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Coercive Economic Sanctions and the Expansion of Organised Oligarchical Activities: The IRGC Network

July 29, 2022
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In the aftermath of the Islamic Revolution in 1979, Iran has been under consecutive comprehensive economic sanctions by the United States and to an extent by the international community. Sanctions in which were designed by the U.S. to politically and economically isolate Iran from the rest of the world in order to use that isolation as a negotiation leverage and possibly a path towards a regime change. A political dream that the United States has been following for the past forty-four years. In the meantime, when the international community was united in imposing economic pressure on Iran, Iran began to design its own self-sufficient network to support the notion of ‘economic resistance’ against these sanctions. In the past forty years, Iran’s self-sufficient resisting network have been expanding and evolving as the United States’ sanctions were becoming more comprehensive. Islamic Revolution Guard Corps – IRGC as a military organisation and a part of Iran’s initial security structure after the revolution began to participate further into financial, industrial, and trade relations both domestically and internationally. Hence a gradual evolution occurred in the essence of this organisation. Establishing new banks, financial institutions, transport facilities, ports, and thousands of smaller subsidiary companies in different fields were just a portion of this evolution. A military organisation which was solely responsible for the security maintenance of the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khomeini, has now become a political, economic, financial, and social source of power driving Iran’s self-sufficient economic resistance mechanism. A multidimensional structure in which allows organised oligarchical activities to grow and accommodate. Activities that might not necessarily be legal under implications of the international customary law.

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Source: Reuters

The Islamic Revolution Guard Corps as an evolving security and military organisation has developed an embedded network amongst military, financial, and economic sectors of Iran and other regional states. A pragmatic network to secure Islamic Republic of Iran’s interest and implement the policy of economic resistance against international sanctions. This paper argues that the isolated atmosphere of Iran’s economy caused by U.S. and international comprehensive sanctions has inevitably prepared the grounds for the development of such oligarchic body, which is parallelly controlling the economy and the security of the state. A comprehensive control over state’s domestic and foreign affairs that in some cases can organise institutional crime and corruption in favour of individuals. In order to deflect responsibility and maintain the full control over these activities at the same time, the IRGC established new subsidiary organisations and smaller companies to run the business. In addition to that, the state also began to provide the IRGC with experts, scientists, tradesmen, and logistics to consolidate its oligarchic economic hegemony in the country and more abroad into the region. An oligarchy supported by the state which has been designed to reduce the number of external players in Iran’s economy, capture and control the main sources of income, develop new industries for self-sufficiency agenda of the state, and deflecting the negative impacts of coercive U.S. and international sanctions.

This strategy has been gradually employed by the Islamic Republic of Iran and the IRGC for the past four decades and allowed the state and the people to resist against economic terrorism of the United States. Although these strategies have not always been legally explainable according to the international customary law, the state was able to maintain a minimum living standard for its middle-class population, financially support the lower class, and show economic progress at some stage, whereas Syria, Venezuela, North Korea, Libya and many other sanctioned states in similar case studies faced total economic destruction with a significantly lower number of sanctions. Hence, the economic resistance of the Islamic Republic of Iran has been a rare and unpredictable resistance for the past four decades. A resistance in which the IRGC played a vital role. Nevertheless, in addition to its positive impact on the notion of economic resistance and the progress of the country, the concentration of power, money, and politics in one single organisation has inevitably encouraged corruption and organised crimes within the structure of this organisation. To understand the above-mentioned strategies and the essence of these activities, this paper must first look at the origin, the organisational structure, and the evolution of the IR Guard Corps.

