Iran's New Government: Evaluation Criteria, National Funds and Economic Outlines
On August 21, a rather significant event took place in Iran: the approval of the cabinet of ministers of the new president of the republic, Masoud Pezeshkian.
It would seem that here is the list of the cabinet that was approved by parliament, we can go straight to the individuals and evaluate the future political vector of the executive branch as a whole.
This approach is familiar, but it will be completely insufficient for full conclusions if we do not take into account the economic basis of Iranian policy. Without this specificity, the knowledge that one minister is a “reformer” and another a “conservative” will give little more than nothing.
Iran's Political Model and the Weakness of Conventional Definitions
It is often said that since the Supreme Leader, A. Khamenei, “decides everything” in Iran, it makes no particular difference who will be president, vice president or minister of the sector. At the same time, this thesis is often shared even by those who sincerely consider themselves “strong anti-Westerners.”
But Western liberal speakers simply cannot live without talking about Iran as “one of the world’s main autocracies.” The term “dictatorship” has become somewhat boring for modern liberals; now “autocracy” and “autocrat” are in use.
Iran is neither an autocracy nor a dictatorship, even according to Western liberal vocabulary. However, Iran's typology of government has always been problematic.
The simplest thing would be to call the Iranian state system a "theocracy", especially since the Iranian constitution enshrines the principle of a "theologian's state". "Laws and regulations" must be based on Islamic norms, and the "faqih", i.e. a theologian-jurist, must determine compliance with them. It turns out that since the source of law is religious norms, then Iran is indeed a theocracy.
However, the Supreme Leader, as the supreme representative of the priestly class, does not determine what complies with the norms and what does not. This, as is written in Article 4 of the Iranian Constitution, is done by the "Council for the Protection of the Constitution", a collegial body, i.e., this is clearly not the autocracy so beloved by Western liberals.
The people in Iran are not the source of power, as is already written into the basic law everywhere in modern democracies (including ours). But in Iran, nothing less than the Soviet principle of governance is constitutionally enshrined. Iran can be quite rightly called the "Islamic Soviet Republic" (Articles 6-7 of the Constitution of the IRI).
Iranian faqihs do not develop laws, norms and regulations, domestic and foreign policies; they issue verdicts on these norms, laws and regulations.
In general, perhaps the main expert error that has become traditional is the thesis about the direct and immediate control of Iran by the theological elite or, if we take it more broadly, the theological elite and the close military elite from the so-called IRGC (Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps).
The governance system in Iran is a consensus of multi-level councils, where representatives of the civil economic circuit and representatives of the military economic circuit, two economic subsystems.
At the same time, both representatives of the civil and military contours have a relation to the religious and theological sphere. This is a very important factor, that the Iranian so-called priestly administration is not something third and separate, a superstructure, but again a fusion-consensus of the civil and military sectors.
It is clear that as long as those who either directly participated in governance during the 1979 Revolution or those who took the lead in the subsequent bloody Iran-Iraq War are alive, they will dominate politics.
But we should not forget that there are roots there, again, of both the military and economic contours of Iran, and the civil one. And the faqihs, both those close to the military contour and those close to the civil one, are two parts of one whole.
The Role and Features of National Funds in Iran
Due to the complexity of such a structure for perception, its analysis usually remains the domain of academic jurisprudence, which practically does not intersect with expertise and coverage in the information space, where everything is simplified to “autocracy” or “the chief ayatollah decides everything anyway.”
Later, as usually happens, it turns out that “in reality, everything is not as it really is,” and many forecasts regarding Iran go “in the milk.” You don’t have to look far – the Iranian presidential elections took place just two months ago.
We will not be tempted by simple formulations and will try to look at the new cabinet of ministers of M. Pezeshkian through the prism of two Iranian economic contours. For this, we will consider such a significant part of the Iranian system as national funds.
The numerous sanctions that the West imposed on Iran inevitably required the concentration of limited resources. The form of such concentration became the Iranian national funds-banyads.
All national funds are directly or indirectly connected with the Supreme Spiritual Administration of Iran, at least their heads are appointed with the consent or on the recommendation of A. Khamenei. But their essence and tasks differ.
The two basic national funds are the Foundation for the Executive Headquarters of the Imam's Order (EIKO or, as the first word, "Setad") and the Imam Reza Foundation (Astan Quds Rezawi). They are not very compatible in scale, but only in scale, not in influence.
"Setad", like the Mustazafan fund, was created following the 1979 Revolution on the basis of the Shah's fund, to manage the requisitioned Shah's property, and not only the Shah's, but also that of various other "accomplices and oppressors."
