The militarization of post-khomeini Iran: Praetorianism 2.0

Washington Quarterly

Volumn 34, Issue 1, 2011, Pages 45-59

  Hen Tov, Elliot ^a   Gonzalez, Nathan ^b  

^a PRINCETON UNIVERSITY   (United States)

^b NONE

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 78650258760     PISSN: 0163660X     EISSN: 15309177     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/0163660X.2011.534962     Document Type: Article

References (43)

1. See Elliot Hen-Tov, "Understanding Iran's New Authoritarianism," The Washington Quarterly 30, no. 1 (Winter 2006/07): pg. 163-179;
2. Kasra Naji, Ahmadinejad: The Secret History of Iran's Radical Leader (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2008);
3. Frederic Wehrey, et al., The Rise of the Pasdaran: Assessing the Domestic Roles of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (Santa Monica: RAND Corporation, 2009).
4. Amos Perlmutter and Valerie Plave Bennett, eds., The Political Influence of the Military: A Comparative Reader (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1980), p. 199.
5. Ruhollah Khomeini, Hukumat-e Eslami (Islamic Government) (1970). An English translation is available at: http://www.al-islam.org/islamicgovernment/.
6. Jerrold M. Post, "Narcissism and the Charismatic Leader-Follower Relationship," Political Psychology 7, no. 4 (1986): pg. 675-688.
7. See Nathan Gonzalez, Engaging Iran: The Rise of a Middle East Powerhouse and America's Strategic Choice (Westport, CT: Praeger, 2007), ch. 4.
8. David Menashri, Post-Revolutionary Politics in Iran: Religion, Society and Power (London: Frank Cass, 2001), 17.
9. Islamic Republic of Iran, Qanun-e Esasi-ye Jumhuri-ye Eslami-ye Iran (Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran), 1979; revised 1989, http://www.majlis.ir/Majles/index.php?option_com_content&task_view&id_12&Itemid.
10. Kenneth Katzman, Warriors of Islam: Iran's Revolutionary Guard (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1993), p. 23.
11. Behrouz Aref and Behrouz Farahany, "The Guards: Iran's Unelected Power," Le Monde Diplomatique, March 5, 2010, available at http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id_37748.
12. Ali Alfoneh, "The Revolutionary Guards' Role in Iranian Politics," Middle East Quarterly 15, no. 3 (2008): p. 15.
13. Islamic Republic of Iran, "Esasname-ye Sepah-e Pasdaran-e Enqelab-e Eslami (Statute of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps)," 1982, http://tarh.majlis.ir/?ShowRule&Rid_1D4973FB-9551-4F8D-AEB3-DAEFD52791F1.
14. Alfoneh, "The Revolutionary Guards' Role," p. 7.
15. Mehdi Khalaji, "Iran's Revolutionary Guards Corps, Inc.," Policy Watch #1273 (Washington, D.C.: Washington Institute for Near East Policy, August 17, 2007), http://www.ciaonet.org/pbei/winep/0002193/f_0002193_1297.pdf.
16. Qanun-e Esasi, 1979/1989.
17. "Ghorb dar yek negah" ("Ghorb at a glance"), http://www.khatam.com/?part_menu&inc_menu&id_98.
18. Katzman, Warriors of Islam, pp. 57-58.
19. Mehdi Moslem, "The State and Factional Politics in the Islamic Republic of Iran," in Eric Hooglund, ed., Twenty Years of Islamic Revolution: Political and Social Transition in Iran Since 1979 (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 2002), p. 32.
20. Mehdi Moslem, Factional Politics in Post-Khomeini Iran (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 2002), p. 252.
21. Mehdi Moslem, Factional Politics in Post-Khomeini Iran (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 2002), p. 262.
22. Wehrey, et al., pp. 31, 53.
23. Ali Gheissari and Vali Nasr, "The Conservative Consolidation in Iran," Survival 47, no. 2 (June 2005): p. 188.
24. Wehrey, et al., p. 7.
25. Ali Ansari, "The Revolution Will Be Mercantilized," The National Interest, Web site, February 11, 2010, http://www.nationalinterest.org/Article.aspx?id_22602.
26. David C. Rapoport, "The Praetorian Army: Insecurity, Venality, and Impotence," in Roman Kolkowicz and Andrzej Korbonski, eds., Soldiers, Peasants, and Bureaucrats: Civil-military Relations in Communist and Modernizing States (Herts, UK: George Allen & Unwin, 1982).
27. Numbers of clerics from Raz Zimmt, "2008 Iranian Parliamentary Elections: ATriumph of the System," Middle East Review of International Affairs 12, no. 2 (June 2008): pg. 50;
