Who's Who in Ahmadinejad's Cabinet: The Profile of an Anti-Human Rights in Core and Categorically Militarist Cabinet (Part II)

ScanIranic:

Here, I provide a translation of the profiles of six nominees for Ahmadinejad's cabinet as provided by several hardliner websites. All of them have clear Islamic Revolutionary Guard background. I have started a new thread during the past three days in the wake of President Ahmadinejad's Cabinet Nominees' introduction to the Iranian Parliament (the Majles). My relatively summarised typological analysis of the format and combination of the Cabinet, which I characterised as a Pizza Cabinet, was my first attempt to understand the trajectory of the government as the new information began to flow into the cyber space about the Cabinet's Who's Who (that post is here).

Nonetheless, I decided to write exhaustively on Who's Who in Ahmadinejad's Cabinet and I started with the militant, security, intelligence core of it in another post (read it here) identifying them as Anti-Human Rights Supreme Leader's Loyal Gate-Keepers. In this part, I follow through with what I call the militarist outer shell of the Cabinet by listing the nominees with Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and/or other revolutionary significant background. My sources are Iranian hardliner websites, which are all in Persian, and some anecdotal sources. Almost all of the following were either members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps or worked with it closely during the Iran-Iraq War or after. I will use IRGC for the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps hereinafter.

Although I prefer those who are interested in this group to read through their profiles, I write my concluding analytical remarks about their background and profile here:

All the respective ministers, plus Safar Harandi, will make this cabinet, one with the highest number of Islamic Revolutionary Guards veterans (eight of them). More importantly, however, all of them have technical engineering degrees (architecture is regarded in Iran as somewhat an engineering degree). They all have one more aspect in common: almost all of them participated in the development and expansion of the IRGC's military-industrial complex and/or at the same time taught at the IRGC's University (it is called Imam Hossein University). READ MORE

They will form the outer-shell of the security-intelligence hardliner inner core of the cabinet. That inner core, I called the Gate-keepers. Together, the Gate-keepers and the Revolutionary Guard Militarist outer-shell, prove Ahmadinejad's vision of governance in Iran for the next four years (or even eight years) is one marked by a sense of brotherhood developed during the war, unequivocal allegiance to the Supreme Leader, and committed to make Iran a fundamentalist bastion of power from within and without. Israel, the US, and the EU have to be warned to thread cautiously, and test the ferocity of these men. Hard times for Iranian human rights activists is just an unfolding night.

Now, please judge my observation by reading through the summary translations of their background as follows:

1. Mohammad Najjar. b. 1956 (Ministry of Defence):

Mohammad Najar was a member of (IRGC) from 1979. He was in charge of the Middle Eastern affairs department of the IRGC, especially Lebanon and Palestine; he is fluent in Arabic, which speaks volumes of his Lebanese connections. He will certainly ensure that his brethrens in Hezbollah of Lebanon receive the best of all assistance that the Islamic Republic of Iran can offer. He has contributed a great deal in the development of the Islamic Republic's military-industrial complex in the manufacturing of light and heavy weapons (he holds an engineering degree in metallurgical sciences). His knowledge and expertise in the development of the Islamic Republic will also help the regime to expand its capacity to assert itself as a major military products exporter.

2. Danesh Jafari, b. 1954 (Ministry of Economy and Finance):

With a civil engineering degree from Kashmir University of India (1980), he joined Iran's war effort as the head of Defence Engineering Units in the Southwest in the first year of the war, for which he has received a medal. Although it has been mentioned that he assumed this position as a member of the Jihad of Construction Foundation (a revolutionary foundation accountable directly to the Supreme Leader), it is impossible that he would become the Commander of the Jihad's Engineering Headquarters for Defence without any connection to the IRGC.

Despite not having been officially an IRGC member, as an Iran-Iraq War veteran and a high-ranking Jihad of Construction official, he is certainly a member of the militarist outer-shell of the cabinet. He has an MA (Tehran University, 1992) and PhD (Alameh Tabatabyi University, Tehran, 2001) in Finance and Economics. He is fluent in Urdu, Hindi, and English (also look at his profile on IRIB).

3. Fattah, b. 1961 (Ministry of Energy):

With a Civil Engineering degree from Sharif University (1989), he is yet another former IRGC commander of the Iran-Iraq War. As a member of the IRGC since the end of the war holding various important positions in the IRGC's Engineering Units, he was involved in various projects during President Rafsanjani's reconstruction era.

More importantly, he was the Iranian Chief-of-staff in regards to the UN's Peace-Keeping Force in Iran after War (UNIMOG). Also of note is his appointment to Iran-Iraq border demarcation committee by the Supreme Leader, and a study conducted by him on the post-war reconstruction of the Republic of Bosnia.

4. Tahamsebi, b. 1961 (Ministry of Industries):

He has mechanical engineering degrees (bachelors and masters) from Shiraz University (1987 and 1990). He received his PhD in the same area from Canada/Quebec's Lavalle University in 1996. He is fluent in French and English.

He was the member of the defence projects of the IRGC's Headquarters during the Iran-Iraq war (1985-1987). Then, he became intensively active with the Jihad of Construction (which was established in the aftermath of the Revolution by the decree of Ayatollah Khomeini for community development in villages and rural areas) after the war.

5. Mirkazemi, b. 1960 (Ministry of Commerce):

He holds an industrial engineering degree (bachelors,1986, and masters 1989) from Tehran's Science and Industry University, and a PhD in the same field from Tarbiyat Modarres University (1996). He has a clear IRGC career like his other brethrens in this group.

Between 1981 and 1986, he was in charge of the Technical Logistics Planning Department of the Armed Forces Headquarters. Plus a career in the 1990s as a university professor at the IRGC's University, he head the Etteka Organisation (1997-2001) of the Defence Ministry, and from 2002 onwards he headed the IRGC's Foundational Studies Centre.

Seyyed Mehdi Hashemi, b. 1963 (Ministry of Welfare and Social Security):

With a 113 months of being actively in the Iran-Iraq war fronts, and being rated as 50% handicapped of the war, he is more than just a simple war veteran. He holds a bachelors degree in architecture, and is finishing his masters. He has headed various projects at the Ministry of Defence, and has held positions as the Youth Revolutionary Guards' Society of Engineers, commander of the Police Force's Engineering Department. He has also held teaching positions at the IRGC's University.

6. Jahromi, b. 1968 (Minister of Labour and Social Affairs):

He is finishing his PhD degree in Strategic Studies (as to when he started and which other degrees he has no information is available). He is the founding member of the IRGC and Jihad of Construction in the northern province of Mazandaran (1980). His IRGC connections were never severed even though he official held provincial governor positions in Mazandaran, Arak, and Zanjan provinces in the early 1980s, mainly as political and provincial security deputy of the governors of these provinces. From 1984 to 1988, he served as the governor of the province of Lorestan, and from 1989-1990 as the governor of Semnan. His more important, and high-ranking, positions do not appear on his resume till late 1990s. In 1997, he was appointed to the Exigency Council's General Secretariat and served till 2003. Aside from all of the above-mentioned, Jahromi's most recent position stands out most: since 2002, he has served as the Guardian Council's Executive Deputy in the (Supervision) of Elections (which includes municipal, parliamentary, and last but not least, presidential elections).

Posted by Shahram Kholdi on August 16, 2005 at 06:28 AM in Human Rights, Iran, Iran-US Relations, Iranian Politics, Islam and Democracy, Islamic Republic Politics, Islamic Republic's Nuclear Ambitions.