Posted on 06/22/2022 6:00:06 AM PDT by SJackson
There were three pillars on which the Iranian regime was founded, following the 1979 revolution, hi-jacked by the elderly fanatical cleric Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. The first pillar was the system of velayat-e-faqih, or guardianship of the Islamic jurist, which laid the foundations for the first fundamentalist Islamic state and was written into the constitution. The second pillar was the complete transfer of all power and authority to the Supreme Leader and from him to the theocracy of ayatollahs and mullahs, who perversely claimed their authority came directly from God. The third and final pillar, carefully designed by Khomeini, was the creation of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), his own version of the Gestapo, to spread their revolutionary policy of violence and terror at home and beyond Iran’s borders.Today, the theocracy is so hated by 80 million repressed and impoverished Iranians, that only two pillars remain, velayat-e-faqih and the IRGC. Everyone knows that a stool with only two legs cannot persist.
The IRGC controls around 70 percent of the Iranian economy, including its monetary and financial institutions. It pays no taxes and funnels resources into the pockets of the ruling elite. It also commands the regime’s clandestine campaign to build a nuclear weapon. Khomenei moved rapidly to eliminate opposition to his clerical dictatorship, ruthlessly using the IRGC to murder tens of thousands of political opponents whom he said were guilty of ‘moharebeh’ or ‘waging war against God.’ The secret massacre of over 30,000 supporters of the main democratic opposition movement, the People’s Mojahedin of Iran/Mojahedin e-Khalq (PMOI/MEK), in the latter half of 1988, stands out as one of the worst crimes against humanity of the late twentieth century and is now under active investigation by the UN. Startling as these figures may be, they are only a fraction of the estimated 120,000 political prisoners executed so far during the clerical dictatorship in Iran.
The IRGC created the Quds Force, their vicious unit responsible for extra-territorial operations, overseeing the theocratic regime’s proxy wars in Syria, Yemen, Lebanon,Gaza and Iraq, while planning, financing and initiating acts of terror worldwide. In April 2019, President Trump designated the IRGC as a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO), the first time the US had designated an official military organization of a foreign state as an FTO. In January 2020, Trump also ordered the elimination of the senior Iranian Quds Force General Qassem Soleimani and his ally the Iraqi Chief of Staff of Operations Abu Mehdi Mohandes. A targeted drone strike took out the two terrorist Godfathers in Baghdad Airport. Soleimani was answerable only to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei and as such, was described by many as the second most powerful person in the Islamic Republic. His death has seriously undermined the IRGC and fractured a second pillar of the theocratic dictatorship. Khamenei is terrified that the IRGC is beginning to crumble.There is growing evidence of IRGC personnel absconding because they have not received their pay. Recruitment is collapsing. It is now a question of how much longer the organization can survive. Khamenei knows if the IRGC collapses, so will his theocratic regime.
There is widespread revulsion and hatred of the IRGC throughout the Iranian population. PMOI/MEK resistance units have been formed in towns and cities across Iran. Young resistance fighters have lost their fear and have attacked court houses, government buildings and IRGC and paramilitary Basiji bases. Banners, posters, and images of the Supreme Leader are regularly defaced. The courageous resistance units can take comfort from the defeat of similar revolutionary guards’ divisions in history. In Roman times, the Praetorian Guard, like today’s IRGC, were the embodiment of power, greed and terror, serving as secret police, executioners, and an anti-riot force. Founded by the first Roman Emperor, Augustus, in 27 BC to protect him and Rome, they grew to number 15,000 men and became so powerful and corrupt that they turned on their leaders, assassinating 13 Roman emperors and even auctioning the throne to the highest bidder. They were eventually defeated, disbanded, and dispersed by Constantine the Great, marking a key stage in the fall of the Roman Empire.
Hitler’s elite personal protection squad the Schutzstaffel or SS, was created in 1925 as a tiny squadron of less than a hundred men, expanding throughout the Nazi era to hundreds of thousands of brutal and feared thugs and murderers under the leadership of the psychopath Heinrich Himmler. After the second world war ended, the Nuremberg Trials judged the SS to be a criminal organization and held it responsible for most of the Nazi war crimes and for the holocaust. Hundreds of its leaders were executed. The thugs and murderers who occupy the ranks of the IRGC in Iran would do well to learn how history has never judged such elite guards’ units with sympathy. They always end in infamy and annihilation. The growing detestation of the IRGC by the Iranian people is a clear signal that a second pillar of the regime is beginning to collapse.
