This draft article will appear Association of Former Intelligence Officers

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Iran’s Intelligence Establishment

Carl Anthony Wege

Introduction
Iran’s 1979 revolution, one of the major events of the twentieth century led by Grand
Ayatolla Ruhollah Mostafavi Moosavi Khomeini, established a new form of government
-- the Vilayat-e Faqih or “Guardianship of the Islamic Jurists.” Built on the Twelver
(Ithna-Ashari) Shi’a claim that any government outside that of the hidden Imam was
illegitimate, 1 the innovation of Khomeini’s revolution was that Shi’a religious
authorities began, for the first time in Iranian history, to govern directly through the
Vilayat-e Faqih. 2
Iran, or Persia as it was historically known, is a multiethnic country of 80 million people
whose Farsi speaking Persian (and Azeri) populations dominate the government and

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are geographically concentrated in the central Iranian plateau. Modern Iran
incorporates additional ethnic groups, including Turks, Kurds, Lurs, and Arabs who
constitute a significant portion of the population and mostly live around the periphery
of that central plateau. This center-periphery division, generally along ethnic lines, is
the most significant cultural feature characterizing modern Iran’s national state. 3 The
potential for these minorities living along the periphery of the country to be exploited
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by Iran’s enemies is one of the major concerns of the country’s security services.
The objectives of Iran’s security services are not dissimilar from those of neighboring
states. Many of the Arab dictatorships in the Middle East have been called mukhābarāt
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states to convey the idea that they are built on multiple security agencies whose
primary purpose is to protect the regime from internal dissent. A multiplicity of
agencies prevents any concentration of power that could precipitate an anti-regime
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coup. Iran, while not an Arab state, has engaged its many security agencies for the same
objective. Politically Tehran’s Vilayat-e Faqih government incorporates a complex intra-
Iranian matrix of relationships between clerics, the bonyad (economic power centers),

1. As Shi’as believe the twelfth Imam, Muhammad al Mahdi, was hidden from the world by divine intervention
in 874 AD and his return will usher in the day of Judgment. The Shi’a community also includes Zaydis or
fivers who claim five true Imams and Seveners or Ismailis who now live primarily in an arc from Central Asia
and Afghanistan to Western China. Iran’s 16th century Safavid dynasty disguised tensions between historic
Persian ideas of divine Kingship and Twelver Shi’a concepts of legitimate governance solely through the
hidden Imam by asserting that the Shah and associated institutions derived their authority from Allah during
the time of the Imam’s hiding. The 17th century creation of the office of Mullabashi (chief mullah) precipitated
ongoing contention between religious and secular power in Iran. See Roger M. Savory, "The Problem of
Sovereignty in an Ithna Ashari ("Twelver") Shi'i State," in Religion and Politics in the Middle East. Michael
Curtis ed., Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, 1981, p 135-7 and Heinz Halm, Shi’ism, New York: Comubia
University Press, 1987, p 81.
2. Azar Tabari, "The Role of the Clergy in Modern Iranian Politics," in Religion And Politics In Iran, Nikki R.
Keddie ed., New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1983, p 72.
3. “Iran’s lurking enemy within,” Asia Times, January 8, 2006.

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the Revolutionary Guard (IRGC, Pasdaran or Pasdan-e Inqilal-e Islami) and other
Iranian security organs, which compete for influence in an ever-changing constellation
of conflicting interactions. The various nodes of this matrix, all carefully watched by the
security organs, make a successful coup unlikely.

Iran’s National Security Establishment

The apex of Iran’s national security establishment is the Supreme National Security
Council (SNSC) roughly similar in concept to the U.S. National Security Council in that
the organizational intent is to aggregate policymakers with the heads of the security
organs and the armed forces. Iran’s SNSC then brings together the heads of the regular
military, foreign affairs and political leadership and includes the heads of the Ministry
of Interior, the Minister of Intelligence and Security, and the chief of the Revolutionary
Guards.

