With the end of the Iran-Iraq war and the death of Khomeini, the Sepah went through a degree of military professionalisation, marked by the promotion of a centralised and technologically advanced armed forces. This attempt to professionalise the armed forces was rendered incomplete by Supreme Leader Khamenei and the Traditional Conservatives, who viewed the Sepah and the security forces as a potential base of support for entrenching their seat of power and counterbalancing their pragmatist rivals. The reliance on mobilisational and security forces was reinforced by the fact that Khamenei did not have the unwavering authority and charisma of his predecessor Khomeini. The vacuum left by the loss of Khomeini’s commanding authority laid a fertile ground for elite factionalism amongst the erstwhile Khomeinist forces who were vying for power. While the Pragmatic Conservatives advocated the professionalisation of the Sepah and the revolutionary forces, their efforts were to an extent thwarted by the Traditional Conservative faction. In acknowledgement of their political importance in maintaining their predominance in the post-Khomeini status quo, the hardline-wing sought to prop up the Sepah’s prerogatives and expand the venues of operation for these revolutionary auxiliary forces.
In line with the move towards the de-revolutionalisation of the state, the post-Khomeini republic under the presidency of Rafsanjani (1989-1997) undertook several steps in order to bring the organisational make-up of the Sepah and their operations in line with classical military parameters – i.e., entrusted with the primary task of military defence and deterrence. The need for the professionalisation of the Sepah had already been realised towards the end of the war. As Rafsanjani, Khomeini’s acting Commander in Chief in 1988, pointed out:
This is one of the responsibilities of the Sepah Commanders to think and change their organisation into a military one, a completely military organisation. And it is the responsibility of the Sepah personnel to accept that. They should feel that they are a member of a serious military organisation. Training should be taken very seriously. I spoke earlier about the time when we were attacked.
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Well, with only a few hours’ preparation, the least one could do was to equip oneself with G3s and Kalashnikovs and to fire them.
However, that is not sufficient for us now. We should receive the most appropriate type of training. Now that you have an opportunity to do so, training should be taken seriously. The Sepah has had armoured units for some time. You have captured hundreds of tanks from your enemy and you have repaired and reconstructed many of them so that they are ready for action. You now have the capability for proper armoured forces (Daily Report Middle East, 1988).
Integral to Rafsanjani’s initiatives was a host of command changes that aimed to undermine the divisions within the military, improve efficiency, and combine the Sepah and Artesh leadership (Cordesman 1999, p. 33). These included the abolition of the Ministry of Sepah in the autumn of 1989 and the establishment of a Ministry of Defence and Armed Forces Logistics (MODAFL), in charge of planning, coordination and enhancing the military capability of the armed forces. The creation of MODAFL was an important step towards the coordination of the two wings of the armed forces. It served as a portfolio that combined the administrative apparatus of the Artesh and the Sepah. Moreover, the appointment of civilian technocrat Ali Torkan as the Minister of Defence and Armed Forces Logistics, with no ties to either Artesh or the Sepah, was supposed to be a step towards a unified Ministry of Defence, the revitalisation of the armed forces and the enhancement of the capability of the military-industrial complex (Cordesman 1999, p. 34; Ehteshami 1995, p 173).
In conjunction with these changes, there was a change to new uniforms and military ranks in the Sepah, similar to those of the regular armed forces, in 1989.
According to the director of the Sepah General Headquarters, the introduction of ranks was intended to guarantee the organisation of the Sepah would appropriately utilise its human capital and provide a suitable parameter for the advancement of its personnel and determination of the issue of payments and benefits (Payame Enqelab, 1990b, p. 40). The Sepah was to set out 21 ranks from soldier to general which, with the exception of one additional rank, all corresponded to identical ranks in the Artesh (Ibid, p. 40).
Connected to these professionalisation initiatives was Rafsanjani’s effort to depoliticise the Sepah. This was evident from Rafsanjani’s attempt to keep the
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Sepah’s extra-territorial endeavours under control while he reached out to Iran’s Arab neighbours across the Persian Gulf. In line with Iran’s neutral position in the 1991 Gulf War between Iraq and the United States, Rafsanjani’s administration undermined the interference of the Sepah and other revolutionary organisations in the conflict.
