Courcy’s Intelligence Brief

Our Iranian sources say that the cabinet assembled by Iran’s new President Hassan Rowhani does contain some ‘moderates’, but few of the new ministers can be exactly pigeonholed.  Moreover, three of Rowhani’s moderate selections were rejected by parliament.

The most obviously unequivocally conservative appointment is that of Abdolreza Rahmani-Fazli as interior minister.  He is close to Ali Larijani, the hard-line speaker of Iran’s parliament.  Rahmani-Fazli owes his rise to Larijani, who appointed him head of the state broadcaster IRIB.  He has previously worked at the National Security Council, the Interior Ministry, and on the nuclear negotiating team.  The optimists say Rahmani-Fazli’s appointment is a sop to the conservatives and not that important; the reformist camp just thinks it is a bad appointment.

Another indication that domestic affairs will remain under conservative domination is the appointment of Mostafa Purmohammadi as justice minister.  Purmohammadi is the only survivor from Mahmud Ahmadinejad’s cabinet, and his early career is no more encouraging.  He was at one time a prosecutor in the Intelligence Ministry, rising to deputy intelligence minister in 1987.  According to Human Rights Watch, Purmohammadi was a member of the committee that ordered the summary execution of inmates in Evin Prison in 1988.  He was at one time an adviser to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.

Equally the new intelligence minister, Seyyed Mahmud Alavi, is a conservative with impeccable revolutionary credentials.  He is a cleric who led protests and a militia group before the 1979 revolution.

The main relief for the reformists on the home front comes in the shape of Ali Jannati, who is seen to be close to former President Rafsanjani.  But Jannati, despite his moderate image, is a part of the revolutionary establishment (he was involved in the armed struggle against the Shah) and is the son of the notable hard-line cleric, Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati.

Also seemingly encouraging for the reformists is the appointment of Bizhan Namdar-Zanganeh as oil minister.  He was energy minister from 1988-97 and oil minister for eight years in Mohammad Khatami’s administration.  Most obviously he supported the reformist Mir Hoseyn Musavi in the disputed 2009 election, but he has most likely been appointed for his undoubted technocratic skills rather than for his reformist credentials.  He is there to provide stability (Ahmadinejad managed to have four oil ministers), not reformist zeal beyond his portfolio.

In the defence sphere the new minister, Hoseyn Dehqan, is seen as a conservative although he did serve six years in the reformist Khatami administration as deputy defence minister.  His conservative credentials come from his background as a member of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) after the 1979 revolution and his eventual promotion to command the IRGC’s air force and acting chief of staff.  He served in the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq War and he led a deployment of IRGC forces to Lebanon and Syria during the First Lebanon War.  Since 2010 he has served on the Expediency Council as head of the political, defence, and security committee.

Then there is foreign affairs where the smooth Mohammad Javad Zarif is the new minister.  His is one of those appointments that could confuse Western observers.  He has spent many years in the United States, speaks fluent English with an American accent, and hobnobs with establishment American figures such as former secretary of state James Baker.  Yet, we are told, he is close to Iran’s hard-line Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.  In other words, it’s much too early to get excited - but, and this is the important thing, there is just enough hope there for the US and the EU to justify continuing to stay Israel’s hand on the nuclear question.