A new paramilitary group is sparking a skirmish between Iranian hardliners for power and position in the run-up to next year's presidential elections.
The Units for the Protection of Society is a little-known civil defense militia recently established by the Iranian judiciary, a body dominated by so-called "traditionalist conservatives." The militia, relatively unknown by most Iranians until recently, was first proposed by Ayatollah Hashemi Shahroudithe, the chief of Iran's judiciary, In January 2004.
Shaikh Sadi, a mid-level cleric who heads a 10,000-member-strong branch of the Units militia in the southeastern province of Khoozestan, describes the group's goals as crime-fighting, Intelligence-gathering and providing religious guidance. "When various crimes and laxities go on unhindered in our neighborhoods, our youth don't often know what they should be doing to confront them," Sadi told the Iranian Students' News Agency on December 3. "That's when the Units for Social Protection would go into action."
That job description has put the Units in direct competition with the Basij, a neo-conservative-aligned militia that has existed for 25 years as Iran's only volunteer paramilitary group. [For background see the EurasiaNet insight archive]. At Its peak, during the war with Iraq, the Basij numbered more than 1 million volunteers; today, it has an estimated membership in the hundreds of thousands, though the Iranian government puts its membership at 10 million.
But politics lies at the heart of much of the Basij's activity -- and its suspicion of an alternative volunteer group like the Units.
Iranian hardliners have traditionally presented a united front for taking on policy questions or political adversaries. But with the ousting of reformers following last February's parliamentary elections, that unity has begun to crumble. Differences have centered around negotiating tactics with the International Atomic Energy Association, the direction of the country's economic policy and the May 2005 presidential elections.
In the last two elections, Basij and its parent organization, the Revolutionary Guards Corps of Iran (RGCI), have played a considerable role in the election of a large pool of neo-conservatives to parliament as well as to Iran's city councils. Both groups have promised to repeat their electoral success in next year's presidential race.
In this scenario, the Units could emerge as a powerful competitor. Yet, their backing by the judiciary, a pivotal force In Iranian politics, means that neo-conservatives have until recently expressed their objections mildly. It is believed that the formation of such a sizable new paramilitary force must also have had the approval, at least tacitly, of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. If the militia has Ayatollah Khamenei's approval, most observers believe that It was given to counterbalance the increasing power of the neo-conservatives, a fact that has apparently alarmed the traditionalists. So far, however, Ayatollah Khamenei has refrained from making any direct statements about the controversy surrounding the Units.
That has left the path open for the neo-conservatives to take their own stabs at the group. While praising the new militia's motives as "quite commendable," Mohammad Dehghan, rapporteur for parliament's neo-conservative-dominated judicial committee, told the Fars news agency on November 20 that "its rules and its constitution show that it suffers from serious defects and shortcoming that could strike a blow against the prestige and the existence of our Islamic order." National oversight on religious matters, Dehghan went on to say," is referred to the law only and is not the purview of the judiciary branch."
As if to reinforce that message, parliament has expanded funding for the Basij, recently passing a resolution that called for the allocation of an additional $350 million to the volunteer group. The sum, financed by Iran's Foreign Exchange Reserve Fund, will go toward "reinforcing" Basij's military bases and providing necessary equipment for disabled war veterans, Iran Daily reported.
At the same time, the Basij has begun to change tactics toward the Units. After a period of self-Imposed silence, Brigader General Seyed Mohammd Hejazi, the militia's leader, told members that the rival militia could cause many problems. "This scheme lacks expertise and professional groundwork," the ISNA and Fars news agencies quoted Hejazi as saying on November 17. "It has been implemented in Khoozestan province. It has had many shortcomings there and they have had serious problems with it."
The past two years have seen a dramatic increase in Basij's level of activism. Its volunteers can be found in most workplaces, schools and neighborhoods. Ostensibly, the reason for this expanded role is Iran's heightened state of alert in response to US operations In Iraq and Washington's criticism of Iran's nuclear ambitions. As if to reinforce the Basij's official role in countering external threats to Iran's Islamic regime, Khamenei has termed the group "Iran's atomic bomb" for a November 25 rally of tens of thousands of Basij volunteers staged In Tehran on the eve of an IAEA meeting.
But the Supreme Leader's show of support may do little to deflect the Units' rise. As the campaign for the presidential elections gets underway, acrimony is expected to only Increase between the two hardliner camps.
So far, two provinces in addition to Khoozestan have completed the preliminary work for organizing their own local Unit for Social Protection militias, with much more work promised in the near future.
Editor's note:
Ardeshir Moaveni is a freelance journalist specializing in Iranian politics.