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Like all governments Iran is adapting to the increasing importance of national
information infrastructures. Tehran has established a variety of bodies to manage
various security aspects of this emergent cyber domain. The evolving security organs
have nodes spread across multiple institutions. Two “cyber war” centers for example
exist in Tehran and operate under the tutelage of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards.
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Offensively the Revolutionary Guards support a variety of Iranian “hacker”
organizations like the Iran Cyber Army that are little more than unofficial affiliates of the
Guards. These unofficial affiliates coordinate operations with Cyber Hezbollah and the
Syrian Electronic Army generally targeting dissident groups as well as the information
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infrastructure of enemy countries. 4 There is a Basiji Cyber Council with minimal security
responsibilities but more than a thousand personnel who create and post regime
friendly content across multiple public cyberspace venues. 5 Iran created a Cyber Defense
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Command (Gharargah-e Defa-e Saiberi) in 2010 under the Artesh (armed forces)
Passive Defense Organization. This is a kind of Iranian civil defense program with
responsibility to help defend the nation in time of war. The Cyber Defense Command as
part of that Passive Defense was tasked with defending Iran’s information
infrastructure. A cyber police organization (FATA) began in 2011 to target internet
crime and suppress online dissent. Within a couple of years FATA had established a
presence in all thirty-one provinces and fifty-six cities across Iran. FATA is distinct from
the National Police Organization (NAJA), and one of FATA’s primary objectives is to
reduce or eliminate anonymous access to the internet. In furthering that objective the

4. Olivier Danino ,“Cyber Capabilities of Israel and Iran: Clash Seen In A new Light” Institute for European
Research February 26, 2013 http://www.medea.be/2013/02/les-capacites-cybernetiques-disrael-et-de-
liran-un-affrontement-vu-sous-un-nouvel-angle/ The assassination of Mojtaba Ahmadi commanding the
IRGC cyber war centers in Tehran in 2013 indicates Iran’s cyber war capacity is now taken seriously by
regional powers.
5. The Basiji are defined as “Mobilization of the Oppressed” (Basij-e Mostaz'afin or Basiji) discussed later.

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FATA are promoting a new biometric ID card that Iranians would need to access the
internet. In 2012 a Supreme Council of Cyberspace (Shora-ye Ali-ye Fazo-ye Majazl) was
decreed by Iran’s second supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, and is to coordinate Iranian
governmental agencies with security related cyber responsibilities. 6
Iran’s Ministry of Interior plays a somewhat ancillary role in Tehran’s security
architecture controlling ordinary crime as well as suppressing political dissent. It
includes Iran’s Law Enforcement Forces (Niruha-ye Entezami-ye Jomhuri-ye Islami)
created in 1991 to incorporate urban police, the rural gendarmerie and various
revolutionary committees. This includes the national police force called the Islamic
Republic Police Force (Niruyih Intizamiyih Jumhuriyih Islamiyih Iran or NAJA). A decade
ago a number of informal groups made up of personnel from multiple security
organizations were aggregated into ad hoc security bodies that operated during the
Presidency of Mohammad Khatami (1997 – 2004). These organizations were referred
to as a Parallel Intelligence Apparatus (Nahadhayih ittia’tiyih muvazi). They were

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anchored in an “off the books” conspiracy between the Revolutionary Guards and the
Judiciary. These ad hoc entities were usually described as plainclothes police who
operated at the behest of political conservatives opposed to the reformist ideas of
Khatami. They apparently acted with the approval of Supreme Leader Khamenei and
established a limited system of secret prisons to detain reformist intellectuals. 7 With
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the presidency of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in 2005 these ad hoc secret police forces
devolved back into their formal parent organizations. However such ad hoc secret
police forces could, no doubt, be reconstituted to work with the Islamic Republic Police
Forces if conditions warranted.
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Iran’s post-revolutionary intelligence establishment developed on the foundation of both

the Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS) sometimes called VAVAK (Vezarat-e
Ettela'at va Amniyat-e Keshvar) and the Revolutionary Guard Corps. In keeping with the
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vision of the Vilayat-e Faqih every Minister of Intelligence since the revolution has been a
religious authority rather than a technocrat. 8 The MOIS functions more as an Executive
body than a traditional Ministry reporting directly to the Supreme Leader of the Islamic

6. LTC Eric K. Shafa “Iran's Emergence as a Cyber Power,” Strategic Studies Institute, August 20, 2014
http://www.strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil/index.cfm/articles/Irans-emergence-as-cyber-
power/2014/08/20n
7. “Covert Terror: Iran’s Parallel Intelligence Apparatus,” Human Rights Documentation Center, New
Haven, Connecticut, April 2009.
8. “Iran’s Clerical Spymasters,” Asia Times July 21, 2007. Likewise there is what amounts to a ‘commissar
system’ of clergy in every entity of governance who report directly to the Supreme Leader. It is also
relevant that much of the leadership in MOIS have attended the Madrase-ye Haqqani theological school
in Qom. See also Wilfred Buchta Who Rules Iran, Washington, DC: Washington Institute of Near East
Policy and Konrad Adenauer Stifung, 2000, p 166. The Haqqani school itself was founded by the
Hojjatieh, a semi-secret anti-Sunni society that technically rejects the Velayat-e Faqih of post-
revolutionary Iran. See “Shi’ite Supremacists Emerge from Iran’s Shadows,” AsiaTimes September 9,
2005.

