Controlling Resources to Fund the Iranian Regime

Controlling Resources to Fund the Iranian Regime.

Qualitative and quantitative surveys of Iranian industrial workers suggest that they are astute observers of the economic landscape around them. While they may not understand many of the intricate details of how their economy functions (rather than seemingly), they are strongly suspicious “that the country’s most successful industries are owned by a handful of political/wealthy elites…” “The companies are owned by influential figures like Parliament members or relatives of high ranking government officials, or people who have strong connections within the government.”.

The open-source information about Iran’s economic structure suggests the presence of two types of economic para-states. The first type consists of the large private sector corporations that have current and former key elected or appointed government officials as owners, investors, board members, or executives who ensure that the economic entity is protected from adverse government regulation and privileged by government legislation. The respondents demonstrated an intricate knowledge of the extra-governmental commercial activities of the Speaker of the Iranian Parliament (since 2008), Ali Larijani, and his brother, Sadeq Larijani, the head of Iran’s Judiciary since 2009, as an example. Other examples mentioned by the respondents include the former mayor of Tehran, Mohammad Baqer Qalifab, the former head of the Supreme Leaders’

Inspection Office, Ali Akbar Nategh Nouri, and the Rafsanjani family, now one of the wealthiest in Iran.

The respondents noted that former President Rouhani himself is closely tied in with the chairman and owner of Tabriz based Shirin Asal Company, Younes Jaele, one of the wealthiest people in Iran: “In their last trip to the African countries and to South America, an airplane full of (Mr. Jaele’s) products was sent as a gift to the people of those countries, and this shows that he enjoys the direct support of the government of Iran.”

The second type of parastate consists of a tax-free holding entity that Iran calls a Bonyad. This is a Persian term for “Foundation” which are charitable trusts in Iran that play a powerful role in Iran’s economy.

There are more than one hundred Bonyads operating in Iran that are tax-exempt, government subsidized, consortiums that receive religious donations and are answerable only to the Supreme Leader of Iran. They are involved in everything from soybean and cotton production to hotels, automobile, soft drinks, construction, engineering, real estate, and shipping lines, to name just some of their activities. Certain Bonyads are operated to partially fund IRGC & Quds Foreign Activities.