The Council on Foreign Relations posted an interesting interview with the Carnegie Endowment's Karim Sadjadpour, who seems to have a good understanding of Iran's Revolutionary Guards. Much of what he says conforms nicely with a piece we recently ran on THE DAILY STANDARD by AEI's Omeed Jafari.

Sadjadpour explains "that there’s a small but very powerful clique within Iran, among the political elite, who actually have entrenched political and financial interests in retaining Iran’s isolation." Asked to elaborate, he says:

You have hardline elements within the Revolutionary Guard, who right now have enormous financial assets, and they maintain a kind of a private mafia. And the last thing they want is Iran to open up to the rest of the world, to join the WTO. I think their logic is that right now Iran is a closed society, and the less open the merrier.

Jafari's piece was the first I'd heard of what I think is really an interesting story. Basically, as foreign companies leave Iran due to the high risks associated with doing business there--the likelihood of further sanctions or even war--the Guard has moved in to fill the void, winning billions of dollars in no-bid contracts. This has given the Guard and its allies even less incentive to work towards some kind of diplomatic solution to the nuclear standoff, or to stop meddling in Iraq. Anyway, read the interview, and the Jafari piece. As I said, interesting stuff.