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Republic (Ali Hosseini Khamenei). 9

Security Organizations
The strength of Iran’s intelligence and security organizations is built on the twin pillars
of the Ministry of Intelligence and Security and the Revolutionary Guard.
The Ministry of Intelligence and Security or VAVAK 10 was created in 1984 as the
successor organization to SAVAMA. 11 One of the first actions of VAVAK was to institute
a system of regional centers across Iran in the 1980s as the Khomeini government
consolidated the Revolution. 12 Iran’s intelligence services, maturing in the 1990s,
established relationships with foreign services and most importantly with the Russian
Foreign Intelligence Service (Sluzhba Vneshnei Razvedki or SVR). The SVR trained
hundreds of Iranian intelligence personnel and were allowed to station Russian

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personnel on Iranian soil. In addition to the traditional intelligence skill sets, the SVR
trained MOIS personnel in the old KGB methods of disinformation, which the MOIS calls
Nefaq (an Arabic, not Farsi, word for “discord” or “hypocrisy”). 13 The French Centre for
Research on Intelligence estimates the MOIS staff numbers roughly 15,000 with several
thousand deployed outside the country covertly or under cover of official Iranian
organizations, including charities and cultural centers, in addition to the local
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embassy. 14 VAVAK officers who are assigned to a local Iranian Embassy typically serve
three to five year terms. 15 In the early 21st century the major VAVAK training sites in
Tehran and Qom were supported by recruitment at noted academic institutions such as
Imam Mohammed Bagher University in Tehran. Structurally VAVAK was not dissimilar
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to many intelligence agencies, it contained about a dozen separate directorates

although VAVAK had three with direct responsibility for terrorist operations. 16 The
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9. Khamenei appears to be coming to the end of his life, which will likely place the security organizations
in the position of refereeing the transition to a new Supreme Leader.

10. The acronyms MOIS and VAVAK can be used interchangeably as they refer to the same
organization.
11. SAVAMA (Ministry of Intelligence and National Security or Sazman-e Ettela'at Va Amniat-e Melli-e)
was a transitional organization between the SAVAK secret police organization of the pre-revolutionary
government of the Shah of Iran and the MOIS.
12. Intelligence Newsletter, No. 286, April 18, 1996.
13. “Special Report: Iranian Intelligence Regime Preservation,” Stratfor June 21, 2010, p 7.
14. “The Iranian Intelligence Services,” 5 January 2010 Note For News No. 200, French Centre for
Research on Intelligence, Paris www.cf2r.org.
15. Precision in this sort of thing is always problematic due to everything from definitional differences
respecting what constitutes a Ministry employee to active disinformation efforts on the part of the Ministry.
16. A Directorate of Overseas Affairs was responsible for MOIS branches abroad with special emphasis
on operations against the Peoples Mujahidin Organization. (The Peoples Mujahidin Organization is a
Marxist organization founded in 1965 and dedicated to the overthrow of the Islamic Republic. Although
considered a terrorist organization by the United States it has nonetheless provided apparently accurate
information on Iran’s nuclear program.) A Directorate of Foreign Intelligence and Liberation Movements
participated in typical foreign espionage operations. A Directorate for Security ostensibly engaged in

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organizational matrix of VAVAK also incorporated entities with focus on: Analysis and
Strategy, Homeland Security (protecting state institutions), National Security
(responsible for monitoring overseas opposition movements), Counterintelligence, and
Foreign Intelligence (with analytical departments and geographic regional divisions). 17
Domestically MOIS has responsibility to monitor Iran’s ethnic minorities, particularly
on the periphery of the country, and externally MOIS is tasked to neutralize Iranian
expatriate dissident organizations. 18 A competition of sorts has developed between
MOIS and the Revolutionary Guard with the Guards slowly becoming the more
dominant organization.
The second pillar of Iran’s intelligence and security organizations then is the Revolutionary
Guard, which first attained the status of an independent Ministry in 1982 and has evolved
into a Praetorian Guard constituting the backbone of the Islamic Republic. 19 In 2005 the
Oghab 2 (Eagle 2) organization, headed by Ahmad Wahidi, was created under the
Revolutionary Guards to defend Iran’s nuclear program. The organization, while under the

