The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) continues their political push against the deal, reports AL Monitor‘s Arash Karami. The faculty of a University allied with the IRGC has issued a couple of statements:
The letter accused some officials of advocating a policy that “is opposed to the fundamental principles of Imam [Khomeini] in foreign policy” and ignores “the daily crimes of Israel, America and Saudi Arabia.” The letter rejected that a hard-line foreign policy would allow the West to create an image of Iran seeking war or would increase Iran phobia in the West. Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif has on various occasions criticized the Mahmoud Ahmadinejad administration for its harsh rhetoric, blaming him for increasing Iran’s international isolation and adding to a negative world image of Iranians. …
The letter warned officials that “before it’s too late, to return to the real path of the people” and those who don’t “are not far away from the eyes” of the IRGC. The rare letter and its harsh language has surprised many, especially since it came one week after an Imam Hussein University public relations statement May 24 that expressed support for Khamenei’s May 20 comments at the university about refusing inspection of military sites or to allow Iran’s nuclear scientists to be interviewed as part of a comprehensive nuclear deal.
The National Council of Resistance of Iran reports,
IRGC Brigadier General Gholamhossein Qeybparavar, the commander of IRGC forces in the Fars province said on Saturday: “You would be wrong to dare to want to inspect our military centers and whoever does look at IRGC centers we will fill his throat with molten lead.”
The Christian Science Monitor has a different view, though:
“I think under the surface a lot of the different businessmen who are connected to the [IRGC] are putting pressure on Rouhani and his team to make sure these [nuclear] deals go through, because it’s hurting their pockets very deeply,” says Narges Bajoghli, a PhD candidate at New York University who interviewed some 150 members of the Guard and affiliated Basij militia over nine years of research.
“Of course, they have an interest in making themselves seem like a very strict organization, but I think when you go into the belly of the whole thing, you realize it’s not like that, especially since they’ve been involved in business,” says Ms. Bajoghli.
While hard-line Iranian politicians oppose any nuclear deal that requires compromise, and dislike even talking to the US and Western powers, whom they accuse of seeking regime change, the IRGC top brass in early April publicly backed the nuclear talks like never before.
“Up until today the nuclear negotiation team have defended the Iranian nation’s rights well, and the nation and IRGC is grateful for their honest efforts,” said IRGC commander Mohammad Ali Jafari.
But the support came with a dose of tough talk. This period of negotiations was a definitive year for Iran, Maj. Gen. Jafari said, and “the enemy” – the United States – was “wrongly thinking” it could change Iran’s behavior through talks and sanctions. Lifting all sanctions was the main demand of the talks, he said, in addition to preserving Iran’s right to uranium enrichment and nuclear development.
However analysts say the IRGC is far from monolithic, and that its own confrontational rhetoric often masks a pragmatic side.
So does LobeLog:
In over nine years of on-the-ground research with different factions of the Revolutionary Guard and Basij, I have found that an underlying concern for many, regardless of political leaning, is a desire to create an Iran with more opportunities for their children, and that means the removal of sanctions and better relations with the world.
After the 2009 crackdown in Iran, I interviewed over 150 members of the Revolutionary Guard and Basij. Seventy-five percent of those I interviewed vehemently disagreed with the conservative turn in Iranian politics during the presidency of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Most wanted an easing of relations with the West.
Perhaps a split within the IRGC? Adroit maneuvering within the political mists of a country effectively several times older than the United States? It’s all quite interesting.
