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Iran Revolutionary Guard Skips a Crackdown

(New York Post) Amir Taheri - The decision by the Tunisian and Egyptian armies not to crush the pro-democracy movement may be having an effect in Iran. In a speech last Thursday in Tehran, the chief of staff of Iran's armed forces, Maj. Gen. Hassan Firuzabadi, said: "The people of the region are on the march for independence, freedom and Islamic democracy." Firuzabadi told officer cadets the task of the military is "to protect the frontiers of the country and defend its sovereignty" rather than the regime in place. As the pro-democracy movement staged marches in Tehran and several other cities, for the first time, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) did not intervene to secure Tehran. That task was given to the paramilitary Baseej. A letter purportedly written by a number of mid-ranking officers to Revolutionary Guard Commander Maj. Gen. Muhammad-Ali Aziz Jaafari referred to the "behavior of the Egyptian army and the Tunisian army before it," saying that experiences in which the Guard was deployed to crush "peaceful demonstrations in our cities" should not be repeated. If regime change occurs in Iran, the army may well side with the people. This is what happened in Tunisia when the army blamed all on President Ben Ali's Presidential Guard, the Tunisian equivalent of Iran's Revolutionary Guard. Hamid Zomorrodi, an expert on Iran's military and a former naval officer, says: "Tunisia and Egypt have given the IRGC chiefs a bad shake."
2011-02-22 00:00:00
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