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Guard, appears to report to the MOIS Counterintelligence Directorate and has several
thousand employees tasked with protecting various aspects of the nuclear program. 20 This
kind of lateral reporting line where a subsidiary agency of one organization reports to a
subsidiary agency of another organization occurs with some regularity in Iran’s security
enterprise. The operational scope of Oghab2 is fairly wide given the need to protect senior
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scientists and engineers, industrial equipment across the nuclear program and now the
cyber domain of information networks supporting the program.
The Revolutionary Guards Quds Force, now commanded by Hossein Hamadani,
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internal security but was primarily responsible for overseas assassinations of regime opponents.
(Intelligence Newsletter, No. 286, April 18, 1996.) (“MOIS Structure,” February 28, 2006
www.iranterror.com/content/view/176/66 .)
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17. “The Iranian Intelligence Services,” 5 January 2010 Note For News No. 200, French Centre for
Research on Intelligence, Paris www.cf2r.org.
18. “Special Report: Iranian Intelligence Regime Preservation” Stratfor June 21, 2010, 7. Several distinct
MOIS bodies recruit candidates for operations in the Gulf, Yemen and Sudan, Lebanon and Palestine,
North Africa, Europe, South Asia and the Far East, North America, and Latin America. See “Insight: Iran-
MOIS/IRGC structure and operations,” Global Intelligence Files, Wikileaks, March 17, 2010,
https://wikileaks.org/gifiles/docs/96/96828_insight-iran-mois-irgc-structure-and-operations-.html
19. The IRGC is now essentially a state within a state responsible for Iran’s nuclear weapons and ballistic
missile programs as well as maintaining a military structure that parallels the regular armed forces
(Artesh). Like the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) the IRGC now also controls large swaths of
Iran’s economy. A lesser-known responsibility of the IRGC is to manage a suspected biological weapons
program including the Revolutionary Guards Baqiyatollah Research Center and the Queshm Island
Persian Gulf Marine Biotechnology Research Centre. See “Revolutionary Guards Baqiyatollah Research
Center” Iran Watch January 26, 2004 http://www.iranwatch.org/iranian-entities/revolutionary-guards-
baqiyatollah-research-center See also “Mapping Iran's Biological Warfare Complex” The biological
Warfare Blog: Black Six, http://bio-defencewarfareanalyst.blogspot.com/2014/05/mapping-irans-
biological-warfare-complex.html. May 12, 2014.
20. “Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security: A Profile,” Library of Congress under an Interagency
Agreement with the Combating Terrorism Technical Support Office’s Irregular Warfare Support Program,
December 2012, p 34.

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incorporates its own security apparatus with responsibilities for both intelligence
gathering and covert actions outside Iran. 21 Following the near uprising over Iran’s
fraudulent elections in 2009 the Khamenei government reorganized a number of security
organizations including several associated with the IRGC. Khamenei decreed creation of a
new organization, called the Intelligence Organization of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard
Corps. Since the only immediate source of qualified intelligence officers would be from the
management of sister organizations there is a certain amount of “hat changing” mitigating
the significance of the new agency. The IRGC Intelligence Organization is now headed by
Hojjatoleslam Hossein Taeb with Hojjatoleslam Gholamhossein Ramezani as his
counterintelligence chief. 22 Taeb’s organization is headquartered at Qasr-e Firouzeh in
Kamali near Tehran. Taeb’s IRGC Intelligence Organization also commands the Internal
Security Directorate at MOIS and the security apparatus of the Basiji. It has authority over
Khamenei’s Department 101, which acts as a special intelligence unit within MOIS and is
tasked with coordinating some intelligence activities between MOIS and the IRGC

