Iran, What Regime?

On Monday, 15 February, the U.S. Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, described the Iranian regime as a quasi-military dictatorship. Although Mrs. Clinton, who is an accomplished academic (Yale), often adopts a professorial tone, she did not indulge in an academic lecture on the topology of political regimes that day. She spoke from Qatar, an emirate of the Arabo-Persian Gulf that has close ties to Iran. She was a stone’s throw away from the Islamic Republic. She delivered a warning, aimed particularly at the Revolutionary Guards, that the United States and its allies will take sanctions against Iran.

It is a praetorian army of some 125,000 men, not taking into account a network of militias, and is composed of ground, air and naval forces. It was formed in the aftermath of the Revolution of 1979 in order to secure the Islamic regime. According to Mrs. Clinton, its leaders are responsible for the Iranian nuclear program, a program that not a single expert doubts is in violation of the agreements signed by Tehran and that may have military purposes.

Since Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was first elected to the presidency in 2005, the Guards — to which he belonged — have not ceased to gain power. They are not only a military force. They are also an economic force: they control much of the country’s economic activity. They are a social force: they distribute a part of the oil revenue. They are also a police force, by means of their militias.

With Mr. Ahmadinejad, they have marginalized the traditional clergy. Then, with the semi-coup of June 2009, when Mr. Ahmadinejad declared his victory the day after a disputed presidential election, they shattered the system of checks and balances that characterized the Islamic Republic. In short, these Guards who arose during the war against Iraq (1980–1988), when Iran was alone and weak, have militarized and in some way, secularized the regime.

The leaders of this military-theocratic club hold to an ideology, described by French expert Frédéric Tellier as Islamo-populist or Islamo-facsist: a combination of political romanticism, technical rationality, cold fanaticism and unconditional devotion. Hyper-nationalists, they are poised to transform what was a hybrid Islamic system into a pure and simple military dictatorship.

They are doubtlessly divided and their coup has aroused the anger of many Iranians. In short, they have not yet succeeded.