{"id":31110,"date":"2026-02-15T05:22:34","date_gmt":"2026-02-15T04:22:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/michelsanti.fr\/?p=31110"},"modified":"2026-02-15T10:25:48","modified_gmt":"2026-02-15T09:25:48","slug":"iran-the-kleptocrats-who-betrayed-the-revolution","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/michelsanti.fr\/en\/iran-2\/iran-the-kleptocrats-who-betrayed-the-revolution","title":{"rendered":"Iran: The Kleptocrats Who Betrayed the Revolution"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\u201cThe Supreme Leader has only one concern: annual profits. The rest, he doesn\u2019t care about.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

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Created by a brief edict of Khomeini in 1989, two months before his death, to manage \u201cownerless\u201d properties and redistribute them to the poor, Setad \u2014 \u201cHeadquarters for Executing the Order of the Imam\u201d \u2014 has, under Ali Khamenei, become a $95-billion empire.<\/p>\n

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After six months of investigation, Reuters reconstructed the implacable mechanics of this nebula, whose inventory is staggering: a real estate portfolio estimated at $52 billion as early as 2008; stakes in Iran\u2019s largest banks; 38% of the consortium controlling Telecommunication Co of Iran (the country\u2019s largest operator, acquired in 2009 for $7.8 billion alongside the Revolutionary Guards); the Rey Investment conglomerate valued at $40 billion by the U.S. Treasury; cement factories; refineries; power plants; insurance companies; an ostrich farm; and even oral contraceptive factories. A paradox for a regime whose Supreme Leader declared in 2012: \u201cFamilies and young people must increase the birth rate.\u201d<\/p>\n

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While the rial is melting away and inflation is approaching 100%, Setad rakes in hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue per year. It is the Leader who appoints the administrators, delegates management, and demands optimal profitability. \u201cAll he cares about is the number,\u201d a former executive told Reuters.<\/p>\n

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I knew the other face of this Revolution. In 1978, as a teenager, I spent an afternoon in the company of Ruhollah Khomeini in Neauphle-le-Ch\u00e2teau. Then a night at his side aboard the Air France plane that was triumphantly bringing him back to Tehran on February 1, 1979. In his modest pavilion in the Yvelines, we shared a meal by hand, sitting on the floor atop piles of carpets in his small living room with faded wallpaper. Khomeini spoke perfect literary Arabic, touched my elbow to emphasize his words, looked at me straight with his sparkling eyes. \u201cYou strangely remind me of my son Mostafa, who died a few months ago.\u201d Upon landing at Mehrabad, awaited by millions of people, he took my hand, kissed me on the forehead and slipped me an envelope: \u201cOpen it only after you have left Iranian airspace.\u201d<\/p>\n

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How did we get here?<\/em><\/p>\n


How did this Ejraiye Farmane Hazrate Emam, originally intended to redistribute its revenues to war widows and the destitute, metamorphose into an economic conglomerate \u2014 a state within the state \u2014 granting immunity and absolute power to Khamenei, who thus possesses a colossal slush fund, independent of the national budget and factional struggles? Now regarded as a tyrant, Setad is \u201chis insurance policy allowing him to buy loyalties, finance repression and prepare his exile if necessary,\u201d according to anonymous sources cited by Reuters. Over the decades, the Iranian theocracy has generated an opaque oligarchy serving a single man surrounded by a small clique, described by the U.S. Treasury as a \u201cmassive network of shell companies concealing assets for the benefit of Iranian leaders.\u201d<\/p>\n

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I measure the abyss between my visionary Khomeini, whom I encountered, and the crushing machine his legacy has become. The man I knew had memorized the Quran by age 16, spent hours marveling with the poet Nader Naderpour. He did not consider music, chess, or wearing a tie to be blasphemous \u2014 unlike almost the entirety of the Shiite clergy. He marveled at Oum Kalthoum and envied my family ties with her: \u201cHer hymns make me shiver, somewhat like Muslim religious chants,\u201d he confided. In 1989, a few months before his death, he wrote to Gorbachev urging him to read \u2014 not the Quran \u2014 but the Sufi mystics Ibn al-Arabi and the philosophers Avicenna and Farabi \u2014 to the great displeasure of his subordinates, the mullahs. In 1979, Khomeini assured me that his destiny was to rehabilitate the lost honor of the Shiites. He became inflamed at the prospect of \u201coverthrowing tyrants and thieves,\u201d believing that Iran was only the first step of his \u201cWorld Revolution for the oppressed.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Ironically, Khamenei\u2019s Setad today reproduces the Shah\u2019s methods, but on a larger scale and with chilling bureaucratic efficiency. It is this founding and destructive duality that makes Iran convulse today: on the one hand, mysticism, poetry, the aspiration for justice that had fueled the revolutionary fervor of 1979; on the other, the methodical confiscation of power, economic predation, bloody repression. In this respect, Setad embodies this betrayal: an organization created in the name of the poor that has become an instrument for enriching an autocracy. Families dispossessed of their property on the basis of false declarations of abandonment. Owners forced to buy back their own homes. An old woman lifted up on her carpet, thrown out of her house \u2014 still according to the detailed Reuters investigation.<\/p>\n

