Revolutionary Guardsman Gets Top Post in Iran

The deputy chief of Iran’s hardline Revolutionary Guards has been appointed as deputy interior minister for security and police, the official news agency IRNA said Nov. 30.

Mohammad Bagher Zolghadr, 50, becomes the most senior member of the ideological army to join the government of hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad — himself a veteran of the powerful force.

But the head of the Revolutionary Guards, General Yahya Rahim Safavi, dismissed concerns over the force’s increased involvement in national politics and fears of a militarization of the Islamic regime.

”Only idiotic politicians make such comments,” IRNA quoted him as saying.

”The Revolutionary Guards will help the government to assure lasting security in the country and the presence in governors offices takes U.S. in this direction,” Safavi said, confirming a string of similar appointments.

The Revolutionary Guards Corps was set up in the wake of the 1979 revolution to defend the Islamic republic from “internal and external threats”. It is now one of Iran’s most powerful institutions.

Zolghadr has been deputy head of the force for the past eight years, previously serving as its chief of staff. During the 1980-88 war with Iraq, he headed military training and guerilla operations.

Ahmadinejad’s cabinet already includes several guard veterans, notably Minister of Culture and Islamic Guidance Mohammad-Hossein Saffar-Harandi.

”The nomination of certain brothers who served at the frontlines during the war should be a source of pride and not worry,” the guards’ political department, Abbas Haji Najari, said recently.