The IRGC

The Islamic Revolution Guard Corps is a paramilitary group which was organised right after the Iranian Revolution for the protection of Ayatollah Khomeini, the Supreme Leader of the revolution. As a newly established system, the state must have had an independent security measure in addition to the national army to prevent any possibility of a coup d’état by forces potentially loyal to the Shah. Established in May 1979 under the direct order of Ayatollah Khomeini, the IRGC as an initially small paramilitary group integrates into the structure of the Islamic Republic. In 1980, after the ignition of tensions between Iran and Iraq and the breakout of an all-out war, the IRGC took as an opportunity to obtain more battlefield experience; expand its number of forces through revolutionary volunteers; develop its military capabilities, build its strategic infrastructures, and receive more logistical support from the state and the national army. Amid the war with Iraq, the IRGC and the National Army were competing for holding state’s main source of military power. However, due to social linkages between the National Army and the imperial regime of Shah, the IRGC became a more popular source of power amongst the society in which resulted large number of volunteers joining the organisation.[1] Nonetheless, the social popularity did not last long for the IRGC due to inexperienced mismanagement during the war, which costed many lives for the Iranian reserve and volunteer forces.

Despite IRGC’s social unpopularity, the state remained in full support of the Guard Corps to secure and retain the position of the revolution, resist against external pressure, and deflect potential threats. Hence, the over investment of the state on the IRGC provided this organisation with a significant political, social, military, and economic capabilities, whereas concentration of all these powers in one organisation can cause corruption, although such investment was also required by the state to exploit the isolated economic atmosphere of the state to employ its resisting strategies against coercive sanction mechanisms. Thus, it can be argued that the Islamic Revolution and the Guard Corps had a binary existence relation, where each support the other in order to survive and succeed.[2] Therefore, in order to have the ability to withstand shocks and be resilient against international coercive sanctions, the state and the IRGC must have found a mutual way to go around this pressure mechanism.[3] Seeing that, in order to deflect the negative impacts of coercive sanctions and maintain its strategic power, the IRGC was inevitably dragged into organising activities, which were not necessarily legal, including a wide variety of organised activities such as oil smuggling, money laundering, arms dealing, and supporting different militias around the region.[4] Consequently, IRGC’s sphere of influence and the variety of activities began to rise as Iran was developing as a revolutionary, regional hegemon. To facilitate the expansion, the IRGC started to build new military, trade, construction, financial, and social networks to support this multidimensional organisation in its over-extension across the region. An oligarchical network exploited by the IRGC in the isolated atmosphere of the state.

The Organising Network

Every organisation with extensive foreign policy must have a number of alternative sources of income. Soon after the revolution, the IRGC as a military organisation dependent on a limited budget from the state found itself financially fragile. Solely relying on the state would not have facilitated this organisation to develop its network beyond Iran’s national borders. In the 1990s, two years after the end of the Iran–Iraq war and under President Rafsanjani’s agendas for rebuilding the industry and economic infrastructures, the IRGC found a perfect opportunity in expanding its economic potential.[5] By the end of 1991, the IRGC with the collaboration of the state established Khatam al-Anbia’s headquarter in Tehran. ‘Khatam al-Anbia’ is a construction organisation attributed with civil projects, reconstruction plans, and financial agendas to assist the state in liberalisation of its economy. Soon after the establishment of this headquarter in Tehran, the IRGC began to build new networks within other major financial organisations affiliated with the state. ‘Setad-e-Ejraei’ and ‘Bonyad-e-Shahid’ are the two other financial actors in Iran driving major chambers in Iran’s resisting economy that the IRGC was able to connect with.[6] A triangle of financial support which facilitated and empowered the IRGC to expand its spheres of influence both domestically and abroad.