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Governments under Khamenei\u2019s tutelage have built a formidable legal arsenal. Article 45 of the Constitution already allowed the State to dispose of \u201cabandoned\u201d lands. Article 49, even more devastating, authorizes the confiscation of \u201cillicit wealth\u201d \u2014 drafted so broadly that, according to historian Shaul Bakhash of George Mason University, \u201cit allows expropriation on the thinnest of pretexts.\u201d In 1984, parliament created special confiscation courts attached to the revolutionary tribunals. Far from bringing order, these \u201cArticle 49 courts\u201d systematized seizures. In 1997, a governmental legal commission declared that the General Inspection Organization \u2014 Iran\u2019s anti-corruption body \u2014 had no right to control Setad without the Leader\u2019s authorization. In 2000, the judiciary granted Setad exclusive monopoly over seizures in the name of the Leader. In 2008, parliament finally voted its own prohibition from overseeing organizations under the Supreme Leader\u2019s authority. \u201cNo one knows what happens inside these organizations. One detail reveals the scale of the empire: Setad\u2019s headquarters is a large gray concrete building, with small windows, in the heart of Tehran\u2019s business district. You wouldn\u2019t even notice it walking past,\u201d said a former employee.<\/p>\n

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Invisibility as doctrine, granting Khamenei a power Khomeini never had \u2014 and never wanted. Considered insufficiently qualified by the grand Ayatollahs, lacking the clerical rank required by the Constitution, Khamenei was chosen at the last minute by the Assembly of Experts upon Khomeini\u2019s death, thanks to a constitutional amendment passed in urgency. He now operates from a vast complex where about 500 people \u2014 recruited from the Revolutionary Guards and security services \u2014 work, financed by Setad. It is his colossal slush fund, independent of the national budget and factional struggles, turned into a gigantic lever for enriching an autocracy.<\/p>\n

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I measure the abyss between the mystic I encountered and the institutional machinery his legacy has become. A nation of factionalists who, as President Pezeshkian admitted before parliament, will not hesitate to confront one another once the man who holds the purse strings disappears.<\/p>\n

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Having opened the envelope handed to me by Khomeini on my return flight to Paris, it contained an image and a line in Arabic: \u201cHistory begins now.\u201d<\/p>\n