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Intelligence Organization. 23 Taeb’s role here illustrates a characteristic of Iran’s intelligence
architecture with reporting lines sometimes laterally crossing agency jurisdiction. This
obscures the observer’s view of the functional relationships between Iranian intelligence
bodies and thereby enhances their security. It also facilitates those bodies watching each
other mitigating the risk of a coup against the state.
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Separately the larger Quds Special Operations Forces numbering several thousand serves
in Lebanon, Iraq, Syria, Bosnia, Sudan and elsewhere. The infrastructure the Guard creates
for these operations can last for years. A decade ago for example, Quds Ramazan
(Ramadan) Corps (subdivided into Nasr, Zafar, and Fajr commands) operated against US
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and coalition forces in Iraq, but now that infrastructure can be enhanced to fight the Islamic
State that has emerged under Caliph Ibrahim and which threatens both Iran and its
interests in Shi’a dominated Iraq. 24
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Iran’s national ambition to dominate the Middle East has also led the IRGC Quds Special
Operations Forces to cooperate with a variety of Sunni extremist organizations that further
that ambition. Part of this cooperation involves utilizing an IRGC controlled system of
terrorist training camps within Iran to train and influence proxy organizations that can be
deployed in Iran’s cause. This system of camps was fashioned quite early in the Islamic
Republic and has trained both Sunni and Shi’a fighters who support Iran’s foreign policy
goals and continues to this day. Regular groups of Sunni Hamas activists from the Gaza
strip, for example, continue to cycle through the Iranian camp system. 25 Iran’s camp system

21. Wilfred Buchta, Who Rules Iran? Washington, DC: Washington Institute for Near East Policy, 2000, p
69. The Quds Force was commanded by Qassem Suleimani from 1998 until 2014.
22 Taeb studied jurisprudence in Qom and Mashhad and was on the faculty at Imam Hossein University.
He also briefly served as espionage chief in MOIS.
23 “Iran exile group: Khamenei tightens intelligence grip,” Reuters, November 12, 2009.
24. Bill Roggio, “Iran’s Ramazan Corps and the ratlines into Iraq,” The Long War Journal December 5,
2007 www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2007/12/irans_ramazan_corps.php.
25. “Iran’s al-Quds octopus spreads its arms,” Jerusalem Post October 27, 2008.

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was configured to support different terrorist organizations and has been developed to
focus on differentiated skill sets. In Qom, for example, the Fatah Ghani Husseini camp was
used primarily by Turkish Islamists, while in Qasvim the Abyek camp was used for terrorist
training in political assassination. Thousands of trainees have now passed through this
system with about ten percent selected for more extensive training. 26 Virtually all of these
foreign terrorist trainees should be considered as potential proxy actors for the IRGC.
These camps are considerably more substantial than the Western image of terrorist
training camps such as those that had been maintained by various Palestinian factions in
Lebanon or what had been available in Libya or Syria thirty years ago. Externally the
Revolutionary Guard tries to exploit Yemen’s rebel Houthi clan and runs networks in
Venezuela and Bolivia as well as throughout sub-Saharan Africa where it typically relies on
Hezbollah to influence the local expatriate Lebanese Community. 27 This gives the IRGC an
international network, separate from that of VAVAK, for operations and to project Iran’s
power.

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Ancillary organizations under the command of the Revolutionary Guard and used to
protect the Khameini regime from domestic dissent includes the Mobilization of the
Oppressed (Basij-e Mostaz'afin or Basiji) militias. The Basiji militia were placed under
command of the IRDC after 2008 are generally poorly educated and uniformly drawn from
rural areas. 28 A similar organization, the Helpers of God (Ansar e-Hezbollah), sometimes
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cooperates with the Basiji. These became the blunt instrument of suppression used on the
streets in large numbers and physically beat anti-government protesters in Iran’s urban
centers. 29
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Conclusions
Internally both VAVAK and the IRGC are most active on the periphery of Iran’s national
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borders. VAVAK and the IRGC, for example, have developed a deep understanding of
Salafi terrorist networks they have engaged in Afghanistan and Pakistan over the last

