The Guardian Council of Iran is made up of the truest of true believers in the Islamic revolution that swept that country more than a quarter of a century ago. It’s leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, has powers more suited to a fascist dictator than anything else. He gets to choose other clerical members of the Council as well as nominate the 6 Islamic lawyers who make up the remainder of the body and must be approved by Parliament. The fact that no member of Parliament can run without Khamenei’s blessing should tell you a little something about how much power the “Supreme Leader” holds.

The Council also has absolute veto power over any law passed by the Iranian Parliament as well as total control over who runs for President. These facts make it plain that “Iranian Democracy” that most of the left here and in Europe were celebrating after the recent elections is a total and complete sham. For not only do the Mullahs have total control over who runs for President, they also control the entire electoral process from the printing of ballots to the counting process.

All of this power is backed up by the fanatically ruthless and bloodthirsty Revolutionary Guard. Acting much like a combination of Hitler’s SS and Gestapo, they have been responsible for the executions and outright murders of tens of thousands of Iranians since 1979. They are as loyal to the Supreme Leader as the SS was to Hitler. They are also in control of the Iranian stockpile of WMD, including chemical, biological, and very soon, nuclear weapons.

A special faction of the Revolutionary Guards is also responsible for what they call “extraterritorial” operations. These include the murders and assassinations of exiles and other critics of the regime. The “Qods” or Jeruselem Force have been involved in assassinations in both the middle east and Europe.

Numbering more than 350,000, the Revolutionary Guards insure that any move toward democracy, any dissent, is crushed before it has a chance to get started.

These facts should be kept in mind when trying to analyze what Ayatollah Khamenei has just done in rigging the Presidential election so that the former hostage taker and assassin Mahmoud Ahmadinejad would win. For Ahmandinejad is not just your run of the mill hardliner (think Rudolph Hess) but rather a cold, calculating murderous thug (think Rheinhard Heydrich).

Global Security has an analysis of the election pointing out how Ahmadinejad won:

Some outside observers had great difficult understanding Ahmadinejad’s apparent popularity across the country. They were not able to comprehend his ability to out-poll better-known figures, such as former speaker of parliament Mehdi Karrubi or former national police chief Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf. The other candidates had been nationally visible for years, and had campaigned throughout the country. Although Ahmadinejad only became nationally visible after he became Tehran mayor. He did not campaign as extensively as his rivals. Some speculated that electoral interference by the Basij and the Guardians Council was the only explaination of this otherwise inexplicable rise to power.

The Basiijs, or Mobilization Resistance Force - a volunteer paramilitary militia under the Revolutionary Guards - was called upon to vote for Ahmadinejad and get others to do so. There was evidence of vote rigging by Ayatollah Khamenei and his supporters. Reformists charged the Basij, a paramilitary arm of the Revolutionary Guard, with violating prohibitions against military involvement in politics by mobilizing votes for the Tehran mayor. Although the military is supposed to steer clear of politics, it has always had some role, but it has never been as prominent as this.

(HT: Captains Quarters)

The fact that Khamenei interfered so overtly is extremely troubling. To place such a man as Ahmadinejad in charge at this delicate juncture may in fact mean that the Ayatollah has determined that war with either Israel or the United States is now inevitable and that he needed a President to carry out his orders completely and without hesitation; orders that could include everything from a preemptive strike against Israel to the use of WMD against any military action taken by the United States to try and prevent Iran from acquring nuclear weapons.

But who is President Ahmadinejad? Here’s a short bio that’s extremely revealing:

Following the 1979 Islamic revolution he became a member the ultra-conservative faction of the Office for Strengthening Unity [OSU] Between Universities and Theological Seminaries. The OSU was established by Ayatollah Mohammad Beheshti, one of Khomeini’s key collaborators, to organise Islamist students against the rapidly growing Mojahedin-e Khalq (MeK). When the idea of storming the American embassy in Tehran was raised by the OSU, Ahmadinejad suggested storming the Soviet embassy at the same time.

With the start of the Iraq war in 1980, Ahmadinejad rushed to the western fronts to fight against the enemy and voluntarily joined special forces of the Islamic Revolution’s Guards Corps (IRGC) in 1986. He served in the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps intelligence and security apparatus.

Ahmadinejad was a senior officer in the Special Brigade of the Revolutionary Guards, stationed at Ramazan Garrison near Kermanshah in western Iran. This was the headquarters of the Revolutionary Guards’ “Extra-territorial Operations” — mounting attacks beyond Iran’s borders. His work in the Revolutionary Guards was related to suppression of dissidents in Iran and abroad. He personally participated in covert operations around the Iraqi city of Kirkuk.

With the formation of the elite Qods (Jerusalem) Force of the IRGC, Ahmadinejad became one of its senior commanders. He directed assassinations in the Middle East and Europe, including the assassination of Iranian Kurdish leader Abdorrahman Qassemlou, who was shot dead by senior officers of the Revolutionary Guards in a Vienna flat in July 1989. Ahmadinejad was a key planner of the attack. He was reported to have been involved in planning an attempt on the life of Salman Rushdie

Five former American hostages have identified Iran’s new President as one of the leaders of the “students” who took over the American embassy in November of 1979. Did Khamenei think that the American government wouldn’t find this out? Did they think we wouldn’t discover his activities as an important commander of the “Qods?”

What kind of signal is the Supreme Leader trying to send us by raising a relatively obscure, ultra-hard line Mayor to the highest “elected” office in the land?

I believe Khamenei has crossed the rubicon and is preparing for war.

From here on out, any negotiations carried out with the so-called E-3 of Germany, France, and Great Britain on slowing down Iran’s drive for nuclear weapons must be seen as nothing more than a stalling tactic designed to split the Europeans from the United States so that when the crunch comes, the US will find itself alone both militarily and diplomatically. Any unilateral action we take will be seen as just one more example of American arrogance. In the meantime, Iran gets its nuclear weapons and goes after its primary target: Israel.

Iran’s regional ambitions, which must now be seen in an entirely new light with President Ahmadinejad’s call for once again spreading the Islamic revolution throughout the world, can only be thwarted by Israel and the United States. This puts the state of Israel on the firing line. How far is Khamenei willing to go with Israel? Frankly, all bets are off. It’s impossible to tell if the Supreme Leader of Iran is fanatical enough to try and carry out their oft repeated threat of destroying the Jewish state. But one thing is certain; if they manage to make enough weapons grade plutonium, they will feel emboldened enough to try destabilize the already shaky regimes in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf.

The election in Iran has elevated a fanatical terrorist assassin to the highest elected office in that country. I don’t think we can look at that fact as a coincidence.

It looks like worrying about Iran has now become a full time job if it wasn’t already.