TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran's Revolutionary Guards dismissed as "ridiculous" on Saturday a U.S.-led drive to impose sanctions on the elite force, underlining Tehran's defiance in the face of Western pressure over its nuclear programme.
Senior commander Yadollah Javani also said the Guards could easily replace foreign oil companies such as Shell and Total in domestic energy projects.
Iran's long-running dispute with the West over its atomic activities has made Western energy companies increasingly reluctant to invest in the world's fifth-largest oil exporter.
Analysts say the political and the economic influence of the Guards appears to have grown since hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, himself a former Guardsman, came to power in 2005.
The force played a key role in quelling street unrest that erupted after Ahmadinejad's disputed re-election last June.
The United States is pushing for a fourth round of U.N. sanctions on Tehran over its refusal to halt sensitive nuclear activities as demanded by the U.N. Security Council, including moves against members of the Guards and firms they control.
Diplomats from the five permanent Security Council members -- the United States, Britain, France, Russia and China -- and Germany are meeting nearly every day in New York to revise a U.S.-drafted sanctions proposal that Moscow and Beijing would like to see watered down, Western diplomats say.
"Imposing sanctions on the Revolutionary Guards is rather ridiculous because even with all the propaganda they couldn't reach their goal of imposing sanctions on the Islamic Republic," ILNA news agency quoted Javani as saying.
"If the enemies think that by imposing sanctions on the Revolutionary Guards they can achieve their goals, they are mistaken," he added.
Iranian leaders often shrug off the impact of sanctions, saying such measures will not stop the country in pushing ahead with its nuclear programme. The West suspects Iran is seeking to develop nuclear bombs, a charge Tehran rejects.
In December, another senior Guards commander said the force had replaced foreign firms in some projects in the country, a sign of its growing economic clout.
Javani said on Saturday, referring to an Iranian port where many oil industry installations are located: "Today the Revolutionary Guards are proud to have such knowledge and capability that we can easily replace big foreign companies like Total and Shell in taking over big projects at Assaluyeh."
The Guards were heavily involved in reconstruction after the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war and expanded their work to cover areas such as import-export, oil and gas, defence, transport and construction.
The force has become a major contractor, with ties to firms controlling billions of dollars in business, construction, finance and commerce, the U.S. Treasury has said.
(Reporting by Ramin Mostafavi and Hashem Kalantari; writing by Fredrik Dahl; editing by Noah Barkin)
