I understand very well that some of issues discussed in this article are making no sense to most of…

Even more so if there is such an absurd situation, like the Government of the IRI violating its own Constitution in order to enable Moscow…

I understand very well that some of issues discussed in this article are making no sense to most of people outside Iran. However, the issue of ‘foreign troops on Iranian soil’ in general is a very important one — to Iranians.

Even more so if there is such an absurd situation, like the Government of the IRI violating its own Constitution in order to enable Moscow to score few cheap PR-points for public consumption at home — while providing zero air support for Iranian troops in Syria.

Earlier today, the Speaker of the Iranian Majlis (Parliament), Larijani, had his hands full of defending himself from protests by Iranian Parlamentariers who objected Government’s violation of Paragraph 146 through granting basing rights to Russians. (A softened-down summary can be found here: http://www.panorama.am/en/news/2016/08/17/Iran%E2%80%99s-Parliament-Speaker/1628151)

Namely, the point is this: it doesn’t matter whether the base in question (Nojeh AB/TFB.3) was built by Russians or is operated by them, if they are securing it or not, or how many of aircraft there are Russian and how many are Iranian (the IRIAF has got its 31st TFW with one squadron of F-4Es and one of RF-4Es there). Paragrahp 146 is perfectly clear: ‘any kind of foreign military base…is forbidden’ (period).

Reason for that paragraph was precisely the one of _prohibiting any kind_ of foreign military basing, ‘even’ such like that of presence of about 20,000 US military instructors (etc.) in Iran of the mid-1970s. US personnel in question was not operating any Iranian bases, it was not in command, it did not secure them or whatever else. Still, the writers of the Constitution of the IRI wanted to prevent anything similar from happening again. Therefore, the Constitution is very clear in this regard. Regardless what Larijani — not to talk about ‘Supreme Leader’ (Khamenei), his Guardian Council, the IRGC etc. — might want to say or how are they bending the situation, they have violated the Constitution.

Regarding ‘citing earlier violations’: there was no space for going into that topic in the article, so here just two examples.

a) The Constitution of the IRI grants the right of gathering and peaceful demonstration to every Iranian citizen. I hope I need not explaining what happens if Iranian citizens try to demonstrate against the government or its corruption — or its violations of the Constitution.

b) Secondly, the Constitution is making the government responsible for taking care about the defence of the country through provision of necessary equipment and training to the military. Given the condition of the IRIAF alone (not to talk about other branches of the Iranian military), it is clear that all the IRI governments since 1979 are insistently violating the Constitution in this regards.

(Clearly, this is to advantage of various of Iranian foreign enemies, but it’s still not making the Government ‘right’.)

Finally, I would like to address the issue of who built specific bases in Iran: Iranians paid for them (they’ve got nothing donated from the USA already since early 1960s), and did some of construction work; US-Americans (and, in case of few air bases constructed in the 1970s: Israelis) provided advice in regards of design, and some of US companies were also contracted to do other parts of construction work.