". Insight: Iran`s Revolutionary Guards Making a Bid For Increased Power, 20 May, 2004.62Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty: T%.8 P&69%-63V,& B+9893"7-, June 17, 2004.64Eurasia Insight, May 20, 2004.65Eurasia Insight, May 20, 2004


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Conclusion

Iran is a far cry from achieving the democratic control of its armed security forces. The

reason for this is quite simple. The democratic transformation of the theocratic system,

which many Iranians had aspired to at the beginning of Khatami`s reform movement in

1997, did not achieve any substantial progress and has in fact come to a standstill

today. The current constitutional distribution of powers favours the conservative camp

of the power-elite, whose members in turn are determined to preserve the 7-.-*7 X*9

by all means and are only willing to allow minor cosmetic changes. Given the

stagnation of the reform process, whose most prominent and active protagonists are

either silenced, imprisoned or exiled, the prospects for an evolutionary democratic

transformation of the system in the mid-term are bleak.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Short biography of the author

Dr. Wilfried Buchta has worked as a research fellow at the German Orient Institut in

Hamburg/Germany since 2004. Prior to this, from 1998-2001 he was the representative

of the Konrad-Adenauer Foundation in Rabat/Morocco and from 2001-2002 he held the

position of the International Crisis Group Middle East Project Director in

Amman/Jordan. In 1997, Friedrich-Wilhelms University in Bonn awarded him a

doctorate in Islamic Studies for his dissertation entitled M"& "%.8"7+,& =+,". *8' '"&

"7#.3"7+,& B"8,&"- DabaFDaajf [ The Iranian Shia and Islamic Unity 1979-1996],

published in 1997 at the German Orient Institut in Hamburg. Since 1992, Dr. Buchta

has conducted extensive field research in Iran. Since that time he has authored

numerous works on the Shia and Iran, including !,9 P*#&7 T%.8U V,& =-%*+-*%& 9$

59W&% "8 -,& T7#.3"+ P&6*L#"+f (Washington D.C.: Washington Institute for Near East

Policy, 2000), which was translated into Arabic by the ECSS in Abu Dhabi in 2003.


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Established in 2000 on the initiative of the Swiss government, the GenevaCentre for the Democratic Control of Armed Forces (DCAF) encourages andsupports States and non-State governed institutions in their efforts to strengthendemocratic and civilian control of armed and security forces, and promotesinternational cooperation within this field, initially targeting Euro-Atlantic regions.

The Centre collects information, undertakes research and engages innetworking activities in order to identify problems, to establish lessons learnedand to propose the best practices in the field of democratic control of armedforces and civil-military relations. The Centre provides its expertise and supportto all interested parties, in particular governments, parliaments, militaryauthorities, international organisations, non-governmental organisations,academic circles.

Geneva Centre for the Democratic Control of Armed Forces (DCAF):rue de Chantepoulet 11, P.O. Box 1360, CH-1211 Geneva 1, SwitzerlandTel:++41 22 741 77 00; Fax: ++41 22 741 77 05E-mail: [email protected]: http://www.dcaf.ch

Documents

Iran's Security Sector