Iran Democracy Monitor: No. 96

IRAN'S BASIJIS GET YOUNGER
Iran's Basij domestic militia, already an influential force among Iranian teenagers and university students, is increasingly targeting a new demographic: schoolchildren. According to Mohammad Saleh Jokar, a leader in Iran's Student Basij, some 6,000 units of the domestic militia are being set up in Iran's elementary schools, with the intent of influencing students "at a young age." Some 4.5 million elementary and high school students are already part of the Basij, according to Jokar, but the new plan is expected to significantly expand those cadres as part of regime efforts to strengthen its grip on Iranian society in response to recent unrest. (Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, November 10, 2009)

IRGC TAKES CONTROL OF INTELLIGENCE...
In what could turn out to be its most far-reaching political coup to date, Iran's feared clerical army has successfully sidelined the country's official intelligence ministry. Sources say that hard-liners within the Iranian regime, worried over the trustworthiness of Iran's Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS) in the wake of this summer's domestic turmoil, have increasingly delegated intelligence authorities to the IRGC. In turn, the IRGC's previously small dedicated intelligence unit is now poised to grow into a much larger, official organization under the oversight and authority of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. (Wall Street Journal, November 12, 2009)

...AND PLANS ANTI-PSYOP COMMANDS
Iran's Revolutionary Guards will establish two new dedicated commands tasked with combating the "psychological operations of the enemy," a top official with the clerical army has said. According to deputy IRGC commander Masoud Jazaeri, the two "central" commands are part of preparations for a Western "soft war" onslaught. "[T]he cause for the enemy’s rise in soft operations is the planning for the big coup whose foundation has been laid years ago and which emerged during (the last) presidential elections, and the media are viewed as the key tools in the psychological operations of the enemy against the Islamic republic of Iran,” Jazaeri claims. (Tehran Rooz, November 12, 2009)

SHORING UP KHAMENEI'S SUPREMACY
The authority of Iran's Supreme Leader, the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, is divinely granted and cannot be challenged or negated, a leading military figure has asserted. In public comments before a university audience, Mojtaba Zanour, a representative of the Supreme Leader to the IRGC, made the claim that Khamenei is effectively above the law, and cannot be removed by the Assembly of Experts - the governmental body tasked with monitoring the Supreme Leader's performance - if the latter wanted to do so. The declaration appears to be an attempt by Khamenei's camp to head off challenges to the Supreme Leader's legitimacy amid widespread discontent on the Iranian street over his decision to back the controversial electoral win of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad this summer. (Reuters, November 14, 2009)

THUMBING THEIR NOSE AT GASOLINE SANCTIONS
Even as officials in Washington scramble to salvage the latest proposed nuclear deal, which the Iranian government accepted and subsequently rejected, Iranian policymakers are preparing for the prospect of sanctions targeting the regime's gasoline supply chain. Iran's Oil Minister, Massoud Mirzakemi, has announced government efforts to temporarily boost the production of gasoline by some 14 million liters daily. The objective of the effort is clear: "With this move we would like to show that the West can not use any limitations on selling gasoline to Iran as a tool against the Islamic Republic," Mirkazemi has told reporters. "Today, no new limitations, either from America or any other country, can be imposed against the Iranian nation." (Tel Aviv Ha'aretz, November 17, 2009)