Not-So-Revolutionary Rouhani

April 2014

Rouhani’s chief adviser, Akbar Torkan, was Rafsanjani’s first minister of defence (1989-93) and took an active role in coordinating Iranian weapons supplies to Bosnia in the early stages of the Yugoslav civil war. Later, Torkan presided over the opening of Iran’s oil sector as the CEO of Petropars Ltd, a subsidiary of the National Iran Oil Company (NIOC) — later subject to US sanctions — alongside oil minister Bijan Zanganeh.

With Rouhani’s blessing, they have all placed loyalists at the helm of government-owned holding companies — all competent managers, no doubt, but hardly the fresh breed touted in the Western media.

Zanganeh has appointed Roknoddin Javadi as managing director of NIOC. He is an old-timer in the NIOC management structure and very close to the minister.

Ahmad Morad Alizadeh, chairman of Mahan Air (also subject to sanctions), has retaken his old post as MD at the government-owned National Iranian Copper Industries Company (NICICO), while remaining in charge of a Hamburg-based procurement operation. Mir Ali Ashraf Pouri Hosseini, the new chairman of the Iranian Privatisation Organisation, served in the same post in the waning days of Khatami’s presidency.

Mehdi Karbasian, the new deputy minister for industries and mines and newly-appointed chairman of IMIDRO, the Iranian Mines and Mining Industries Development Renovation Organisation, shares a similar story. Karbasian’s CV not only exudes experience and competence, it exemplifies the entire Rouhani administration as a group of veteran revolutionary insiders.

Karbasian has sat on the board of dozens of Iranian government-owned companies, including many entities subject to sanctions, such as IRISL—Iran’s shipping lines — and IFIC — Iran’s Foreign Investment Company. He spent his youthful revolutionary years between the battlefield and government management at the Foundation of the Oppressed, a multimillion-dollar economic empire. In the 1990s, under Rafsanjani and Khatami, he occupied many positions of influence in the oil industry, banking, and government.

Alongside new appointments, there are holdovers to confirm that Iran’s oligarchs are in full control of the ship of state. While Alizadeh’s predecessor, Nematollah Postindouz, left behind a trail of corruption charges, the chairman of the Foundation of the Oppressed, Mohammad Forounzadeh, has not been replaced. That may have less to do with moderate credentials, and more with the fact that he is agreeable to all Iranian power centres — he was chief of staff of the Revolutionary Guards in the 1980s and later succeeded Torkan as Rafsanjani’s minister of defence from 1993 to 1997.

Rouhani is not a harbinger of change — if anything he represents the resilience of Iran’s revolutionary elites and their resolve to preserve their grip on power.