New Video Confirms Long Reach of Guards in Politics

A video posted on YouTube on May 31 has reignited controversy in Iran about the circumstances surrounding the country’s contested 2009 presidential election. The five minute clip shows the Commander of the Revolutionary Guards, Mohammad Ali Jafari, saying in a private meeting that the return of reformists was an unacceptable “red line” that could not be crossed.

On Tuesday Ali Saeedi, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei's representative to the Revolutionary Guards claimed that clip has been taken out of context, but Wednesday another longer video, 19 minutes long, emerged on YouTube showing Saeedi speaking at the same meeting, alongside Jafari. The former conservative politician and journalist Mohammad Nourizad published both on this Facebook page.

In the clip which Ali Saeedi calls “private,” he provides a more accurate timeframe of when the meeting took place. In his speech he refers to the Supreme Leader’s sermon at the “last” Friday Prayers in which Khamenei noted a difference of opinion with former President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani over Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Khamenei delivered the sermon in question June 19, 2009 and as a result the meeting with the senior Revolutionary Guards’ commanders must have taken place on or around June 26^th.

In the video Saeedi emphasizes the necessity of absolute obedience to the Supreme Leader, and informs his audience that Khamenei is happy with the results of the election and adds that the victory of Ahmadinejad has made God happy, too. By declaring explicitly that Khamenei supported Ahmadinejad, he makes it clear that opposing Ahmadinejad meant opposing the Supreme Leader.

What makes this disclosures important is that Guards officials have repeatedly denied any involvement in the disputed election results of 2009, while their private remarks make clear they were pursuing a strict political outcome and openly discussing what result they could or could not accept, regardless of actual electoral results.

Another interesting point is that during the past three years Ali Saeedi has repeatedly expressed remorse for his past support of Ahmadinejad. After Ahmadinejad sulked and stayed home to protest in the spring of 2011 to protest Khamenei’s veto over a cabinet appointment, Saeedi became a vocal critic of Ahmadinejad. In an interview in October 2011 he said that he had no way to know beforehand that Ahmadinejad would turn out this way.

In the new video, Khamenei’s representative talks about the early history of Islam and the emergence of Shi`ism to criticize those who believe that religion must be separated from governance. In the past few years a hardline coalition called the Endurance Front has been the most vocal proponent of establishing a “pure Islam” and shunning the albeit limited provisions for democratic elections that the Iranian Constitution includes. Saeedi’s beliefs, as revealed by the video, are very close to this extremist group.

He argues that reformists oppose the principle that religion must rule the government and bemoans the fact that these groups can freely participate in political activities. He adds that even in the United States such freedom does not exist and that it must end in Iran as well.

Saeedi classifies as part of this opposition even some state institutions such as the Expediency Council, then chaired by former President Rafsanjani and its Strategic Studies Center which was headed by current president Hassan Rouhani. He also harshly criticizes some political groups that want to relax persecution of religious minorities such as Baha’is.

On the whole Saeedi’s remarks help us to understand the background to the current positions of the Revolutionary Guards against the government of President Rouhani and the deep gap that divides them.

Saeedi also complains that certain political figures publicly express their differences of opinion with Khamenei and declares that God has commanded that one must obey the leader in every sphere. He stresses that even in foreign policy once the leader declares his position no one has the right to publicly oppose him.

It seems that Saeedi expects colorful upheavals in Iran. He states in the video that as long as the situation is white or yellow, the Revolutionary Guards have nothing to worry about but if it moves towards orange or red then it is time worry.

He then makes it clear that the Revolutionary Guards have no intention of staying away from politics. The Guards have 10 million people in their various organization, he states, and they must organize them and bring order to the political arena.

At the end of his speech he complains that some commanders were nodding off as he was talking but jokes that “it encourages me that some people sleep comfortably even when I was talking with such intensity and passion.”