Iran’s Zarif Says Revolutionary Guard Dictates Decisions

Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif in a leaked audiotape, said that government decisions are dictated by the supreme leader or, frequently, the Revolutionary Guards Corps. The New York Times reported Sunday on the three-hour recording, said to be part of an oral history project documenting the work of the current Iranian government administration.

“In the Islamic Republic the military field rules. I have sacrificed diplomacy for the military field rather than the field servicing diplomacy,” Zarif said on the tape.

Zarif said that Maj. Gen. Qasem Soleimani, the commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Quds Force who was killed by a targeted US drone strike in Bagdad in January 2020, took actions that damaged the country, including working with Russia to prevent from happening the Iran nuclear deal signed with the world powers in 2015.

Zarif also said that he was surprised to learn from former US Secretary of State John Kerry that Israel had attacked Iranian interests in Syria at least 200 times.