Army Remains Key in Revolts

And the organizational structure varies.  But in Iran, as in Libya, the old revolutionary elite distrusts the army, so there is a distinction between the armed forces and the security forces.  The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) controls the Basij militia and the intelligence operation.  But they are distinct from the military.  There seems to be mutual distrust on both sides.

• As I discussed in my articles about the uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt, it is crucial for the Green Movement to gain the support of the rank and file of the IRGC to the extent that they would be unwilling to open fire on peaceful, unarmed demonstrators. (PBS, Frontline, Tehran Bureau, "Fissures in the Revolutionary Guards' Officer Corps?," by Muhammad Sahimi, 01 Mar 2011) 

I wonder, however, if outside pressure will cause them to split or lump together in response?  The latest list of those considered for sanctions is mainly IRGC and Basij heads, but there, I believe, army officers as well.  (February 26, 2011, Laura Rozen, Politico, "European list IDs 80+ Iran militia, police for possible EU human rights sanctions")

The Revolution will not be Televised...

or, you don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows

This next set of blog entries is just me playing catch up. I think what I am heading towards is the fallout of, if true, the murder of Ali Mousavi, "nephew of the rightful president of Iran, murdered by the brownshirts of the military coup" (to quote Andrew Sullivan).

But perhaps we might begin with the burial of Grand Ayatollah Hossein-Ali Montazeri in Qom on Monday, 21 Dec. 2009.

• "There were reports of Basij attempting to beat Karroubi, however, it is said that the crowd shielded him against the attacks. After the funeral was over, Mousavi’s entourage was harassed by plainclothesmen. His car was chased and one of his companions was injured after the plainclothesmen broke a side window of the car he was traveling in. He did not receive any injuries himself. One plainclothesman also got injured in the attack." ("Full Report of Montazeri’s Funeral in Qom," by Josh Shahryar on Dec.21, 2009, Daily Nite Owl)

Just viewing from the outside, it seems someone has either give the Baseej a green light, or they are beginning to sense that they cannot control the streets.

Up Next: Rick Steves Reviewing Hostels in East Tehran

From the Guardian Blog. Forget the IRGC, in comparison, even the Basiji look well-trained with this lot.

• Newspaper Roozonline has an interview (in Persian) with one of the young plainclothes militiamen who have been beating protesters.
• UPDATE: Robert says the man is paid 2m rial per day, which would be about £1220 for ten days of work. A hefty fee, even by UK standards....
• The Guardian's Robert Tait sends this synopsis.
• The man, who has come from a small town in the eastern province of Khorasan and has never been in Tehran before, says he is being paid 2m rial (£122) to assault protestors with a heavy wooden stave. He says the money is the main incentive as it will enable him to get married and may even enable him to afford more than one wife. Leadership of the volunteers has been provided by a man known only as "Hajji", who has instructed his men to "beat the counter-revolutionaries so hard that they won't be able to stand up".
  
• The volunteers, most of them from far-flung provinces such as Khuzestan, Arak and Mazandaran, are being kept in hostel accommodation, reportedly in east Tehran. Other volunteers, he says, have been brought from Lebanon, where the Iranian regime has strong allies in the Hezbollah movement. They are said to be more highly-paid than their Iranian counterparts and are put up in hotels. The last piece of information seems to confirm the suspicion of many Iranians that foreign security personnel are being used to suppress the demonstrators. (Guardian, News Blog, "Iran crisis: live," 24 June 2009)
  

Who are these men?


And why are they wearing camouflage? And why are they smiling? Police or Pasdaran - Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRCG)?

Baseeji as Rude Boys

Why me black brother why, dis robbing and killing?
Why me black brother why, dis looting and shooting?
Why me black brother why, you ruling your mumma?
Why me black brother why, you mash up your puppa?
What you gonna do when de voice say come?
Remember the day of judgment.
Pick up your guns and you go to town,
See your black brother and you shoot dem down.
That's wrong! (Mighty Diamonds, "Why Me Black Brother Why?")

Or, a song more related to what is going on on the ground by popular Iranian singer (now in exile I believe), who goes by the name Googoosh. (The Farsi is basically about those abroad remembering those back at home.)

It is the singer not the song: know your players

• At least four distinct security institutions are involved in suppressing the demonstrations that have erupted since the June 12th election: The Pasdaran, the Army, the police and the Basij.
• The Pasdaran or Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corp have the primary mission of protecting the Islamic Revolution. The Pasdaran number more than 100,000, or roughly one-sixth the size of the standing Army. I have not seen any indication in recent days of any hesitancy among thePasdaran leadership in putting down the disturbances, but I have read some unconfirmed reports of a division between Pasdaran officers and troops.
• The Army may be another matter. Soldiers share an heroic self-image as defenders of the nation and they certainly do not like suppressing civilians, especially unarmed, relatively respectful ones. Moreover, responding to civil unrest is hardwork. Soldiers hate doing it in my experience....
• Police have the task of keeping civil order, but once the numbers of demonstrators grew into the thousands and the demonstration sites increased, they lacked the numbers needed to maintain order. At present, the role of the police seems to be relatively unimportant.
• In the Iranian case, the Basijis are the heavies who use thuggery to intimidate demonstrators. The higher the profile of the Basijis in suppressing demonstrators, the higher the reputational costs for the regime of suppression. When mobilized, the Basij are supposed to be subordinate to the Pasdaran, but I cannot tell if this is actually the case at present. (Saturday, June 20, 2009, "Does the state have the upper hand?," Informed Comment blog)
  

Basiij, Google, and Farsi: an unlikely combination

from Friday, June 19, 2009, "How to help now that Google Translate is available in Persian / Farsi" Page F30)

Basij (بسیج) - Twitter / YouTube
Basiji (بسیجی) - Twitter / YouTube Note: Google is translating Basij and Basiji as "mobilize" so when you see that word it actually means Basij / Basiji.

