What Was the Honor Document of the IRGC in the Golestan Flood?

On the evening of April 4, 2019, the engineering and demolition battalion 'Hazrat Abolfazl' affiliated with the 'Engineering 45 Javad al-Aimah' of the IRGC's ground forces detonated sections of the railway line between Gorgan and Incheh Borun at three points along the route in the north of Aq Qala. The reason for the explosions was announced as 'releasing accumulated water in the area.' Mohsen Rezai, the Secretary of the Expediency Council, wrote that the Golestan Provincial Crisis Headquarters allowed the IRGC to carry out the explosions after 48 hours. He referred to these explosions as 'explosions of hope.' On April 7, the IRGC's engineering and demolition battalion, under direct orders from Mohammad Ali Jafari, the IRGC commander, blew up part of the 'Charghali-Gomishan' road to open a water outlet. These two explosions were highlighted by IRGC-affiliated media as solutions to reduce water volume in Aq Qala and prevent a crisis in Gomishan, and were termed documents of the IRGC's 'Jihadi Management' honor. The Gorgan-Incheh Borun railway is part of an important railway line between Iran, Kazakhstan, and Turkmenistan, totaling 924 kilometers in length, with 129 kilometers located in Iran. In May 2013, during Ahmadinejad's presidency, part of the first phase of this project, which was 80 kilometers, was inaugurated with a budget of 130 billion tomans. In December 2014, Hassan Rouhani, the President of Iran, inaugurated the railway again, stating that an additional 110 billion tomans had been spent to complete the project. However, the figures reported regarding the length of this project are highly contradictory, ranging from 80 kilometers to 150 kilometers, but the latest officially announced figure is 129 kilometers. In the final days of preparing this project, on December 24, 2014, General Abadollah Abdollahi, the then-commander of the IRGC's Khatam al-Anbiya Headquarters, referred to the Gorgan-Incheh Borun railway project as 'the first record in the country' and stated that it was built 'in less than a year.' At that time, General Ramadan Sharif, the head of the IRGC's public relations, also referred to this project as 'a turning point in the interaction between the government and the IRGC,' stating that 'speed, quality, and precision' were indicators of the IRGC's Khatam al-Anbiya Headquarters' actions. However, General Abdollahi's information was not accurate and was more slogan than substance. Discussions about this project began in 2007, and on July 2, 2007, a construction agreement for this project was signed between the presidents of Iran, Turkmenistan, and Kazakhstan. The groundbreaking for this project in Iran took place on July 1, 2011, with the presence of Ali Nikzad, the then-Minister of Housing and Urban Development. The contract for the project's execution in Iran was initially signed in July 2011 with 'Pars Energy Company,' which was supposed to complete the work in 164 days, but in 2012 it was announced that the Khatam al-Anbiya Headquarters had entered the project. More precisely, the execution of this project took 42 months, during which the Khatam al-Anbiya Headquarters was directly involved for at least 30 months. In fact, the project that became one of the most important factors exacerbating the crisis during the Aq Qala flood on April 4, 2019, was a project built by the Khatam al-Anbiya Headquarters, which was referred to as a symbol of honor, and when three parts of it were detonated, it was again described as a symbol of honor. Meanwhile, Nour Mohammad Torbati Nejad, a representative of Gorgan in the parliament, stated in a crisis management meeting in Golestan province held on April 7 that this railway is located in the flood path because 'water passages' were not designed for it during construction. In recent days, IRGC officials have boasted about having detonated several locations to allow water to flow instead of addressing the technical and expert negligence during the construction of this railway. This can be seen as one of the best examples of how 'Jihadi Management' has been implemented in the Islamic Republic in recent years. Notably, even this honor has been denied by Hassan Rouhani, the President of Iran. On Friday, April 9, during a meeting of the 'Crisis Management Coordination Council of Khuzestan Province,' he stated that he had conducted an aerial visit of the flood-affected area in Golestan province and that breaking the road and railway had no effect on reducing the crisis: 'Water has come from this side to that side, like sending part of the water from a bowl to the other side. It has had no effect.' However, the symbols of honor for this national project are not limited to this case. According to published reports, due to technical miscoordination between the implementers of this trilateral railway, one of which was Khatam al-Anbiya of the IRGC and the other was the Iranian company 'Pars Energy,' the difference in rail curvature between the Iranian and Turkmen railways has caused problems, leading to delays in cargo transport and increasing traders' costs. The Iranian government has had to spend an additional 22 billion tomans to solve the problem and activate the broad gauge leading to the Turkmen railway, but the Turkmen side must also pay two million dollars to complete the project, which provincial managers are trying to source from the 4200 toman dollar allocation, but it has not yet been finalized. Such problems, in addition to increasing costs, have prevented Iranian traders from competing during specific periods, such as during the crisis in relations between Russia and Turkey, which presented a good opportunity for exporting fruit from Iran. Overall, this large-scale plan, which was inaugurated with extensive propaganda during the Ahmadinejad and Rouhani administrations, has failed to achieve its initial objectives, and Iranian officials have been unable to establish a specific cooperation protocol with the Turkmen and Kazakh sides, especially regarding tariffs and wagon provision. According to initial forecasts, the implementation of the plan among the three countries was expected to result in an annual transit of 10 million tons of goods, but in 2018, Iran's share of the transit was about 50,000 tons, less than half a percent. Iran's failures and negligence in advancing this project in recent years have also led to protests from foreign parties. Ali Mohammad Chopani, the head of the Gorgan Chamber of Commerce, stated on November 12, 2018, to the ISNA news agency that the managers of both Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan have concluded that the current management of the Iranian railway lacks the capacity to create the necessary transit capacity and warned that if this situation continues, along with the 'negligence of the Ministry of Housing and Urban Development,' Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan may seek to 'replace this railway.' The head of the Gorgan Chamber of Commerce also mentioned that solving issues like broadening the railway line is related to the intervention of 'foreign hidden hands,' a cliché phrase that is a popular and convenient response for many officials in the Islamic Republic to explain their inability to solve ordinary problems in the country.