Compare Iran to Venezuela or Vietnam. The bourgeoisie have significant control over the government and economy in those nations and yet no one says they aren’t socialist.

They may have significant influence but they do not hold state power, whereas the bourgeoisie in Iran do hold state power, at least partially, through representives in the parliament, and other political figures. The assembly of experts, Supreme Leader, and IRGC, though they may hold the power to keep the most ravenous tendencies of the bourgeoisie in check, they do not formally hold the power to develop the economic direction of the country, or the everyday affairs of state, those are the planned and implemented by the parliament and presidency. The IRGC (I’ll use as a shoethand to mean the Supreme Leader and Assembly of Experts, but mind you the IRGC itself has factions beyween revolutionary, regormist, and moderate) only acts as a tool to maintain national sovereignty, a powerful tool mind you, but a singularly purposed tool.

Venezuela has a bourgeois parliament but the communes are increasingly replacing organs of the old state and self govern more and more. Not to mention, the party/coalition in power is an explicitly socialist one that is guiding the country with the working classes interest at the primary guiding interest.

Vietnam has established a dictatorship of through a ML vanguard party. The party makes plans explicitly to advance the interests of the working class, and the government is structured in a way that doesn’t allow for the bourgeoisie to pick out representives that directly govern state affairs in their interest.

Iran has free university and healthcare, It has social welfare and heavily subsidies necessities including homes and fuel.

Individual policies aren’t indictive of which class the state serves. Most of Iran’s welfare policies came about due to being holdover from British welfare policies and wartime policies implemented during the Iran-Iraq war. As soon as the war winded down, many welfare policies were gutted by khatemi and the reformist faction, who instituted a neoliberal shock doctrine using the economic logic of the Chicago School (where they studied). These bourgeois representives and technocrats, nearly all educated in the west as mentioned, have continued to dismantle the Iranian welfare system till this day. Their constant privatization and corruption has led to massive exlploitable protests for the west, which have had to be put down in increasingly bloody manners.

Also, those policies aren’t entirely accurate. Yes you can have free university access, but that doesn’t mean anyone can or will. In order to qualify for a major in Iran, you need to get a certain score on a test after high-school known as the Konkoor. This isn’t strange, and most of East Asia has something like this if I’m correct. However, if you don’t get a proper score, you’ll have to eitheir go to a shitty expensive private school or not go to university at all unless you can improve your score. It’s not abnormal for a country like Iran, and I’d kill for it myself, but it’s a bit more complicated then just free university.

There is a public healthcare option, and I’ll also say that retirement is at the age of 55 with mandatory state pensions. It has some issues I’ve heard from my relatives, but all things considered it’s very good for the position Iran is in.

Subsidies on Fuel and housing is where I take the most issue however. Yes, they do have subsidized gas and home ownership/construction us supported by the state, but the former is a bit of a contentious thing to bring up. I say this because it’s not as much of a bedrock as you make it out to be, with the reformists still trying to gut this policy after decades, and successfully doing so to adjacent policies like food subsidies. The whole reason their was tinder for the Zan, Zendigee, Azadi (Woman, Life, Freedom) protests before the death of Amini, was because the government tried to remove this subsidy and rilex the people up in protests the months prior.

These policies aren’t bedrocks of Iranian soceity, they are hard fought gains that the Iranian bourgeoisie is chipping away at without much push back from the IRGC. This is why I argue they’re not “borderline socialist”, because the state constantly hollows itself out in favor of the bourgeoisie and at the expense of the working class. It only manages to self correct because the IRGC is tasked with maintaining national sovereignty, so whenever there’s a rupture, they have to deal with it.

Their oil industry and Auto manufacturers are majority state owned.

True, but many of the people involved with managing the state oil sector have gotten absurdly rich off of acting as conduits to avoid sanctions. They may not own the oil industry, but they enrich themselves to unscrupulous levels overseeing it.

In the case of auto manufacturing (and electronics) those are either largely owned by public sector or the IRGC, which basically acts like an extension to the state. Your correct to point thus section of the economy out, but they’re basically the most major industries that are allowing for the economic development of Iran. I’ll agree that they’re a major section of the economy, and that they are actively a force behind revolutionary portions of Iran’s leadership.

Yet my point isn’t that no potentially socialist formations exist within the Islamic Republic. It’s that the Islamic Republic is a hybrid formation that disqualifies it from being “borderline socialist.” It would still not be socialist if the reformists were completely destroyed, but I could see it obtaining that borderline status. Until that occurs, the Islamic Republic of Iran will be domestically controlled by the national bourgeoisie, while the sovereignist factions of the state protect it from collapse into a US puppet or splinters of US puppet states.