The professionalisation of the Sepah and its control of rogue operations, however, did not translate to its merging with the Artesh or, for that matter, its complete depoliticisation. For example, the Sepah retained its own independent organisational command and reported to the Supreme Leader independently of Rafsanjani. Still, in pursuance of its military power and influence as an interest group, the Sepah was able to convince Khamenei to assign to the Corps its own general headquarters in charge of coordinating the operations of its army, naval and air units. The Sepah also began to achieve tangible gains in the domestic arena, particularly the economy, due to Rafsanjani’s policy of economic liberalisation. To undermine the Sepah’s interference in politics and buy off its support, Rafsanjani supported the Corps’ involvement in post-war reconstruction and thereby its economic activity. The Sepah was encouraged to use its entrepreneurial expertise to contribute to the country’s industrial capacity and developmental projects, without much reliance on the government’s funds (Wehrey, et al., 2009, p. 56; Ansari, 2010, p.53). To this end, the government provided Sepah with a slice of oil rent as ‘seed money’ to carry out its economic ventures and generate its own earnings (Ansari, 2010). As previously noted, integral to the Sepah’s entry into economic activities was the Sepah’s engineering headquarters, Khatam al-Anbiya (Seal of the Prophet), also known as Ghorb. The Ghorb headquarters served as the nucleus of the Sepah’s engineering units and were mainly entrusted with reconstruction projects. According to Ali Reza Afshar, the one-time Commander of the Corps’ Joint Staff, by 1994 the Ghorb was in charge of 367 projects (Payame Enqelab, 1995, p. 16). This included the construction of the Karkhe Dam in the Southern province of Khuzestan, as well as a plethora of industrial projects that were meant to ensure the Sepah’s self-sufficiency and its responsiveness to the country’s industrial needs. In addition to these developmental and industrial ventures, the Sepah was reported to have been involved in the agricultural sector through the design and manufacture of agricultural machinery, albeit this enterprise was limited in scope (Ibid, 1995, p.16).
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In tandem with its entry into economic involvement, the Sepah began to entrench its widening privileges both in the military-security sphere and in diverse areas of Iranian social life in the new post-Khomeini social context. This was facilitated by the regime’s pretence of the ideological character of the Republic, as well as emerging power struggle amongst its political factions. On the one hand, the regime’s revolutionary ideology entailed a post-war policy that provided the Sepah and the Basij with the lion’s share of domestic functions in acknowledgement of their heroic sacrifice on the warfront. For example, the Basij was promoted to the Basij Resistance Force of the Sepah (Niru-ye Moqavemat-e Basij-e Sepah-e Pasdaran) (Payame Enqelab 1990a, p. 4) by the decree from the new Supreme Leader, Khamenei. According to the then-Commander of the Basij, General Ali Reza Afshar, the Basij in its new position retained its directorate in the Sepah General Headquarters. Within the Sepah General Headquarters, the Basij was to be mainly in charge of staff affairs and planning while it was granted access to all other administrative affairs, bases and resistance units. In addition to its military/security activities, the Basij was also employed as resistance units in cities to foster non-military defence across the country. Afshar also announced the formation of Basij units in different societal sectors with the help of government and executive agencies. The proposed Basij units were Clergy Basij, Student Basij, Worker Basij, Employee Basij, Women Basij and Tribal Basij (Payame Enqelab, 1990a, p. 4-5).
On the other hand, the ensuing factionalism between the Pragmatic Conservatives (led by Rafsanjani) and the Traditional Conservatives provided a further catalyst for the growing reach and influence of the Sepah and the Basij in the domestic sphere. Indeed, the Sepah and the Basij became an catalyst for factional struggle as the far right-wing, led by Traditional Conservatives, sought to sideline their Pragmatic Conservative counterparts on various domestic agendas. One of the major sources of contention which split Khamenei and his hardline Conservative allies from Rafsanjani and his supporters were differences over socio-cultural issues.
