According to an anti-regime group, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps of Iran (IRGC) will take control of the Iranian economy by gaining full power over the country’s “economic arteries”.
“The documents unveiled by the MEK prove unequivocally that the regime’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has granted the IRGC complete authority over Iran’s economy,” Alireza Jafarzadeh, deputy director of the Washington office of the National Council of Resistance of Iran, told Fox News. (NCRI). Digital.
“This unprecedented move allows the IRGC not only to circumvent international sanctions, but also to amass the resources necessary to carry out domestic oppression, destabilize the region, perpetrate acts of terrorism, cyber warfare and accelerate the advancement of its missile, drone and nuclear weapons programs,” he added.
A MEK-affiliated group recently obtained a series of data and defaced the Iranian Foreign Ministry website, leaking the names of more than 11,000 ministry employees, ministry correspondence and identification documents. The MEK and NCRI are also credited with revealing in 2002 that Iran was developing nuclear weapons capabilities.
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Iranian troops march in a parade to commemorate the anniversary of the Iran-Iraq war. (Reuters / Files)
The Mujahedeen-e-Khalq, or MEK, is an active branch of the NCRI that has received strong support from leading US figures, including former National Security Advisor John Bolton and former Vice President Mike Pence, who met with the group and spoke to members at their base of operations in Albania.
MEK provided Fox News Digital with translated documents that allegedly passed among high-ranking Iranian officials, including IRGC commanders. The documents include orders and decisions on economic policy, with the IRGC command included and the military command issuing some of the decisions.
On April 15, 2019, the US government designated the IRGC as a terrorist organization, a designation the Biden administration has not indicated it has any intention of changing.
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Some of the “economic thoroughfares” that the IRGC will take control of include oil fields, refineries, petrochemicals, steel and mines. The group will also acquire control of scientific research and development, including atomic development.
“It is now more crucial than ever for the European Union and the United States to abandon any aspirations to forge a deal with Iran’s ruling theocracy,” Jafarzadeh said. “Engaging in trade with the Iranian regime is tantamount to supporting and empowering the IRGC in its heinous activities.”
“Instead, the international community should take decisive action to support the Iranian people in their steadfast pursuit to overthrow the oppressive regime of the mullahs,” he urged.
The IRGC, by controlling these apparatuses, will be able to directly profit from their industry, which could help them to circumvent the numerous sanctions imposed on them by different countries.
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IRGC chief Quds Esmail Qaani (Morteza Nikoubazl/NurPhoto via Getty Images/File)
The group now operates through the Defense Ministry’s Resistance Economy Headquarters. In a letter dated January 10, 2023, IRGC Brigadier General Ishaghi oversaw a meeting that resulted in the requirement for oil and petrochemical groups to submit documents, including names of complexes, challenges the groups have to address and all required planning and resources, which Ishaghi would review.
A letter dated November 29, 2022 discussed the involvement of a number of institutions and companies “from the branches of the armed forces” in projects in Uzbekistan, including the production of tractors and Shastan Holding Co., which is the largest investment company of Iran and operates nine subsidiaries in a wide range of sectors including construction, finance and energy.
All groups in the November letter were ordered to support the military and the IRGC, including in the construction of cement plants, thermal power plants and exploration for mining opportunities.
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Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, right, speaks while standing next to Commander-in-Chief of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Hossein Salami, left, and Mohammad Bagheri, Chief of Staff of the Iranian Armed Forces, during a military parade on the occasion of the Iranian Army Day anniversary in Tehran on April 18, 2023. (Morteza Nikoubazl / NurPhoto via Getty Images)
Behnam Ben Taleblu, a senior member of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies with a focus on Iranian security and political issues, told Fox News Digital that the IRGC’s role and influence over much of Iran’s current power structures Iran remains “an open secret in Washington and Iran” and that many analysts globally understand that the IRGC “is the most important economic player”.
“Basically, the IRGC is indeed one of, if not the most powerful entity within the Islamic Republic government, and it is indeed an upward trajectory for their political and economic fortunes within Iran after the Iran-Iraq war”, Taleblu explained, saying that a revelation of their influence on the country’s economy “could have come in 2008, and one could believe it”.
Taleblu said the IRGC “was, is and is likely to remain”, in the absence of any “wholesale change in Iran”, the most important economic force in the country. “Massive stakes acquired with a fake privatization,” he added, explaining the economic consolidation that the group has already achieved.
Members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard listen to a speech at the Iranian parliament in Tehran, October 2018. (Atta Kenare/AFP via Getty Images/File)
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Taleblu suggested that the US has enough sanctions targets left in Iran to continue blunting the actions of the IRGC and the regime, and that such sanctions in the future will only grow in importance as the IRGC gains more influence in the country.
“The lack of enforcement against critical factors that underwrite the activities of the IRGC or directly support the activities of the IRGC or are directly under the control of the people of the IRGC means that Washington is currently doing a very poor job of keeping up with this,” he said.
Questions to the US State Department and the Iranian mission to the United Nations were not returned as of press time.
Fox News Digital’s Michael Lee contributed to this report.