A significant part of the assets of the Shah of Iran was brought there, including oil, land, buildings and structures. Later, assets were allocated from this gigantic structure to other funds. Precisely to provide for two economic contours, but the fund itself remained the axial structure.
The Imam Reza Foundation is historical a charitable foundation associated with the city of Mashhad. This foundation currently carries out a cultural and educational function, and is essentially the basis of the country's cultural and educational policy, which in Iran is now inseparable from Islamic history and theology.
It should be noted here that the attitude towards culture and education in Iran, since it has a religious basis, is completely different from that in Russia. If in our country all this works "on a residual principle", then in Iran, for example, the Imam Reza Foundation was headed by the former President of Iran E. Raisi.
The status of the head of this fund and his voice would be something between the prime minister and the patriarch. It is clear that all this is in the informal table of ranks, but informal does not mean that it is not in fact.
The next powerful banyad fund is the Martyrs and Veterans Fund. It is easy to guess from the name that these are assets that work for the military wing of the Iranian economy. It is also joined by the NAJJ Cooperation Fund (Ministry of Interior), the IRGC Cooperation Fund (army).
The fourth largest fund is the Fund for Assistance to the Needy and Oppressed (Mustazafan Fund). It was also created on the basis of one of the pre-revolutionary funds, and it was used to collect the assets of the "accomplices and oppressors" who, after the revolution, wisely chose to move to Great Britain. This fund is more focused on helping those working in the civil economic sphere.
Later, to strengthen the situation, a separate Blessing Fund (Barakat) was created from EICO, which was also more focused on the civilian sector and subsidies to poor provinces such as Sistan and Baluchistan.
It is not surprising that the management of Iran's national funds usually becomes the target of Western sanctions. The heirs of the property that ended up there after the 1979 revolution are influential in the West, and are ready to share with Western financial circles for a hypothetical return of assets, plus they finance various information platforms that monitor various "human rights", "level of democracy", "degree of autocracy", etc.
In Russia, national funds are formed through taxes and excises. In Iran, the situation is fundamentally different – there, national funds have their own assets and their own revenue base.
Accordingly, there is no separate sphere where the income of fund A is generated, and in another industry – the income of fund B. “Military funds” have their base in agriculture, industry, light, heavy, including hydrocarbon projects.
There is a ship industry, a ship park, even resorts and tourist facilities. But "civil funds" also have a similar income base. That is why we can talk about a two-circuit economy.
The regulation of relations between the two circuits occurs through the currency exchange market, distribution between hydrocarbon projects, and regulation of foreign trade channels. Since the external influx of dollars has traditionally been controlled by the military, many financial lumps usually fall on their heads.
Funds and personalities
Here we can evaluate the difference in the political structure and look at the political levers. For us, the position of the Minister of Culture is, let's be honest, a passing position, but in Iran it is far from that.
When looking at ministerial portfolios, one must first of all pay attention to which large banyady funds a particular politician is oriented towards, as well as the real status of the department, based on its attitude towards these funds.
So who is the head of the Mustazafan Foundation? Hossein Dehghan is a former defense minister, but a moderate reformist. It is hardly possible to call him a "former minister who is now in the shadows." The shadow is quite large.
And who headed the fund before him? Parviz Fattah, who had previously headed "purely IRGC" funds. And now he is heading EICO.
This is a very significant transfer between personalities. And when did it happen? Back in late 2023. This is because they decided to "let the civilian contour breathe" not in this June, when A. Khamenei approved the candidacy of M. Pezeshkian, to everyone's surprise.
One could have started to be surprised earlier. It's just that this is not liberalization in the usual sense, but a redistribution of assets. EICO was previously headed by former vice-president M. Mokhber - it seems like a person in the shadow of E. Raisi, but the shadow here is not a simple one either.
Something remotely similar happens here, when political scientists begin to ponder which power "tower" a particular holder of a ministerial portfolio belongs to. In Iran, for this, one must look at national funds.
The top management already administers the relations between them, regulating two economic circuits. Criticism of this system is also understandable – relations in matters of funding are far from transparent, although this is partly (but only partly) caused by the requirements of national security.
Thus, in our assessments we must first isolate the military and civil economic contours, the points of support for income and assets and personal participation in them. Only then look at which political group or official political faction, "conservative" or "reformist", this or that administrator belongs to.
From this position we will begin our analysis of the personalities and assessment of the political vector of the new Iranian cabinet.
Information