By William Tucker
Chief Correspondent for In Homeland Security
Earlier this week Radio Free Europe published an article on Iranian intelligence suggesting that Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei had ‘revived’ an intelligence unit of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) for domestic purposes. Iran does indeed use both of its major intelligence agencies for domestic collection, but claiming that Khamenei has revived an agency that was never disbanded requires a bit of an explanation. The Radio Free Europe article states that the intelligence department of the IRGC is once again targeting dissidents and has been since the election of Hassan Rouhani to the presidency. This may be true in part, but the supposed reformist politics of the president aren’t exactly to blame; at least not entirely.
In 2007 Maj. Gen. Mohammad Ali Jaafari had taken the helm of the IRGC and stated, “The main strategy of the IRGC is different now. Confrontation with internal threats is the main mission of the IRGC at present.” This is an important statement from the head of the IRGC because it is demonstrative in relating that the Pasdaran is returning to its original mission – suppressing internal dissidence and ensuring the survival of the revolutionary regime. Naturally, there is more to this observation that deserves exploring.
It would be a severe understatement to say that the Iranian intelligence apparatus has been under significant strain since the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq and the beginning of the Syrian civil war, yet it’s important to touch on the subject as many of responsibilities of Iran’s intelligence community are internal. To put this in perspective, both the Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS) and the IRGC intelligence office (Ettelaat-e-Pasdaran) have only a single department in each agency dedicated to external operations. For MOIS it is Department 15 that handles liaison responsibilities with foreign militant groups while the IRGC relies on it Quds Force for many of the same functions.
Domestically speaking, MOIS is mostly dedicated to internal operations and much of the rest of the agency is tasked with that role. The IRGC was originally tasked with a parallel responsibility of domestic security and this role is carried out by the Sazam-e Harassat office. It may seem odd that Iran would employ parallel intelligence agencies carrying out many of the same responsibilities, yet the competition serves the purpose of preventing any one agency from becoming too powerful in the control of information and intelligence. Because the IRGC has many other aspects such as a military component and even controls many state companies that are involved in a large portion of Iran’s economy, the IRGC has become so powerful that it has nearly become a state within a state. Ultimately the IRGC answers solely to the Supreme Leader, but when former president Ahmadinejad was president Khamenei was concerned that the former IRGC officer, along with other former IRGC officers in his cabinet, would make the IRGC’s influence so powerful that it would threaten the regime.
Ahmadinejad is no longer president, but the political turmoil resulting from his time in office is still being felt within the establishment. Khamenei was so concerned with Ahmadinejad’s maneuvering that he pulled MOIS from the president’s control. This put all intelligence agencies directly under the control of the Supreme Leader. Though he is the ultimate authority in Iran, the president still ran MOIS since it was a cabinet agency. Khamenei’s move to establish direct control over MOIS was telling. Now the Ahmadinejad is out of power, Khamenei is using the time to crackdown on dissidents as a counterweight to Rouhani’s politics – not that Rouhani is a threat to the regime, however. In essence, we don’t really have a ‘revived’ intelligence agency in the form of the IRGC’s domestic responsibilities of cracking down on dissident’s, rather we have a Supreme Leader who is still reasserting control over his intelligence apparatus and bringing their responsibilities back to an even keel.
The long term effects of involvement in Iraq and Syria at such a high operational tempo may place some strain on the system, but the intelligence agencies in Iran are ultimately responsible for the survival of the regime. Though Iran’s neighbors matter a great deal in foreign policy it is the regime that matters more. This up-tempo in dissident arrest is simply a return to normal.
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