Moving on to Ahmadinejad’s eight years of Presidency and an era with a more comprehensive set of international coercive sanctions imposed on Iran, the Iranian economy found itself even more isolated and fragile than the previous two decades. The private sector was faced with international monetary and logistic barriers, while the public sector did not have the expertise, network, and the knowledge to continue the routine trading relations with the West. In this isolated economy and vacuum of financial power, the IRGC began to seek networks within domestic and foreign trading communities. In the absence of international monetary controls, the economic sector of Iran with the supervision of the IRGC and the state was inevitably dragged into an uncontrolled market, which was not complying with any existing laws and regulations. Through this oligarchical network, the IRGC expanded its influence and control over Iran’s exportation of oil, arms export, organising militias beyond Iranian borders and returning the revenue from these activities to Iran either by bartering products or untraceable funds with no monetary supervision.[7] This strategy has not only allowed the state to fulfill its economic requirements for resisting international coercive sanctions, but allowed the state to expand its regional influence through the IRGC and Quds forces via establishing various local militias in Iraq, Lebanon, Palestine, Yemen and Syria. A proportional dual aim strategy in which contributed to both domestic and foreign policy of the Islamic Republic of Iran, self-sufficient economy within the country and a reliable security network beyond its borders.

The Network Beyond Borders

Soon after securing itself a reliable financial background through domestic networks and retaining a stable smuggling trading network to secure its income despite international sanction, the IRGC began to organise and mobilise security networks beyond Iranian borders. In order to establish and expand its regional influence, the Islamic Republic of Iran required a sufficient amount of hard power to be applied beyond its borders—both as a deterrence against the United States and Israel and as a lever to its own strategy abroad—and the IRGC facilitated this. With respect to Iran’s strategic culture, the sphere of influence must have reached the Israeli border in the Levant in which was not operational without controlling local networks in Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon.[8] From the early 2000s, the IRGC began recruiting and organising foreign fighters, mercenaries, and ideological groups in all the above-mentioned states. Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Palestine were amongst the very first organisations in which the IRGC mobilised in the Levant, although the initial establishment of these organisations goes back to the beginning of the Iranian Revolution. Given that, in order to support those forces from thousands of miles away, Iran needed a secure and reliable route all the way from Iran to Palestine, a route later called by the Supreme Leader of Iran as the ‘Axis of Resistance’.[9] After the fall of Saddam Hussein in Iraq and Bashar al-Assad rising into power in Syria, the path was provided for the IRGC to exploit these power dynamics in Iraq and Syria to strengthen its ideal axis of resistance to the Mediterranean.

In the midst of turmoils and mass social unrests caused by the Arab Spring and the rise of ISIS as a terrorist organisation, Iran found an opportunity to optimally exploit the power dynamics of these events to strengthen its control over the so-called axis of resistance. The responsibility of this strategy was on the hands of Quds Forces. The Quds Forces are a branch of the IRGC that is designated to employ state’s foreign military and security strategies in the Middle East and in particular the four countries of Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and Palestine. Although the term axis of resistance was used after the 9/11 and the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan, but the root of this axis goes back to the beginning of the Iranian Revolution where Iran was under attack by Saddam Hussein. Through this network Iran was able to receive its required ammunition, missiles, and arms by its allies. Hafez al-Assad in Syria, Hezbollah in Lebanon, Sudan, Libya, and other non-state actors such as the Palestinian Islamic Jihad and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP).[10] These were all different actors, which were not an alliance in any meaningful sense but still shared a pragmatic reason for deterring Israel and the United States. Nonetheless, in an evolving pattern after the war with Iraq, Iran and the IRGC became an arms producer and arms exporter rather than a state that relies on arms import. Through this network that contemporarily Ansar-Allah in Yemen and Hashd al-Sha’abi in Iraq is also a part of it, arms, soldiers, and funds are floating in for the same proxy agenda, deterring the U.S. and confronting Israel.

