IRAQ - The Difference Between Pahlavi Savak & Theocracy's Intelligence.

More than 28 years after Khomeini's Islamic revolution, the Shi'ite theocracy has created an intelligence community markedly different from the pre-revolutionary intelligence community of the Pahlavi monarchy. Tehran's leading intelligence agency, the Ministry of Intelligence and National Security, is worlds apart from the Shah's notorious Savak (Sazeman-e Ettelaat va Amniyat-e Keshvar, or Organisation for Intelligence and National Security). Since its formation in 1984, the Ministry of Intelligence has deliberately cultivated a low profile (as opposed to the effusive and sometimes flamboyant Savak) and gone out of its way to convince political masters and citizens alike that it is an intelligence organisation as opposed to a secret-police force.

Iran analyst Mahan Abedin, in an article published on July 21, says Iranian intelligence officers often seem quite different from other officials and servants of the Shi'ite theocracy. Unlike those of other important bodies - in particular the Foreign Ministry and the state broadcaster - the Intelligence Ministry's personnel "reflect the diversity of Iranian society". He says the Intelligence Ministry's personnel "are often of a much higher quality - better educated, well travelled and broad-minded". But he warns that "this first impression can be profoundly deceptive", adding: "For all its sophistication, the Intelligence Ministry is ultimately subordinate to strict clerical control. It is instructive that every minister of intelligence from 1984 onward has been a cleric. Aside from a few clerical-dominated organizations such as the Assembly of Experts and the Council of Guardians, no other organization or institution in post-revolutionary Iran has been subject to this level of clerical subordination".

Abedin adds: "This arrangement reflects two realities: first, it underscores the unique importance of the Intelligence Ministry to the clerics who control the commanding heights of the Iranian government; second, it reflects widespread fears inside the inner sanctums of the Islamic regime that the ministry - on account of its diverse personnel and higher levels of professionalism - cannot be fully trusted".

While the theocracy's intelligence agencies "are the most professional and capable in the Middle East (with the possible exception of Israel)", Abedin says, "they have found it very difficult to operate effectively in the West", noting: "Since the early 1980s, Iranian intelligence has been able to develop formidable intelligence networks throughout the Middle East, Central Asia and Southeast Asia. But the Iranians have found it almost impossible to achieve even modest gains in Western Europe and North America. A combination of factors, including lack of language skills, unfamiliarity with Western cultures, and very limited liaison relationships with Western intelligence services, is at the heart of this failure".

The Intelligence Ministry in particular is "notorious for spectacular failures in the West". Its core operations in the West - which mostly revolve around the penetration of dissident Iranian organisations and the management of covert arms-procurement rings - have often been easily disrupted by Western intelligence services. The ministry has often failed to provide adequate care of its agents.

Abedin says: "The Intelligence Ministry tends to arrange meetings with its agents in Istanbul, Athens, Larnaka and Beirut. Very often these agents are either interdicted at Western European airports (on their way to their destination), which provides a suitable psychological environment for Western intelligence to 'turn' them into double agents, or they are picked up by Greek or Turkish intelligence at the point of arrival, which exposes the agents to even graver exploitation by hostile and friendly intelligence services alike.

"Its operational successes and failures notwithstanding, another key feature of the Iranian intelligence community is its relative lack of politicization. This is often overlooked by specialists on Iranian intelligence and Iran analysts in general. There is a tendency to position different components of the intelligence community into the dizzyingly complex factional politics of the Islamic Republic. Thus the Intelligence Ministry is often projected as pro-reformist whereas the intelligence organizations connected to the...[IRGC] are seen as natural allies of the so-called [supremacist] 'hardliners'. The reality is very different.

"Despite the diversity of its personnel, the...intelligence community - as opposed to...[Iran's] political society - is remarkably cohesive. The designers and watchdogs of the post-revolutionary intelligence community have expended tremendous efforts to ensure that the intelligence community remains free from political manipulation. This is a reflection of the revolutionaries' desire to avoid the mistakes and abuses of the pre-revolutionary era when the SAVAK was far too close to the political elites and hence prone to manipulation and corruption. This is one of the greatest enduring strengths of Iranian intelligence and the single most important factor that distinguishes it from other Middle Eastern intelligence communities.

"Nevertheless, since the early 1990s, the Intelligence Ministry has committed numerous abuses. The most notorious were the so-called "chain murders" of the late 1990s when allegedly "rogue" agents inside the ministry murdered several dissident political activists, writers and artists. Although the Intelligence Ministry owned up to the crimes, its contention that 'rogue' agents controlled by Saeed Emami (a US-educated head of internal security at the ministry) had planned and perpetrated these murders has never been seriously tested by competent investigative bodies.

"Conflicting conspiracy theories notwithstanding, the tension between the ministry's professional core and the absolute determination of a group of tightly knit 'spy-clerics' to oversee and direct the most sensitive intelligence issues is the likely cause of these abuses".