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the power struggle within Iran’s ruling circle is becoming more vicious

Ali Larijani, a former presidential candidate, is the current speaker of parliament. He accused Mr Ahmadinejad of “waging war on God” by accusing a good Muslim of corruption with insufficient evidence—and threw the president out of parliament. “The judiciary is not a special family organisation,” said Mr Ahmadinejad, according to Iran’s state news agency, attacking the Larijanis as a whole.

an edict issued in November by the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, explicitly prohibiting political infighting before the election. In response, Mr Ahmadinejad, with studious ambiguity, thanked him for shutting up political figures who talked out of turn and reminded him of the value of the presidency and the constitution

for many guardsmen, they have become the establishment they grew up to despise

Ahmadinejad has moved to retire guardsmen, many with years of experience, and replace them with cadres of young, ideologically committed and loyal recruits. Empowered and imbued with an almost immature enthusiasm for confrontation, these new recruits are simply accentuating the existing tensions, as the old guard, bloodied by war and professionalised by experience, look on with disdain at the naivety of their successors.

"The Revolutionary Guards are smiling at the idea of new sanctions against Iran," said a Western executive who represents one of the world's largest oil companies. "Sanctions against the industry or preventing foreign companies from selling gasoline to Iran will mean more money, power and influence for the Guards," he said.

Under President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Guard has vastly increased its business activities. Working through its construction-sector arm, the Guard operates Tehran's international airport, builds the nation's highways and constructs communications systems. It also manages Iran's weapons-manufacturing business, including its controversial missile program. Iran's leaders view the Guard's involvement in the oil industry as normal and say the elite military branch is merely helping to develop a nation under sanctions. The Guard's construction arm acts as a commercial company, but it is unclear how its revenue is handled. Commanders say the Guard's income is transferred to the national treasury, but no public records detail the amounts.

The Guard, whose Khatam ol-Anbia arm is the biggest construction contractor in the country, publicly boasts of its growing experience in huge oil projects. "Today, the Revolutionary Guards are proud to have such knowledge and capability that we can easily replace big foreign companies like Total and Shell in taking over big projects at Asalouyeh," senior commander Yadollah Javani told the semiofficial Iranian Labor News Agency last weekend. Western analysts say that on major projects, however, the Guard typically subcontracts the most complex work to foreign companies, most of them now from China.

Outside the years 1999 to 2009, when he headed the judiciary, Shahroudi served from 1995 until his death as member of the Guardian Council, the powerful conservative watchdog that ensures the Islamic consistency and compatibility of parliamentary legislation and electoral candidates alike. He was likewise in the Assembly of Experts, a clerical body that selects the supreme leader’s successor, and a member of the Expediency Council, created toward the end of the Iran-Iraq War to adjudicate disagreements between parliament and the Guardian Council; this council subsequently also began advising the supreme leader on the broad contours of policy and strategy. After the 2017 death of its chairman—Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, a highly influential former president—Khamenei tapped Shahroudi as his replacement. Shahroudi was therefore clearly a figure Khamenei could rely on, a figure the supreme leader recently eulogized as a “faithful executor in the Islamic Republic’s most important institutions.”

Shahroudi presided over a witch hunt against reformist parliamentarians and newspapers, students and intellectuals, human rights activists and, at the end of his tenure, the pro-reformist Green Movement protesting against the fraudulent elections that handed Ahmadinejad a second term

Shahroudi is reported to have overseen, directly or indirectly, some 2,000 executions, including of minors

order, confirmed by three sources close to the supreme leader’s inner circle and a fourth official, set in motion the bloodiest crackdown on protesters since the Islamic Revolution in 1979

About 1,500 people were killed during less than two weeks of unrest that started on Nov. 15. The toll, provided to Reuters by three Iranian interior ministry officials, included at least 17 teenagers and about 400 women as well as some members of the security forces and police

What began as scattered protests over a surprise increase in gasoline prices quickly spread into one of the biggest challenges to Iran’s clerical rulers since the 1979 Islamic Revolution. By Nov. 17, the second day, the unrest had reached the capital Tehran, with people calling for an end to the Islamic Republic and the downfall of its leaders. Protesters burned pictures of Khamenei and called for the return of Reza Pahlavi, the exiled son of the toppled Shah of Iran, according to videos posted on social media and eye witnesses.

A leading Iranian cleric has urged authorities “to listen to the people”, as protests ignited by a young woman’s death in morality police custody show no sign of letting up.

“The leaders must listen to the demands of the people, resolve their problems and show sensitivity to their rights,” said Grand Ayatollah Hossein Nouri Hamedani in a statement posted on his website Sunday.

The powerful 97-year-old cleric has long been aligned with the country’s ultra-conservative establishment and strongly backed supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on several occasions — notably during the 2009 protests against the reelection of former president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.