By Kirollos Abdalla —
There may be no need to send boots on the ground to ensure regime change in Iran after all.
That’s because the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps is now fighting themselves, as hardliners challenge the guys who want to negotiate with Trump. The speaker of the Parliament, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf — himself a hardliner who has a long history of cracking down on protesters and opposing compromise on the nuclear program — is now portraying himself as a reformist going to Pakistan to negotiate with Trump’s team during the ceasefire.
Meanwhile back home, IRGC harder-liners are accusing him of selling out. “Death to the compromisers!” an IRGC protester shouted in a mass street argument shown on Tousi T.V., per translation.
Ahvaz cleric Mohammad Nabi Mousavi-Fard showed up with a shoulder-mounted rocket launcher at Friday prayer. The imagery was not confusing: the call for extremist war, refusal to surrender, fight until die.
Top that off with civilian groups in Iran hunting down and killing IRGC thugs.
The newly formed Homeland Defenders Organization killed two regime mercenaries at a Nobaran-Saveh checkpoint outside Qom.
“My life is for Iran,” the gunman shouts as he fires on the mercenaries. His slogan is what the protesters have been chanting since January; stop exporting terror to Gaza and administer the nation for the good of the people.
Iranian Kurds and Balochis, oppressed minority groups, have mounted similar attacks in the past. What’s new is that these attacks are occurring in Persian areas, Tousi says.
This street group, led by young men, joins another group that calls itself the Immortal Guard guerilla warfare group that derives its name from the Persian Empire’s feared warriors.
“They see it as self-defense at this point,” says UK-Iranian reporter Mayhar Tousi. “If they don’t take out the IRGC, the IRGC will take them out.”
Indeed, human rights group estimate that some 400+ protesters have been executed in prison, making Iran the #1 executioner state in the world. This death toll is a small drop in the bucket of the (now) estimated 40,000 killed on the streets in the uprising that triggered the current war.
Included in the rushed trials with forced confessions and hurried executions were Mehdi Ghasemi, Saeed Davoud and Saleh Mohammadi, who was a national hero as a 19-year-old on the nation’s wrestling team. The three were executed in March.
The IRGC’s playbook of spreading terror in its population isn’t working anymore. The injustice just outrages people more and more, making them more determined than ever to lay down their lives to exterminate the hated regime.
Sources: Tousi T.V., Guardian, Iran International, others.