Basij (I have given up standardizing spelling Farsi) in Historical Perspective

Good brief article in New Yorker on Basiji history

• The Basij is now said to have some 400,000 active members nationwide, with perhaps a million more reservists; in some ways, their relationship to Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who is also their commander in chief, recalls the one between Nicolae Ceausescu and the loyalist miners trucked in from the Romanian countryside to strong-arm pro-democracy protestors. From 1997 to 2005, during the reformist presidency of Mohammad Khatami, the Basij showed its usefulness again, by attacking students at demonstrations. Some students were killed. The protests died out. (June 19, 2009, Jon Lee Anderson: "Understanding The Basij")

Basiji-hunting and the paths to and from local knowledge

Is this true? Who is confident and who is not?

• By the way, two nights ago I went out to see a few things ... as the general crowds spread into their homes militia style Mousavi supporters were out on the streets 'Basiji hunting'.
• Their resolve is no less than these thugs -- they after hunting them down. They use their phones, their childhood friends, their intimate knowledge of their districts and neighbours to plan their attacks -- they're organised and they're supported by their community so they have little fear. They create the havoc they're after, ambush the thugs, use their Cocktail Molotovs, disperse and re-assemble elsewhere and then start again - and the door of every house is open to them as safe harbour -- they're community-connected
• The Basiji's are not.
• These are not the students in the dorms, they're the street young -- they know the ways better than most thugs - and these young, a surprising number of them girls, are becoming more agile in their ways as each night passes on.
• Also, with $10K every local police station lock can be broken and guns taken out...the police too are crowd friendly...for sure put a gun in their hands and these young become a serious counter-balance to the Basij...call them 10% of 18-22 year olds - that makes circa 10 million around the country versus max 4 million Basijis. (Steve Clemons, 'The Four Iran Scenarios and "Basiji Hunting"' Jun 19 2009, 2:06PM)

Michael Collins and the IRB? Is the comparison the Velvet Revolution 1989, Hungary 1956, Prague 1968, or Ireland 1919? Surely not the latter as the regime is not an outside force. But if you lose the community that you are policing, if you lose local knowledge, it might as well be. Perhaps the Civil War in Ireland 1922-1923? That is a dark comparison indeed.

Basiij and University Students

Pictures of baton charges, beatings, and destruction of dormitory rooms abound on the internet (the latter focusing on the destruction of computers, but there are a number of discussions of beatings and threats such as here). The forces of repression have two problems here, although neither threatens to unrail them at the moment.

• First, attacking computing/wireless phone service/the internet poses problems. Cell phone users include supporters of Mousavi, Ahmadinejad, and others. You cannot hinder one group without hindering all. Note the following graphic measuring internet traffic from Iran (based on inference from a good article, Wednesday, June 17th, 2009, "Iranian Traffic Engineering," by Craig Labovitz which also notes "The state owned Data communication Company of Iran (or DCI) acts as the gateway for all Internet traffic entering or leaving the country. Historically, Iranian Internet access has enjoyed some level of freedom despite government filtering and monitoring of web sites."). It shows the slowing of traffic on the date of the election 13 June and successive dates. But note that Iran has a number of businesses that are connected to the world market. They cannot just stop.
• Second, attacking university students is no longer attacking the elite. Iran's revolution has brought education to a huge swathe of the population. Beating students' heads no longer means beating the heads of the offspring of people used to skiing the Swiss Alps. And, as a parent, I can state categorically that parents don't like folks beating the heads of their children at university. Whomever they voted for.
  

baseej and revolutionary guard: a hierarchical chart and an ethical query



I have taken this from Iran Military Forum who have taken it from a Rand Report. It distinguishes the Revolutionary Guard from the Basiij. The selection below appears to exonerate some of the latter. But is this a question of supporting the troops not the war?

• [T]here are some indications that the Basij—many of whom are drawn from the ranks of Iran’s disaffected youth and elderly pensioners—hold cynical or ambivalent views of this ideological training. Basij training is frequently necessary for certain social benefits—loans, university scholarships, welfare subsidies, and the like. As stated by one 24-year-old member in a 2005 interview, “The only reason I stay in the Basij is for the money . . . many of my friends in the Basij are unhappy with the government.”
• Compounding this reported cynicism, there appears to be a rural-urban split in public perceptions of the Basij, noted in a previous RAND study and reinforced to us in 2006 by a longtime visitor to the Islamic Republic. In the provinces, the Basij present a more benign face through construction projects and disaster relief, while in urban areas, they are more apt to be seen quite negatively, quashing civil society activities, arresting dissidents, and confronting reformist student groups on campuses. Urban sentiments may be, moreover, affected by the Basij’s affilia-tion with the “pressure groups” or hardline vigilantes, of which Ansar-e Hezbollah is the most widely known. ("Who Controls Iran's Military And How Big Is It?," Iran Military Forum, June 16, 2009, 08:07:11 PM)

The question remains: is this man and his type culpable? (Police or Baseej?)