Soon after the ignition of demonstrations and formation of radical opposing groups to the state in Syria, Iran found its strategic ally under threat. Hence It began to send elite IRGC forces from Iran to Syria to train the Syrian forces in confronting this threat. However, after a social backlash of these deployments in Iran and people realising that Iranian soldiers were being killed in Syria, the Commander of the Quds Forces General Soleimani decides to mobilise Afghan refugees in Iran under the name of ‘Fatemiyoun Brigade’ and send them instead of IRGC personnel.[11] The IRGC with the support of the leadership began organising mass number of human smuggling from Afghanistan, training them with the minimum battlefield requirements, and deploying them to Syria through Iraq. This mass mobilisation also consisted of arms smuggling, and logistical support for the Syrian state. In this period, the IRGC utilised commercial aircrafts of Iranian ‘Mahan Air’ for sending arms and soldiers to Syria. The same approach was also conducted by the IRGC for Hezbollah in Lebanon.[12] According to United States’ Department of the Treasury, Mahan Air is Iran’s largest private aviation company in which is under the direct control of the IRGC. The airline’s website does not offer any more flights to Damascus nor Beirut, but flights to these destinations are still resuming. Coercive international sanction mechanism was not only incapable of limiting Iran’s regional hegemonic policy, but it has created an isolated vacuum in which the IRGC is exploiting the dynamics of it. All the way from utilising commercial aircrafts, smuggling of soldiers through land borders, and sending arms with untraceable vessels from the Persian Gulf.

After the defeat and collapse of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, the security network organised by the IRGC secured its stronghold in the region. In addition to the military aspect of this consolidation, the IRGC and the local networks in Iraq, Syria, and Yemen were also able to become popular amongst the society. This strategy allowed the IRGC to be present in the region as a local, not as a foreign interventionist. Between 2017 and 2019 the axis of resistance experienced its most progressive couple of years. Hashd al-Sha’abi in Iraq, and a combination of manpower of the axis and Russian forces in Syria gradually steamrolled over the opposition forces and regained the control over most of Iraq and Syria’s strategic cities.[13]Amongst these cities, Al-Bukamal and Tayyam on the Eastern Syrian border and Latakia, and Tartus ports as well as the city of Al-Qusayr on the Western Syrian border with Lebanon are amongst the most strategic smuggling points in which are in full control of the IRGC, Hezbollah, and other local militias affiliated with Iran.[14] Moreover, it can be argued that Iran’s successful response to the rise of ISIS, Arab Spring and other smaller tensions in the region have made the Axis of resistance evolve in three main aspects.[15] 1) IRGC’s improvisations have created a prominent doctrine in which can be employed as a playbook in other situations moving forward; 2) regardless of the number of IRGC’s personnel, the axis essentially has its own military force which is still under direct control of Tehran. (Estimated 100,000 to 180,000 fighters)[16]; and 3) their victories have established Iranian-leaning governments in Gaza, Lebanon, Iraq, and Syria. An alliance which is much more solid than the previous alliance with Libya, Sudan, and Syria under the rule of Hafiz al Assad. Given the above, all these fighters, their arms, logistics, and ammunition are in a constant smuggling pattern between these countries and other occasionally involved states. A potential of controlling strategic crossing points in which provided the IRGC with the capability of employing its regional expansionist strategy.

Economic Oligarchy

Moving on from the military aspect of IRGC’s organised activities in the region, this organisation also dominates the whole financial market and trading system of the country. As it was mentioned at the beginning of this paper, main industries of the country including oil and gas, mining, food, and raw materials are under the direct influence of the IRGC. In addition to already existing infrastructural industries, the IRGC’s construction fraction ‘Khatam al Anbia Headquarter’ has been annually awarded more than 1200 contracts in different fields including water dams, highways, railways, tunnels, heavy-duty structures, offshore structures, and oil and gas pipelines.[17] In other words, in addition to already existing industries, the IRGC oligarchically dominated the development of all main industries of the state.

