Arm of Iranian Military Set to Enter Energy Sector--Daily Star

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1//The Daily Star, Lebanon Wednesday, June 28, 2006

http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=10&categ_id=3&article_id=73501



ARM OF IRANIAN MILITARY SET TO ENTER ENERGY SECTOR

Revolutionary guards have won contract to develop gas field

By Siavosh Ghazi, Agence France Presse (AFP)



TEHRAN: Iran's powerful ideological army, the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), is set to enter the oil and gas sectors in a move that would increase their stake in the Islamic Republic's economy. "The Revolutionary Guards have obtained the contract to develop phases 15 and 16 of South Pars," a huge offshore gas field divided between Iran and Qatar, General Abdolreza Abed said in an interview with the Shargh newspaper.



Abed, who heads up the Guards' economic operations, said the contract was worth $2.09 billion.

The deal would be a major boost to the operations of the force, initially created after the 1979 Islamic Revolution to protect the regime from foreign and domestic threats. It comes on the back of a string of advances into Iran's economy: Several weeks ago the Pasdaran - as the IRGC are called is Farsi - was awarded a $1.3 billion contract to construct a 900-kilometer pipeline between South Pars and southeastern Iran. In both South Pars cases, the projects were awarded after the usual tendering process was abandoned.


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For many observers, the wave of lucrative deals going to the IRGC is connected to last year's shock presidential election win by hard-liner Mahmoud Ahmadinejad - a veteran of the force - who promised to favor domestic entrepreneurs. In his former job as Tehran's mayor, Ahmadinejad had already awarded municipal contracts to the IRGC, which began to move into business during the reconstruction phase after the 1980-88 war with Iraq.



Completed contracts include the construction of a new 120-kilometer highway between Tehran and Saveh to the south, as well as dams. The Pasdaran have also been steadily encroaching into national politics, and during disputed parliament elections in 2004 some 40 R IRGC veterans won seats.



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