The Ayatollah Begs to Differ by Hooman Majd

is not known to issue press releases or have much of a public face, even in extraordinary times. Maintaining the image of the Supreme Leader as “guide,” rather than executive, is part and parcel of the office’s job. The Supreme Leader gives no press conferences, never grants interviews, and speaks only at special gatherings, such as an occasional Friday prayer or commemoration ceremonies of one sort or another. The Leader meets with foreign dignitaries (almost exclusively Muslim, with few exceptions) but limits any televised and public words to generalities, such as Iran’s support for the country (or entity, in the case of Hamas and Hezbollah) whose emissary he’s meeting, Iran’s peaceful and Islamic nature, and Iran’s eagerness to expand trade and contacts with the friendly country in question. As such, he pointedly does not meet with representatives of Western powers. The Leader does not travel overseas; if anyone worthy wishes to see him, that person must travel to Iran. (Khamenei has been outside Iran, although not as Supreme Leader: during his presidency in the 1980s he even visited New York to attend the UN General Assembly.) He does not travel to Mecca to perform the hajj; having been a cleric his entire adult life, he became a hajji many times over prior to assuming the mantle of Rahbar. But the Supreme Leader is supreme not just because of his religious credentials in an Islamic republic; he’s supreme because his position is protected by the nation’s most powerful military force, and it’s not the army.

    Sepah-e Pasdaran-e Enghlab-e Eslami, or “Guardians of the Islamic Revolution Corps” (now that doesn’t sound so bad, does it?), better known as the Revolutionary Guards in the West and, naturally, reporting directly to the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution, are the military force responsible for protecting the velayat-e-faqih and, by extension, the valih-e-faqih. Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini created the militia very soon after assuming power in 1979: he had witnessed the supposedly mighty U.S.-equipped army of the Shah, including his much-feared and supposedly elite Imperial Guard unit, the “Immortals,” retreat to their barracks and allow his revolution victory with hardly a fight, and he realized that a regular army could not be trusted to protect a regime. In a nation that relied (and still relies) on conscription to man its army, Khomeini wanted an all-volunteer militia that would be fiercely loyal to the regime that created it, and the Pasdaran were born. Pasdaran were recruited from religious and working-class neighborhoods, the base of the Islamic Republic’s support, and although initially they were a purely defensive force, defending even the nation’s Islamic liquor prohibition, much to the consternation of many an imbibing Iranian, the Iran-Iraq war gave them the opportunity to show their mettle. The Guards fought fiercely, the youthful Basij units their kamikazes, and their strength grew as a parallel force on par with the regular army.
    Over time the Guards created their own air force and navy, and of course their foreign expeditionary force, the now famous but quite small Qods (Jerusalem) Force, which the United States accuses of everything from supplying Hezbollah to providing arms to Iraqi insurgents. But the Guards aren’t only concerned with security and all things military; they’re also concerned with what ultimately assures loyalty to a system beyond pure faith: money. The Supreme Leader has given them much control over the economy of the country, and they willingly exercise it. Revolutionary Guards are involved in everything from oil, such as contracts for drilling and exploration, to the import-export market. It is, I am told time and time again whenever I’m in Iran, virtually impossible to do any kind of large-scale business deal in Iran without the involvement of the Sepah, as they are generally referred to by Iranians. A friend who was working with a