Over the past decade, a significant
portion of Iran’s economic institutions have been handed off to the office of
the Supreme Leader under the guise of “privatization.”
The driving force behind this stunning power grab is the expanding
sphere of influence of Khamenei's office and the Islamic Revolutionary GuardsCorps (IRGC) over Iran’s economic resources.
This so-called privatization campaign is a decisive
turning point beginning in 2005, when Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and the IRGC
stacked the executive with people who completely – at least initially – shared
Khamenei’s strategic vision for the regime. At this point, Khamenei began to
implement a profound restructuring of Iran's economy, including the ownership
of a wide range of industries and institutions.
This first took the form of an official directive
issued in May 2005. The government was instructed to transfer 80 percent of its
economic enterprises to "non-government public, private and cooperative
sectors" by the end of 2009. Among these were large mines, primary
industries (including downstream oil and gas), foreign commerce, banks,
insurance, power generation, post, roads, railroads, airlines, and shipping
companies. By some estimates, close to $12B in shares were transferred over
just three years, from 2005 to 2008.
The beneficiaries of the bulk of these transfers were the Supreme
Leader’s office and its various tentacles, including the dominant Setad, the armed services, and the
infamous bonyads or foundations. The implications are
better grasped in light of the fact that these institutions exercise virtually
absolute control over all decision-making, legislative mechanisms, intelligence
gathering, and access to significant budgetary commitments. The resulting
powerhouses that have arisen act as the main players and the gatekeepers for
western companies into the Iranian economy.
The newly published Rise of the Revolutionary Guards' Financial Empire: How the
Supreme Leader and the IRGC Rob the People to Fund International Terror released by the U.S. office of the National Council of Resistance
of Iran highlights 14 economic powerhouses directly or indirectly controlled by
Khamenei, the IRGC, or their affiliates. Setad's holdings
alone total about $95 billion, according to a recent Reuters calculation. All
these entities are tax-exempt while some also receive annual government
funding.
The Supreme Leader and the IRGC control at least 50
percent of Iran’s GDP.
But where do the profits go? They end up funding the
conflict in Syria, terrorism and sectarianism in Iraq, the war in Yemen, the
nuclear and missile programs, the security apparatus in Iran, and
fundamentalist operations around the world. In the end, Iran’s national economy
has been made to serve the domestic suppression, warmongering, export of
fundamentalism, and terrorism.
Tehran is spending between $15-20 billion annually to fund the war in Syria,
including at least $1B in salaries to its proxies. IRGC Qods Force commander
Qassem Soleimani spends billions of dollars in Iraq to fund the Shiite militias
and instigate sectarian violence. At least one billion dollars is provided to
Hezbollah in Lebanon annually, and Tehran has poured at least 1.3 billion
dollars into the coffers of Hamas.
Western companies would like the deals they make with
Iran to be seen as transactions with the “private sector.” However, behind the
official banks and companies lies a web of institutions controlled by the IRGC.
Western companies, governments, and the citizens they
represent cannot avoid the reality that today those running Iran’s economy are
those who suppress the Iranian population and export the terrorism and
fundamentalist ideology that threaten the West.
The Trump administration now has a unique opportunity
to help cut off resources to the IRGC and impose limitations on its
profit-making, terror-funding operation, by designating the IRGC for what it
is: a Foreign Terrorist Organization.
Congress would certainly agree with this bipartisan
issue.
Alireza Jafarzadeh, the deputy director of the
Washington office of the National Council of Resistance of Iran, is credited
with exposing Iranian nuclear sites in Natanz and Arak in 2002, triggering
International Atomic Energy Agency inspections. He is the author of "The
Iran Threat" (Palgrave MacMillan: 2008). His email is Jafarzadeh@ncrius.org.
Comments
Post a Comment