Shortly after Rafsanjani’s re-election in 1993, Khamenei, who did not wish to be relegated to the background of a factional dispute due to ideological proclivity and political calculations, began to consolidate his political and religious authority by countering Rafsanjani’s economic liberalisation reform measures and his lenient approach to socio-cultural issues (Cordesman, 1997, pp. 52-53; Moslem, 2002, pp.
200-202). Implicitly attacking Rafsanjani’s cultural lenience, Khamenei stated in
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October 1992 that ‘Some in the system [are] mocking the Hezbollah and their virtues, but if we spend billions on development projects and ignore moral issues in the country, all achievements amount to nothing’ (Etella ‘at, October 20, 1992;
quoted in Moslem 2002, p. 201). It was due to such statements that the Sepah’s auxiliary unit, the Basij, was assigned to defend revolutionary Islamic values within and throughout the public sphere. Simultaneously, the Traditional Conservatives in the Majles, led by the Society of Combatant Clergy (JRM), passed a law that brought the Basij into the cultural sphere at the same time that it allotted the Basij with internal security prerogatives mirroring those of the Law Enforcement Forces (LEF) (Ahram, 2011, p. 121). Under the legislation approved by the Majles in December 1992, the Basij Resistance Force was given an equal status with other executive officers of the Judiciary branch to operate within a legal capacity in dealing with criminals and suspects. The legislation also provided a legal mandate for the Basij to carry out its mobilisation efforts and establish resistance units in mosques, offices, factories and educational centres. By the same token, the aforementioned institutions and networks were required by law to cooperate with the Basij by providing facilities and assistance to the Basij Resistance Force (see Islamic Consultative Assembly, 1992).
If these measures were not enough, the Basij was further pushed to the foreground of internal security in the aftermath of the social unrest that erupted in the capital and a host of small cities, including Qazvin, in the early 1990s in protest against economic liberalisation measures. Given the reluctance of some Sepah units to deal with the riots forcefully, as seen in Qazvin, the Sepah saw it necessary to enhance its human capital by reorganising the Basij in two ways. First, the Basij was expanded to promote mass mobilisation, political patronage and ideological propagation, as various Basij cells were augmented in universities, factories and schools. Second, separate Basij units were created to provide the Sepah with additional auxiliaries dealing with social unrest. To this end, full time paramilitary units – the Ashura Battalion for men and the Zahra Battalion for women – were established, trained and equipped for riot control (Ahram, 2011, p. 121).
The increasing factional rivalry that came to the fore in the parliamentary elections of 1996 between the Pragmatic and Traditional camps of the Conservative faction reinforced the insertion of the Sepah and the Basij into the political conflict.
While the Pragmatic Conservatives were backed by Rafsanjani and the technocrats
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around him in the emerging Servant of Reconstruction party, the Traditional Conservatives sided with Khamenei and gathered around Conservative figures such as Ali Akbar Nateq-Nuri, the Speaker of the Majles and Major-General Mohsen Rezaei, the Commander-in-Chief of the Sepah (Cordesman, 1997, p. 55). Faced with the challenge stemming from the victory of several moderate candidates in the fifth parliamentary elections, the Commander-in-Chief of the Sepah warned that ‘ the Sepah will knock down the liberals and prevent them from entering Majles even if they were elected’ (Moslem 2002, p. 38). Eschewing the Pragmatists’ fairly good performance in the election results, the Speaker of the Majles, Nateq-Nuri, chastised the moderates for their conciliatory approach to foreign relations (Cordesman, 1997, p. 58). Moreover, the far right-wing majority in the Majles strengthened its efforts to rebuff the government through use of the Basij to attack what they viewed as the crest of liberalisation and reform. In doing so, they employed a network of mosques and a contingent of the Basij to crack down on and arrest men and women for wearing western clothing and improper wearing of the veil. This Basij campaign was supported by Mohsen Rezaei, who hinted that the Sepah should purge its opponents and restore its integrity (Ibid, 1997, p. 60).
