For slightly over a decade the office of Irani Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has been quietly and yet surely taking full control over a large swathe of Iran’s economy, all under the deceptive pretext of privatization.
The motive driving this major effort forward can be understood in the desire, and need, seen in Khamenei and the Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) to enjoy all the more control and influence over Iran’s vast natural resources.
On Tuesday, March 21, 2017, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei waves to a crowd in Mashhad, Iran. (Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader via AP)
This privatization campaign, as dubbed by those behind it, was sparked with a significant turn of events dating back to 2005. With firebrand Mahmoud Ahmadinejad becoming the regime’s president, Khamenei and the IRGC went the limits to pack the entire executive branch with a long slate of loyalists who at least at the beginning of their campaign were in line with Khamenei’s strategic blueprint for the regime’s future.