The hatred of the mullahs, combined with the crumbling of the IRGC will sound the final death-knell for the perverted system of velayat-e-faqih, the cornerstone of Islamic fundamentalism. The only chance of survival for the teetering theocratic dictatorship would be for Western appeasers to sign up to the defective nuclear deal, by acceding to the mullahs’ demands to lift sanctions and remove the IRGC from international terrorist blacklists. The West must surely understand that only the final overthrow of the tyrannical mullahs will see peace, justice and freedom restored to the Iranian people. We must give them our full backing and let them know that the downfall of the IRGC will be the decisive catalyst for the collapse of the velayat-e-faqih regime.
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Collapsing and rotting.... but not quickly enough!
Thank you, Jimmy Carter.
But the regime still has all the guns.
Shia Islam or Sunni Islam... a disease of humanity.
Those 5 in the photo above look like those in the obama administration.
Ever notice how angry looking the democrat politicians are?
Like they are psychotic like those 5 guys.
One reason biden wants to renew the JCPOA. He needs the boogeyman of Iran to use against Conservatives and Israel.
The “paramilitary Basiji” are the real foundation of the regime’s power.
Several million strong, they impose the regime’s will on the people. In exchange, they get preferences for university admission and government jobs. They do their regular jobs when they are not needed to bust heads.
Sort of like Affirmative Action.
Yeah, yeah. We have heard this for as long as we have heard “Durham is coming with indictments.”
Yet they never seem to fall.
The weekly “Iran is about to collapse” thread.
“Collapsing and rotting...”
Sounds like Biden’s America.
Have heard this repeatedly since 1979. The clerical regime ‘is collapsing’ over and over. The weak and ill Shah was convinced by stupid hangers on the clerical regime ‘was going to co;;apse’ and the ‘Shah would be welcomed back’. So Reza II stumbled around, delayed leaving Egypt and gave the revolutionaries a golden rationale to implement the well thought out program of repression. Repression without limit remains the government’s hold card and as long as their are determined and ruthless fanatics, or just power worshipers, at the top the regime will remain. Only a really big unsucessful war could provide the basis for a regime collapse and it would have to feature major internal schisms in the leadership. As long as their are a lot of RG personnel and an absolute determination to hold on to power no matter what the cost the clerical regime is going nowhere. The people who rule Iran really like to kill people who oppose them. They believe, really believe, they are G-d’s anointed and are absolutely incapable of error. This unbending attitude helped them gain power, they really enjoyed killing the Shah’s partisans when they got power, and they really like killing ‘traitors’ who oppose them today.
Apple TV has a great show out called Tehran. It’s about an Israeli spy in Iran. Excellent!
There's a generation gap of sorts -- Saddam Hussein started the Iran-Iraq War, which raged for eight years, and the pro-Khomeini fanatics disproportionately fed themselves into the guns before they could reproduce. Carter/Mondale refused to support the Shah, then arfed up the hostage rescue raid. President Trump had the IRGC head thug capped, and shouldn't have stopped there, but naming some names might be problematical.
Trump took out a big fish... mattered...
I was in Iran from 3-77 until 3 -79 working as an American Contractor. The uprisings to depose the Shah started around 8 - 78. The execution of high ranking military officers started in 2-79. That is probably the reason for the 8 year war with Iraq.
and...... in the Negev, Egypt, Jordan, all the GCC, Israel and the USA coalesced to contain Iran
Erdogan in bankruptcy and worse, is receiving the various coalition leaders who are making him offers he dare not refuse.
Turkish salvation comes with money and a promise to become a member of the Abrams Accord coalition against Iran or just die of starvation. The arabs are taking the lead and the Americans are following it
Students and academics, including top professors, are looking for opportunities abroad - and it is affecting Iran's home-based talent pool.
During the past four years, emigration has risen threefold.
According to an official report, about 150,000 people a year are leaving.
More than 100,000 of those emigrating annually have university degrees including PhDs.
Al Jazeera’s Resul Serdar reports from the Iranian capital, Tehran.Poverty, unemployment and sanctions fuel Iran’s brain drain
March 2, 2022 | Al Jazeera English
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