A former presidential candidate in Iran runs a massive business conglomerate that helps Tehran suppress dissent at home and export terror abroad, notes Tzvi Kahn, a Penn Kemble fellow at the National Endowment for Democracy.
Thirty years after the systematic massacre of thousands of political dissidents – the single 
bloodiest atrocity committed by the Islamic Republic since its founding in 1979 – the perpetrators have yet to face justice. One of them, in fact, former presidential candidate Ebrahim Raisi (above), currently serves as the custodian of Astan Quds Razavi, a massive business conglomerate with a real-estate portfolio worth an estimated $20 billion, which effectively functions as a slush fund for Iran’s supreme leader, he writes for The National Review:
The enormous wealth of Astan Quds Razavi makes it increasingly important for the Trump administration, as part of its maximum-pressure campaign against Iran, to isolate the foundation. In 2013, the Obama administration sanctioned the Execution of Imam Khomeini’s Order, or EIKO, another foundation tied to the supreme leader. Like Astan Quds Razavi, EIKO has investments — worth an estimated $95 billion, according to a 2013 Reuters report — that remain off the books.