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It did indeed begin at dawn on February 1, 1979. It was not, however, written as he had dreamed. The regime he founded is imploding under the weight of its own contradictions \u2014 the very ones perceived by the teenager dazzled by that old man of unbearable charisma.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cThe Supreme Leader has only one concern: annual profits. The rest, he doesn\u2019t care about.\u201d Created by a brief edict of Khomeini in 1989, two months before his death, to manage \u201cownerless\u201d properties and redistribute them to the poor, Setad \u2014 \u201cHeadquarters for Executing the Order of the Imam\u201d \u2014 has, under Ali Khamenei, become…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"give_campaign_id":0,"_crdt_document":"","_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"mc4wp_mailchimp_campaign":[],"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[648942631,648942944],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-31110","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-iran-2","category-khomeiny-2"],"yoast_head":"\nIran: The Kleptocrats Who Betrayed the Revolution - Michel Santi<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/michelsanti.fr\/en\/iran-2\/iran-the-kleptocrats-who-betrayed-the-revolution\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Iran: The Kleptocrats Who Betrayed the Revolution - Michel Santi\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"\u201cThe Supreme Leader has only one concern: annual profits. 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Ra\u00efssi's death clarifies the situation and puts the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "geopolitics"","block_context":{"text":"geopolitics","link":"https:\/\/michelsanti.fr\/en\/category\/geopolitics"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/michelsanti.fr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/iran-organigramme.jpg?fit=1200%2C854&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/michelsanti.fr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/iran-organigramme.jpg?fit=1200%2C854&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/michelsanti.fr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/iran-organigramme.jpg?fit=1200%2C854&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/michelsanti.fr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/iran-organigramme.jpg?fit=1200%2C854&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/michelsanti.fr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/iran-organigramme.jpg?fit=1200%2C854&ssl=1&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":29659,"url":"https:\/\/michelsanti.fr\/en\/iran-2\/trump-iran-tarifss","url_meta":{"origin":31110,"position":2},"title":"Trump the Mastermind","author":"Michel Santi","date":"June 21, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"Russia managed to outplay Trump: no ceasefire. China managed to outplay Trump: no serious concessions on tariffs. Iran \u2014 whose ancestors invented the game of chess \u2014 will outplay Trump. The tactic is simple: Just resist, stand firm, ignore the threats \u2026 especially when only 23% of Americans can locate\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Iran"","block_context":{"text":"Iran","link":"https:\/\/michelsanti.fr\/en\/category\/iran-2"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/michelsanti.fr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/Iran-localisation.jpg?fit=972%2C1200&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/michelsanti.fr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/Iran-localisation.jpg?fit=972%2C1200&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/michelsanti.fr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/Iran-localisation.jpg?fit=972%2C1200&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/michelsanti.fr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/Iran-localisation.jpg?fit=972%2C1200&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":29628,"url":"https:\/\/michelsanti.fr\/en\/iran-2\/iran","url_meta":{"origin":31110,"position":3},"title":"IRAN","author":"Michel Santi","date":"June 13, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"On May 15 and 27, I published these two analyses on Iran. I explained why the Iranian clergy will remain uncompromising on the issue of nuclear power. As a reminder, I met Imam Khomeini twice, during which he confided in me about his ambition to establish the hegemony of his\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Iran"","block_context":{"text":"Iran","link":"https:\/\/michelsanti.fr\/en\/category\/iran-2"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/michelsanti.fr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/K-Air-France.jpg?fit=897%2C505&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/michelsanti.fr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/K-Air-France.jpg?fit=897%2C505&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/michelsanti.fr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/K-Air-France.jpg?fit=897%2C505&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/michelsanti.fr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/K-Air-France.jpg?fit=897%2C505&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":29684,"url":"https:\/\/michelsanti.fr\/en\/khomeiny-2\/iran-2","url_meta":{"origin":31110,"position":4},"title":"What Khomeini Told Me","author":"Michel Santi","date":"June 22, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"Khomeini was a gentle man. His gaze was always of indisputable kindness toward me\u2014almost paternal, never intimidating. His face bore regular, harmonious, almost feminine features. I perceived a refined, elegant person, the opposite of obscurantism. In fact, he even smelled good, as if he had put on perfume. A mystic\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "A levantine youth"","block_context":{"text":"A levantine youth","link":"https:\/\/michelsanti.fr\/en\/category\/a-levantine-youth"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/michelsanti.fr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/Teheran.jpg?fit=1200%2C798&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/michelsanti.fr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/Teheran.jpg?fit=1200%2C798&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/michelsanti.fr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/Teheran.jpg?fit=1200%2C798&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/michelsanti.fr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/Teheran.jpg?fit=1200%2C798&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/michelsanti.fr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/Teheran.jpg?fit=1200%2C798&ssl=1&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":31106,"url":"https:\/\/michelsanti.fr\/iran\/iran-ces-mafieux-qui-ont-defigure-la-revolution","url_meta":{"origin":31110,"position":5},"title":"Iran, ces mafieux qui ont d\u00e9figur\u00e9 la r\u00e9volution","author":"Michel Santi","date":"February 15, 2026","format":false,"excerpt":"\u00a0 \u00ab Le Guide supr\u00eame n\u2019a qu\u2019un seul souci : les profits annuels. Le reste, il s\u2019en moque. \u00bb \u00a0 Cr\u00e9\u00e9 par un bref \u00e9dit de Khomeiny en 1989, deux mois avant sa mort, pour g\u00e9rer les biens \u00ab sans propri\u00e9taire \u00bb et les reverser aux pauvres, Setad \u2014 \u00ab\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "conflit chiites\/sunnites"","block_context":{"text":"conflit chiites\/sunnites","link":"https:\/\/michelsanti.fr\/category\/conflit-chiites-sunnites"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/michelsanti.fr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/KHAMENEI.jpg?fit=1200%2C801&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/michelsanti.fr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/KHAMENEI.jpg?fit=1200%2C801&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/michelsanti.fr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/KHAMENEI.jpg?fit=1200%2C801&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/michelsanti.fr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/KHAMENEI.jpg?fit=1200%2C801&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/michelsanti.fr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/KHAMENEI.jpg?fit=1200%2C801&ssl=1&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]}],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/michelsanti.fr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31110","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/michelsanti.fr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/michelsanti.fr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michelsanti.fr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michelsanti.fr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31110"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/michelsanti.fr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31110\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31129,"href":"https:\/\/michelsanti.fr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31110\/revisions\/31129"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/michelsanti.fr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31110"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michelsanti.fr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31110"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michelsanti.fr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31110"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}