Commanders’ Concern: Not Enough Forces Beholden to Supreme Leader

Yahya Rahim-Safavi, the former commander of the Islamic Passdaran Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) and current advisor to ayatollah Khamenei said in remarks published yesterday that he is worried about the lack of enough forces beholden to the supreme leader in universities, adding, “The universities aren’t in good shape today, missing from them are revolutionary forces and experts who are beholden to the Imam, the supreme leader and the Constitution.”

Emphasizing the supreme leader’s areas of concern, Rahim Safavi, who was speaking at a conference organized for the so-called cultural experts of the IRGC, said, “The supreme leader have identified soft war, and because the IRGC must combat both soft war as well as semi-hard was and hard war, it must have the tools for each kind of war.  

The former IRGC chief noted that the “goal of soft war is to change the culture, values and beliefs of the youth,” adding, “Our weakness is in this very issue of culture, which our enemies have identified before we did.  Therefore we must battle against and overcome the attacking culture with our soft and cultural power.”

Noting that “Our population was 36 million during the revolution and72 million now, therefore 50 percent of our country’s population are youth under the age of 30,” ayatollah Khamenei’s advisor noted his concerns with the “huge cultural war against Islam and the Islamic Revolution.”

Rahim-Safavi’s statements contradict last week’s remarks by Kamran Daneshjoo, Ahmadinejad’s science minister, who said, “The majority of the country’s university community are aligned with the revolution, and whoever cannot move in that direction must leave the community without pleasantries.”

Kamran Daneshjoo also made an implicit reference to the university professors who have been fired or dismissed, noting, “We have enough caring individuals in the science ministry to afford removing misaligned individuals from the community and aren’t ashamed of doing that.  

Following the June 12 presidential election, a large number of professors from various universities across the nation have been arrested, dismissed or forced into retirement.  At least 5 students from various universities have been killed by police or paramilitary forces during popular protests and many others are under arrest or have been barred from continuing their education.  

Following criticisms by ayatollah Khamenei in recent months that the “non-Islamic character of universities” and his insistence on “undertaking fundamental reform of the country’s educational system,” the supreme leader’s deputy in educational affairs has set up “supreme leader’s demands” post in universities, launching the overhaul of the country’s educational system towards a more Islamic approach.