28. In 1980 and 1984, there were a small number of clerics in the Majles that had previously served in the Guards, e.g. Khamene'i himself in 1980. However, they are not tabulated as former Guards as it was their clerical status that enabled their political career, not their military credentials. 2004 number from Gheissari and Nasr; 2008 figure from "The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps: Military and Political Influence in Today's Iran," Saban Center-USIP Iran Working Group, The Brookings Institution, Washington, D.C., November 13, 2008, http://www.brookings.edu/events/2008/1113_iran.aspx.
29. Data for the Mousavi and first Rafsanjani administrations are from Katzman, Warriors of Islam, pg. 124; the 2009 figures are from profiles available at hamshahri.org and all other figures are from a proprietary study conducted by one of the authors in 2005.
30. Hen-Tov, 167.
31. The 1989 estimate is based on the following two assumptions. First, the IRGC's economic activities_even in construction and heavy industry_were overwhelmingly in the defense sector. Second, the IRGC supervised two main sources of income_its own defense-industrial complex and international arms purchases. Regarding the former, we know that the IRGC defense industry was smaller than the non-IRGC domestic arms production, which amounted to $1.5 billion, or about two percent of GDP. Turning to arms imports, Iranian purchases measured about $2.5 billion in inflation-adjusted currency in 1988. According to the U.S. Department of State, they dropped from about 3.5 percent of GDP in wartime to barely more than two percent of GDP immediately after the war and less thereafter. Adding the less than two percent from the defense industry to the arms imports, it is hard to imagine that the IRGC controlled even five percent of GDP in 1989.
32. As with the 1989 figure, reliable data are limited and widespread claims that the IRGC controls 60 percent of Iran's economy are unable to be substantiated. Instead, one can infer the total value of all entities subordinate to the Guard or a member of the Guard network by the use of proxy data_the revenue of Guard companies and subsidiaries, estimates of illicit smuggling revenues based on trade discrepancies, newly-acquired assets in the recent wave of privatizations, and control of para-statal assets through Guard veterans. Adding the above components together, the Guards appear to exercise some form of control over at least 25 percent at the lower range and up to 40 percent of GDP at the higher range of estimates.
33. Ali Alfoneh, "How Intertwined Are the Revolutionary Guards in Iran's Economy?," AEI Outlook Series, no. 3, October 2007, http://www.aei.org/outlook/26991.
34. Ansari, "The Revolution Will Be Mercantilized."
35. "Iran'dan Turkcell'e Kötü Haber," Hürriyet 3 October 2005.
36. Kaveh Ehsani, "Survival Through Dispossession: Privatization of Public Goods in the Islamic Republic," Middle East Report 250 (Spring 2009), http://www.merip.org/mer/mer250/ehsani.html.
37. Ali Alfoneh, "What Do Structural Changes in the Revolutionary Guards Mean?," AEI Outlook Series, no. 7, September 2008, http://www.aei.org/outlook/28666.
38. See for example Ladane Nasseri and Ali Sheikholeslami, "Iran Police Quash Rally as Revolutionary Guards Warn Protesters," Bloomberg, June 22, 2009, http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid_newsarchive&sid_aTMTGmuvvDkM.
39. Babak Rahimi, "The Role of the Revolutionary Guards and Basij Militia in Iran's 'Electoral Coup'," Terrorism Monitor 7, no. 21 (July 17, 2009), http://www.jamestown.org/programs/gta/single/?tx_ttnews[tt_news]_35277&tx_ttnews[backPid]_26&cHash_e3e29e9833.
40. Rapoport, "The Praetorian Army."
41. See David C. Rapoport, "A Comparative Theory of Military and Political Types," in Changing Patterns of Military Politics, ed. Samuel P. Huntington (New York: Free Press of Glencoe, 1962); also see Rapoport, "The Praetorian Army."
42. See Steven A. Hildreth, "Iran's Ballistic Missile Programs: An Overview," Congressional Research Service Report for Congress, February 4, 2009, http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/nuke/RS22758.pdf;
43. and Greg Bruno, "Iran's Ballistic Missile Program," Council on Foreign Relations Backgrounders, Web site, October 15, 2009, http://www.cfr.org/publication/20425/irans_ballistic_missile_program.html.