The history of post-revolutionary Iranian politics is grim: After the revolution, Mehdi Bazargan’s Provisional Government of Iran soothed the ruffled middle class with his moderate sensibilities, but he was soon shuffled aside. Soon thereafter, the Muslim Peoples’ Republican Party and the secular National Democratic Front – both allies in the shah’s overthrow – were suppressed, leaving only the Khomeinist faction with political power, augmented by the Revolutionary Guard Corps.
The People’s Mujahadeen of Iran – the MEK, a socialist organization that had also supported the Shah’s overthrow – were radicalized by the IRGC after Khomeini labeled them “hypocrites” and “unbelievers”. After escalating their counter-revolutionary struggle to naked terrorism, the armed wing of the political faction fled to Iraq, where they remain in encampments, virtual prisoners, inconvenient men.
Within the remaining revolutionary core, power struggles between radical Islamists and their slightly less radical adversaries – it would be a fraud to label them “moderates” in any objective sense – have repeatedly been won by the former, with the latter fleeing to political Coventry. With the violent suppression of the objectionable Moussavi faction in the June 12th election, only the most rigidly orthodox remain in power, and political plums are being handed out appropriately:
A former commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards has been nominated by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iran’s president, to head the country’s defence ministry, despite being listed on Interpol’s wanted register for the 1994 bombing of a Jewish cultural centre in Argentina…
Vahidi has been on an Interpol “red notice” since November 2007, in connection with the car bomb attack on the Israeli-Argentine Mutual Association (AMIA) building in Buenos Aires that killed 85 people and injured 150 – the worst attack on a Jewish target outside Israel since the second world war…
At the time of the attack Vahidi, who is currently Iran’s deputy defence minister, commanded a notorious unit of the Revolutionary Guards called the Quds Force. It is known for orchestrating Iran’s overseas operations including working alongside Lebanon’s Hezbollah militant group, which is accused of carrying out the Buenos Aires attack on the instigation of Iran.
Vahidi’s promotion, which was mooted on Wednesday, will be interpreted as the latest act of defiance of international opinion by Ahmadinejad, as he seeks to cement his hold on power after the fiercely disputed elections in June.,,
At least four nominees for defence, interior, intelligence and oil minister had ties with the elite Revolutionary Guard, a powerful base of support for the president.
Well, yes. But that was years and years ago, during turbulent times. Mistakes were made, there were excesses.
No doubt we will soon learn that he has been a model citizen of Tehran’s south side. It will probably come to light that in 2007 Tehran awarded him its Citizen of the Year award for his work on the Tehran Infidel Challenge project. A former prosecutor in the Buenos Aires case will have wrote: “Although I dearly wanted to obtain convictions against all the Quds Force leaders, including Vahidi, I am very pleased to learn that he has become a responsible citizen.”
Vahidi was possibly elected Vice President for Curriculum Studies by the Iranian Holocaust Research Association in 2008. A fellow professor at the University of Tehran will have written that his election was “a testimony of [Vahidis'] stature and [the] high esteem he holds in the field of judenhass locally, regionally, nationally, and internationally.”
A Tehran Times Daily columnist will have praised Vahidi as a “model citizen” and a scholar whose “work is esteemed by colleagues of different political viewpoints.”
After all: Who are we to judge?
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