This purge in the Sepah took place in parallel with the Corps’ ideological change of direction towards rising conservatism, over the course of its development during the past thirty years – i.e., since the end of the war and the death of Khomeini (as previously discussed in chapter 3). Following Ayatollah Montazeri’s dismissal as Khomeini’s heir, the Corps witnessed a further ideological shift towards the Conservative faction. In 1989, Montazeri criticised the regime for its violations of human rights, in particular the execution of thousands of political prisoners during the autumn of 1988 (Montazeri, 2001, pp. 343- 353). In reaction to Montazeri’s bold criticisms, Khomeini dismissed him. The episode paved the way for the departure and the purge of other Radical-leaning personnel who were affiliates of Montazeri.
The purge of Montazeri’s supporters, and other leftist members of the Corps and its affiliates in civilian institutions, reached a peak with the succession of Khamenei to the position of Supreme Leader and the presidency of Rafsanjani in 1989. In 1992, Khamenei appointed a new representative to the Sepah, Ayatollah Mohdavi Kermani. In his long tenure as representative to the Sepah, Mohdavi Kermani displayed a strong commitment to further purges in the Sepah. In line with these efforts, he stated in 2002 that the ‘representative of the Guardian Jurist must also
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supervise the entire body of this institution so there is no deviation in it’ (Sobhe Sadeq, 2002 cited in Alfoneh 2010).
Other than purging the remaining Radical cliques in the Sepah, the new leadership sought to undermine the Radical affiliates of the revolutionary organisations, including the Corps, in the Majles and the government. Following his election to the presidency, Rafsanjani dismissed several Radicals in the government.
Prominent among them was the Minister of the Interior, Ali Akbar Mohtashamipour, who was a former Ambassador to Syria and affiliate of the Sepah (see Brumberg, 2001, p. 155). In 1990 the Council of Experts, the body which is in charge of the selection and supervision of the Supreme Leader, changed its election laws to ensure the reign of Conservatives and the elimination of the Radicals in the Council of Leadership Experts. The new law made a candidate’s election to the Council of Leadership Experts conditional on their expertise in Islamic Jurisprudence. It also delegated to the Council of Guardians the responsibility for vetting candidates to the Assembly of Leadership Experts (Siavoshi, 1992, p.46; Moslem, 2002, pp. 156-157).
Given the predominance of the Conservatives in the Council of Guardians, several prominent members of the Radicals – in particular, their affiliates of the revolutionary organisations and the Sepah – were disqualified on the grounds of being unfit to run. These included Mohtashamipour and a former ‘hanging judge’ of the revolutionary court, Sadegh Khalkhali (Moslem, 2002, p. 159). In another measure to undermine the Left, the Council of Guardians, with the full backing of Khamenei and Rafsanjani, issued a new ruling which extended the role of the Council. According to the new ruling, other than its previous role in overseeing the proper conduct of elections, the Conservative-dominated Council of Guardians was entrusted with the power of vetting all candidates running for presidential and parliamentary elections (Brumberg, 2001, p. 173). This measure resulted in the disqualification of 40 Radical candidates, while the remaining eligible candidates of the Radical faction lost their seats to their Conservative counterparts in the electoral competition (Jamejam, 2012). These included Mehdi Karrubi, the former Speaker of Majles and former Head of the Martyr Foundation; Abbas Duzduzani, a leftist member of the first, second and third Majles and the one-time Commander of the Sepah; and Morteza Alviri, a member of the third Majles and the one-time Head of the Sepah’s public relations office (Ibid, February 2012).
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While Rafsanjani supported the elimination of the Radical factions who opposed his economic and foreign policy, he was later faced with a more powerful rival in the Traditional Conservative camp. Ironically, the political forces he once saw as allies came back to haunt him, targeting the president over a list of domestic policies and foreign policy issues. As discussed, with the rift between the traditional and modern Conservative camp growing, the latter began to use the Sepah as its partisan base, fearing the loss of its power to the emerging moderate bureaucrats aligned with Rafsanjani.