As foreign investments began to drift away from state’s main industries due to coercive international sanctions, the IRGC was the only appropriate competitor left in the market that was able to substitute for international companies. In addition to these developments and oligarchical control over the domestic market, the IRGC dominates all trading activities in the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz. According to Mehdi Karroubi, the Sixth Speaker of the Iranian Parliament, the IRGC is operating more than 60 illegal and unregistered jetties in the country without the supervision of the state.[18] Due to international sanctions and the inability of the government in importing many good from the clean market, two third of Iran’s imported through these jetties and enter Iran’s black market. Unregistered, untraceable, and unknown. Black market activities in which have an estimated account for $12 billion per annum and more than 68 percent of Iran’s entire export.[19] An income in which redirects back to the state and subsequently tops up the defence, infrastructure, and social welfare expenditure and controls the budget deficit. Hence it can be argued that international sanctions have not disrupted Iran’s trading vehicle, but it has isolated the market for the IRGC to exploit the economic dynamics of this situation.

The illicit trafficking of goods and arms and the oligarchical control of black markets does not only stay limited to Iranian borders. Although the number of U.S. sanctions on Iran is almost twice as the number of the sum of sanctions on Syria, North Korea, Venezuela, and Libya, but Iran as a rentier state still manages to find its way through these obstacles to export its crude oil.[20] Iran uses IRGC’s unregistered and invisible jetties to feel untraceable oil tankers that are privately owned by a third party. Mostly tankers under the registration of a private company in Panama, or Saint Kitts to various destinations from China, Syria, India, and Venezuela. The untraceable and illicit export of oil under the sanctions has allowed Iran to have a high revenue of unregistered income that is not controlled by the International Monetary Fund or any other responsible international organisation. A revenue in which can vary from Chinese goods and services and Venezuelan gold bullion.[21] A strategy in which has not only allowed the Islamic Republic to securely employ its economic resistance policy against coercive sanctions but allowed the state and the IRGC to anonymously invest in defence budgets and develop state’s defensive capabilities with untraceable funds. Even under Trump’s mechanism of ‘Maximum Pressure’, Iran has exported an average of 900,000 barrels a day.[22] Although according to Iran’s potential oil extraction data and previous rates Iran is still far away from its optimum 2.7 million barrels a day, but it was able to secure itself a minimum income through IRGC’s network and logistics. Ports that are operational by the IRGC and vessels that are indirectly controlled by the IRGC through a third party.

Given the above, it is still unclear whether if we can distinguish these organised hidden activities as organised crime. Iran’s export of oil is not under any international sanction but only under United States Department of Treasury’s sanction. A sanction in which does not have a legal jurisdiction in international waters. Nevertheless, the United States on several occasions from 2019 to 2021 seized two Iranian oil tankers on their way to Venezuela under the jurisdiction of the same Treasury’s sanction.[23] Furthermore, the U.S. has also attempted to resell the seized 1-million-barrel Iranian oil to a third-party country. An action in which was later called by the Islamic Republic as ‘piracy’ and ‘economic terrorism’. Hence, the reason why this paper does not refer to IRGC’s activities in oil export as organised crime is because the term crime cannot be defined in a vacuum of an organisation which have jurisdictions to do so.

Driving away from IRGC’s activities in assisting the state to export its crude oil and receive the revenue, arms dealing, and human (fighters) trafficking are the two notions in which can be defined as organised crime under the international customary law. Based on what it has been argued by Marsh and Pinson (2021), IRGC’s arms trafficking to Africa, Iraq, Yemen, and the Levant can be demonstrated as ‘state-sanctioned illicit trade’.[24] A trade which is directly organised by a government and delivers arms to a state or a militia that is not authorised to receive arms. Such trafficking can be employed as a foreign policy leverage for a state to deter its imminent threats. Furthermore, the expansion of IRGC’s network in international waters with the support of the Iranian National Navy have also strengthened Iran’s influence in countries such as Yemen, Somalia, Sudan, and Lebanon. Iran is no longer limited to its land axis of resistance through Iraq and Syria but is now capable of provide arms to its strategically supported militias and states through its vessels all the way from the Persian Gulf to the Gulf of Aden and the Mediterranean. IRGC’s arms dealing however cannot be legally problematic as UNSCR 2231 expired UN restrictions on Iran’s conventional arms trade. Although United States unilateral sanctions are still in place. Given that, today we are seeing Iranian made drones, ballistic missiles, speed boats, and anti-aircraft defence systems are operational and being used in many different proxy conflicts around the world, including Ukraine.[25] A strategy to strengthen Iran’s strategic culture as a regional hegemon under ineffective coercive sanctions.

