Iran Democracy Monitor: No. 104

FISSURES IN THE IRGC...
Is Iran’s feared clerical army becoming fractured by ideological divisions? General Mohammad Ali Jafari, the head of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, recently admitted that some members of the IRGC have indeed expressed sympathies for the “Green Movement,” the beleaguered democratic opposition to clerical rule that emerged in the aftermath of last summer’s fraudulent reelection of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to the Iranian presidency. But, Jafari has been quick to point out, efforts are now underway to rehabilitate – or “convince” – these troops, an approach that is better “than to physically deal with them and eliminate them." The level of dissent within the IRGC is still unknown, but Jafari’s admission marks the first time that an official has publicly acknowledged that at least some of the regime’s enforcers, who were used extensively to suppress the postelection unrest last years, have exhibited sympathies with their political opponents. (Radio Free Europe, July 26, 2010)

...AS IRAN’S CLERICAL ARMY ADJUSTS TO SANCTIONS
Intensifying international sanctions, meanwhile, are beginning to impact the IRGC’s sprawling – and lucrative – business dealings. Khatam al-Anbiya, the IRGC’s massive construction arm, has reportedly pulled out of a major domestic energy project amid worries over investor flight. "Khatam al-Anbiya Construction Headquarters entered construction areas to help Iran and its people," an official statement carried by the oil ministry’s news agency, Shana, said. But international pressure – and investor jitters over continued commercial dealings with the IRGC, a proscribed group under both U.S. and some European law – has led the group to reevaluate its participation in the development of Iran’s South Pars natural gas field. Instead, the Guards "intend to use their capabilities in other national projects.” (Platts, July 19, 2010)

WALLING OFF THE KURDS
Iraqi officials are protesting over Iran’s plan to erect a security wall in its northwestern Kurdish region, opposite Iraqi Kurdistan. According to Said Muttalibi, a member of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s ruling State of Law coalition, Iraq has not been officially notified of the planned Iranian project, which will erect security barriers along portions of Iran’s border with Iraq – and similar obstructions on the Turkish-Iranian, Iranian-Pakistani and Iranian-Afghan borders – at a cost of some $150 million. No official reason for the wall has been given, but the Islamic Republic faces a significant insurgent threat from the Kurdish separatist group PJAK, which is based in the Qandil mountains of northern Iraq. (Radio Free Europe, July 21, 2010)

IRAN’S TWO IRREGULAR WARS
Although its profile has diminished somewhat, the Islamic Republic continues to play a major, and destabilizing, role in post-Saddam Iraq, America’s top military official in the theater has warned. "The Iranians... continue to fund, train and provide weapons and ammunition to Shiite extremist groups," General Ray Odierno, commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, has told reporters in Baghdad. Specifically, Odierno highlighted Tehran’s support for three militias: Ketaib Hezbollah, Asaib Ahl al-Haq (the League of the Righteous), and the Promise Day Brigade. "It's very difficult to say if the extremist groups are directly connected to the Iranian government," Odierno elaborated. "But we do know that many of them live in Iran, many of them get trained in Iran, and many of them get weapons from Iran."

Nor is Iraq the only place where Iran is providing support to the insurgency. According to a number of documents released to selected news outlets by Internet clearinghouse Wikileaks, Iran is waging what amounts to a “covert campaign” against the U.S.-led Coalition in Afghanistan as well. The Iranian government, the documents posit, is providing funds, weapons and training to Taliban insurgents, and offering them safe haven from Coalition operations. “Iran has taken a series of steps to expand and deepen its influence in Afghanistan” by paying off Afghan parliamentarians and marginalizing reformist government ministers in the Karzai government, lays out one of the documents – a secret cable from the U.S. embassy in Kabul, citing sources in the Afghan government. (Agence France Presse, July 21 and 26, 2010)