2 months ago
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When Hamas launched its cross-border onslaught connected Israel connected October 7, 2023, sidesplitting astatine slightest 1,200 people, Mohammad Bagher Zolqadr, past Secretary of Iran’s Expediency Council, called it a “turning point” for Palestinians. “This cognition is the starting constituent of the autumn of the Zionist regime,” helium said. The concatenation of events triggered by the onslaught has present led to a full-blown Israeli-American warfare connected Iran. The struggle has brought the 72-year-old erstwhile commandant of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) to the centre of Iran’s information decision-making.
After the U.S. and Israel launched the warfare connected February 28, by sidesplitting Ali Khamenei, Iran’s Supreme Leader, and respective different leaders, Ali Larijani, Secretary of the Supreme National Security Council, emerged arsenic the look of the Iranian authorities and defiance. Larijani was already 1 of the astir almighty men successful the Islamic Republic. A ‘principalist’ himself who had adjacent ties to Ali Khamenei, Larijani was an inflluential ink betwixt Iran’s subject constitution and its governmental class. On March 17, Larijani was assassinated by an Israeli aerial strike. Seven days later, President Masoud Pezeshkian appointed Mr. Zolqadr arsenic Larijani’s successor. As Secretary of the Security Council, helium is expected to play a important relation successful cardinal information decision-making astatine a clip erstwhile the authorities is warring a warfare of survival.
Mr. Zolqadr belongs to a procreation of Guardsmen associated with the ‘Mansouroun’ network, an Islamist militant organisation which contributed influential figures to the IRGC specified arsenic Mohsen Rezaei, Ali Shamkhani and Gholam Ali Rashid.
After the 1979 gyration which overthrew the Shah’s monarchy, Mr. Zolqadr joined 1 of the revolutionary committees. After Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, backed by Persian Gulf monarchies, invaded Iran successful 1980, Mr. Zolqadr, similar galore of his comrades successful Mansouroun, joined the Ramadan Headquarters, which was successful complaint of the IRGC’s outer operations, peculiarly coordinating with Iraqi Kurdish and Shia groups that were opposed to Saddam’s rule.
The Ramadan Headquarters aboriginal became the Quds Force, the outer limb of the Guards.
By the clip the warfare ended successful 1988, the IRGC had emerged arsenic 1 of the astir almighty institutions of the Islamic Republic. When Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani became President (1989-1997), Mr. Zolqadr headed the IRGC Joint Staff. Rafsanjani was followed by Mohammad Khatami, a reformist President. Mr. Zolqadr was among the IRGC commanders who wrote a missive to Mr. Khatami, asking him to instrumentality enactment against student-led protests successful the precocious 1990s. The protests were crushed.
The General’s threat
In the 2005 Presidential election, Mr. Zolqadr aligned with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. “We carried retired a multilayered program to assistance Ahmadinejad win,” Mr. Zolqadr aboriginal said. Mr. Ahmadinejad appointed Mr. Zolqadr, who was the Deputy Commander-in-Chief of the IRGC, arsenic a Deputy Interior Minister. He past warned that if the U.S. were to onslaught Iran, Tehran would “fire tens of thousands of missiles astatine American targets each time and endanger Israel arsenic America’s backstop”.
In 2010, Mr. Zolqadr was appointed arsenic a elder adjutant to Iran’s judiciary main Sadegh Larijani, the member of Ali Larijani. Since September 2022, helium had been serving arsenic the Secretary of the Expediency Council, an administrative assembly appointed by the Supreme Leader. While its law work is to resoluteness immoderate differences betwixt the Majles and the 12-member Guardian Council, which has a veto implicit bills passed by the Assembly, the Expediency Council besides acts arsenic an advisory assemblage to the Supreme Leader.
In March 2024, Mr. Zolqadr had said that the Guards should exert greater power implicit the country. In Iran’s analyzable powerfulness structure, the subject establishment, the clerical enactment and elected politicians each wield influence. While the IRGC has agelong been the backbone of Iran’s equipped forces, different branches of the authorities person besides played cardinal roles successful moving the country.
The war, however, appears to person shifted the equilibrium further towards the Guards, who study straight to the Supreme Leader. Larijani was a person with links to the IRGC, but Mr. Zolqadr is simply a Guardsman with governmental reach. With his ascent to the station of the Secretary of the Security Council, the IRGC has further tightened its grip connected Iran’s authorities machinery.
