ANKARA, (Reuters) – Iran’s Revolutionary Guards did well under international sanctions, and the elite military force is destined to become still richer now they’ve been lifted.
Iran’s clerical rulers have supported economic growth of the Guards, rewarding the group for sanctions-busting as well as suppressing dissent at home and helping Tehran’s allies abroad – notably Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
Now the country is expecting an economic boom in the post-sanctions era and the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), will be a beneficiary. Likewise, the leadership will ensure it is well funded to continue the effort in the regional crisis, including the Syrian civil war.
The Guards aren’t entirely off the hook, even though the United States, European Union and United Nations lifted most sanctions on Saturday under a deal with world powers where Tehran agreed to curbs on its nuclear programme.
Washington has noted that “U.S. statutory sanctions focused on Iran’s support for terrorism, human rights abuses, and missile activities will remain in effect”, and these will be enforced against certain members and actions of the Guards.
But the Guards have long proved successful in defending their economic interests, including in recent years when the sanctions were at their tightest, effectively excluding Iran from the global financial and trading system.
“Even under very difficult economic circumstances, the funds for the IRGC’s activities, whether domestic or overseas, remained intact,” said a former official close to the government of pragmatist President Hassan Rouhani.
Created by the Islamic Republic’s founder Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the Guards first secured an economic foothold after the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s when the clerical rulers allowed them to invest in leading Iranian industries.
Their economic influence grew particularly after former guardsman Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was elected president in 2005.
Iran – the dominant Shi’ite Muslim power which is in rivalry with Saudi Arabia and the United States’ other Sunni Arab friends – has fought decades of sectarian proxy wars in Syria, Lebanon, Iraq and Yemen.