Conclusion

Observing IRGC’s evolving pattern and activities since the Iranian Revolution within different phases of international sanctions allows this paper to argue that the IRGC is resuming its activities regardless of the imposed sanctions. The Guard Corps with the support of the state continues evolving and keeps expanding its network across the region even while being designated as a terrorist organisation under US jurisdiction. However, it can be argued that the imposed coercive mechanism of sanctions has isolated Iran both domestically and externally to an extent in which any trade activity, logistical movement, financial transaction, and arms trafficking is only possible through the IRGC network. In other words, the sanctions have enabled the IRGC to become the sole competitor in all trading and financial fields and oligarchically control the Iranian economy. As discussed above, because of both Iran’s policy of self-sufficiency and the impacts of U.S. sanctions, Iran’s major domestic development projects, untraceable illicit financial transactions, expansion of security network, and illegal exportation of any kinds of goods and services is directly managed by the IRGC. Consequently, the concentration of power, money, and arms in one single organisation such as the IRGC have inevitably created the potential grounds for illicit activities. Grounds in which were initially supposed to assist the self-sufficiency policy of the state and paralyse the sanctions mechanism but are also capable of being used for illicit activities as an alternative source of income for the state. Both the U.S. and international coercive sanctions in different periods advantaged this process in favour of the IRGC and enabled the organisation to grow a hidden self-sufficient oligarchical network.

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[1] Wehrey, F., Green, J. D., Nichiporuk, B., Nader, A., Hansell, L., Nafisi, R., & Bohandy, S. R. (2009) Pp. 81-2

[2] Najdi, Y., & Karim, M. A. B. A. (2012) Pp. 74

[3] Zimmt, R. (2017) Pp. 1

[4] Wege, C. A. (2012) Pp. 48

[5] Wehrey, F., Green, J. D., Nichiporuk, B., Nader, A., Hansell, L., Nafisi, R., & Bohandy, S. R. (2009) Pp. 110

[6] Wehrey, F., Green, J. D., Nichiporuk, B., Nader, A., Hansell, L., Nafisi, R., & Bohandy, S. R. (2009) Pp. 38

[7] Coville, T. (2017) Pp. 96-7.

[8] Wege, C. A. (2012) Pp. 49

[9] Wehrey, F., Green, J. D., Nichiporuk, B., Nader, A., Hansell, L., Nafisi, R., & Bohandy, S. R. (2009) Pp. 81

[10] Pollack, K. M. (2020) Pp. 3

[11] Pollack, K. M. (2020) Pp. 11

[12] Davenport, K. (2017) Pp. 31

[13] Pollack, K. M. (2020) Pp. 7

[14] Saban, Navar. (2020) Pp. 2

[15] Pollack, K. M. (2020) Pp. 8-10

[16] Jones, Seth G. and Maxwell B. Markusen, (2018) Pp. 29

[17] Eineman, A. (2020) Pp. 61

[18] Eineman, A. (2020) Pp. 64-5

[19] Open-Source Center (2007) Pp 1-7

[20] Myong-Hyun, G. (2013) Pp 4

[21] Maloney, S. (2017) Pp. 9-10

[22] Levitt, Matthew. (2021) Pp. 34

[23] https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2021/2/10/us-sells-1-million-barrels-of-iranian-oil-seized-under-sanctions

[24] Marsh, N. and Pinson, Lauren. (2021) Pp. 216

[25] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/apr/12/russia-using-weapons-smuggled-by-iran-from-iraq-against-ukraine

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