26. “Iran builds up network of terror schools,” Electronic Telegraph, July 8, 1996. Additional camps have
included the Nahavand camp in Hamadan for Lebanon’s Hizballah, the Imam Ali camp in east Tehran,
which is the largest camp and used by Saudi opposition groups. Iranian exile groups have also named
Bahonar Barracks, Mostafa Kohomeini Barracks, Ghayoor Asli Barracks, Imam Sadegh Camp, Korreit
Camp, Lavizan and Abyek training centers, etc. See “Terrorist Training by The Quds Force and the
VEVAK,” February 28, 2006, www.iranterror.com,.
27. “Iran’s Special Services Under Fire,” January 9, 2012 Note For News No. 284, French Centre for
Research on Intelligence, Paris, www.cf2r.org
28. The three main branches of the Basiji include the Ashoura and al-Zahra Brigades, which function as
glorified neighborhood watches, the Imam Hossein Brigade, which can handle more serious matters as
most of its members are war veterans, and the Imam Ali Brigades, which can also be used for more
serious security threats. See Ali Alfoneh “The Basij Resistance Force,” Iran Primer, U.S. Institute of
Peace, undated, http://iranprimer.usip.org/resource/basij-resistance-force
29. This Basiji along with the Ansar e-Hezbollah ultimately crushed opponents of the 2009 election
results.

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two decades. 30 Likewise both have extensive networks in Iraq and Syria where the
flames of civil war are burning hot enough to threaten Khamenei’s house. VAVAK also
operates a large station in Amman, Jordan, which, along with Dubai, is becoming the
Vienna of the Near East.
The Revolutionary Guard and VAVAK now appear to be sharing parallel intelligence and
security functions, with the Revolutionary Guard shouldering a greater share of
responsibility. These parallel responsibilities allow the Khamenei regime to create a
lattice tying these agencies together while using each organization to check the other
lessening the chance of a successful coup against the Vilayat-e Faqih. This veil of
unknowing obscures organizational structure and function of Iran’s intelligence
agencies from outside observers, shielding the regimes enforcers with a cloak of
anonymity.
In the long run it is post 18th century European Enlightenment style modernity itself

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which is the real threat to Iran and other Islamist governments. The ability to isolate a
creative and educated population from the larger world and new ideas inevitably
crashes on the shoals of reality. Economic and social globalization is not moving toward
a worldwide Islamic Revolution. It is moving decisively away from it. Khomeini's
majestic vision of an unfolding Shi’a Revolution has now deteriorated into the merely
profane. Iran’s security organs can protect the Vilayat-e Faqih for a while. They cannot
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however halt a progressively unifying world.

Readings for Instructors

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Graham E. Fuller. The Center of the Universe: The Geopolitics of Iran. Boulder, San Francisco,
Oxford: Westview Press, 1991.
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David E. Thaler, Nader Alirez, Shahram Chubin, Jerrold D. Green, Charlotte Lynch, and
Frederic Wehrey. “Mullahs, Guards, and Bonyads: An Exploration of Iranian Leadership
Dynamics.” RAND National Defense Research Institute Intelligence Policy Center, 2010.
Frederic Wehrey, , Jerold D. Green, Brian Nichiporuk, Alireza Nader, Lydia Hansell, Rasool
Nafisi, S.R. Bohandy. The Rise of the Pasdaran. RAND National Defense Research Institute
Intelligence Policy Center, 2010.
“Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security: A Profile,” Library of Congress under an
Interagency Agreement with the Combating Terrorism Technical Support Office’s Irregular
Warfare Support Program, December 2012. Available at
http://fas.org/irp/world/iran/mois-loc.pdf.
James A.Bill, and Carl Leiden. Politics Middle East. Boston and Toronto: Little, Brown, and

30. “The Iranian Intelligence Services and the War on Terror” in The Jamestown Foundation’s Terrorism
Monitor, Volume 2 (10), May 19, 2004.

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Company, 1984.
Buchta, Wilfred. Who Rules Iran? Washington, DC: Washington Institute of Near East Policy
and Konrad Adenauer Stifung 2000.
Nikki R. Keddie, ed., Religion And Politics In Iran, New Haven and London: Yale University
Press, 1983.
Kenneth Katzman. Warriors of Islam: Iran's Revolutionary Guard. Boulder and London:
Westview Press, 1993.
Carl A. Wege, “Iranian Intelligence Organizations” in Intelligence Elsewhere, Philip H. Davies
and Kristian C. Gustafson eds., Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 2013.

Author

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Carl A. Wege is a Professor of Political Science at the College of Coastal Georgia. He has
traveled in Asia, Latin America, Africa, and Israel and published a variety of articles
discussing terrorism and security relationships involving Hezbollah, Syria, and Iran. His full
publication record is available on LinkedIn. [email protected]
A
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