Military Mutiny in Iran?
In summary, they wrote: Together we fought in the war with our brothers in the Revolutionary Guards in order to defend the country, the people, and the honor of the nation. They also emphasize that “the value of the land means the value of the Iranian nation.” This is very interesting. Value of the nation.
Not abstract concepts such as Iran or Islam, but the value of the nation determines the value of the land. Therefore, the weapons of the army and RG are to be used to protect the nation: “When we fought together, we could never suspect that parts of the RG would ever use its weapons against the people.”
The last section of this brief but powerful statement will surely immortalize these brave officers: “The army is a haven for the nation and will never want to suppress the people at the request of politicians. We shall remain true to our promise not to intervene in politics. But we cannot remain silent when our fellow citizens are oppressed by tyranny.”
They go on: “Therefore, we warn the Guards who have betrayed the martyrs (from the war between Iran and Iraq) and who decided to attack the lives, the property and the honor of the citizens. We seriously warn them that if they do not leave their chosen path, they will be confronted with our tough response. The military is a haven for the nation. And we will defend the peace-loving Iranian nation against any aggression.”
Very clear language. This declaration was distributed by several human rights sites such as Iran Press News and Amir Kabir and Gooya.
I have spoken with several sources inside and outside of Iran. The statement is real. If Khamenei orders the arrest of the officers, resistance will spread like wildfire in all barracks of the regular army.
It is ironic that once again the officers of the regular air force join the people against the regime. Thirty years ago the officers of the regular air force also joined the people. After a few weeks the regime of the Shah was overthrown. The American and European diplomats need to warn Khamenei in a louder and clearer way about the consequences of his way of governing the nation. Especially now that Khamenei’s power also further erodes in the regular army.
This article first appeared in the Dutch magazine Elsevier on December 12, 2009.
Exactly what the U.S. military needs to tell the communist Obambi…
Ya beat me to it, Bill.
Why should the US warn Khommeni?
Let the people of his country TAKE HIM OUT!
Don’t give him warning, but instead, back the military AGAINST him.
I don’t know that this really means anything other than the military doesn’t like overt oppression of the citizenry. It may have no effect whatsoever on Iran’s next ruling class’s approach to foreign policy – i.e. continuation of radical Islam, aggressive export of terrorism, disdain for the west, commitment to the destruction of Israel, acquisition and projection of power through nuclear weaponry, etc. Indeed, the military’s warnings may simply cause the current rulers to check their oppressive actions internally and prolong the mullahs’ hold on power.
The US army doesn’t need a press release for obama to know that they would deal with him.
As to irans army good for them… i guess we’ll see how the government plays their hand in this.
A problem however is this will only reinforce the regimes want for a nuke because it can be used to keep these army soldiers in line by threatening it use on civs.
Why warn him ? Let be what will be which hopefully finds many of the Mullahs and the looking ferfully at the cranes they ha so well used to hang even females as young as 16. Let them no taste what revolution and revulsion is like. They are bile about to be exptorated from the body of Iran.
China, when they suppressed the students in Tiananmen Square, used soldiers from the western provinces who did not know the students and who may not have spoken Mandarin. Iran may find that literacy has its problems for tyrants.
“The American and European diplomats need to warn Khamenei in a louder and clearer way about the consequences of his way of governing the nation”
Why???
Never would have expected this; good news.
Is there anywhere I can read the full text of this statement?
Does this mean that the Iranian military will suppress the coming of the Mahdi — as opposed to Obama allowing the conditions for his ‘coming’?
If Obama were to perpetrate violence against the people (and I’m not talking a beat down, but repeated, undeniable murder in the streets, a la Iran) I have no doubt that the US Armed Forces would stay true to their oaths. But we’re a *very* long way away from this and we’re very likely to never get there under President Obama. May we never get there at all.
One of the ways that we stay away from that sort of thing is not setting up the military as an ordinary player in US politics. In other words, #1,2,5 cut it out. That sort of thing actively hurts the military and feeds the idiocy on the left that thinks that Obama’s visit to West Point was a visit to enemy territory.
My hopes and prayers for the Iranian people that they may find a safe path to a government that does not shoot its own people in the streets over election results. Such a government is disgraceful.
Good News! VERY good news.
No effect on Iran nuclear weapons program, of course. It should slow down the terrorists that the Mad Dog Mullahs support. Put an End to Hamas and Hezzbo’allah and there will be a chance (slight) for an end to the violence in Israel.
It will also greatly reduce the chance of American troops dying in Iran.
Iranian nukes don’t scare me. Iranian nukes plus Iranian terrorists makes my hair curl.
Exactly what the U.S. military needs to tell the communist Obambi…
Many in the military and our security forces are signed members of Oathkeepers telling our government pretty much the same thing.
http://oathkeepers.org/oath/
Would it be too much to hope for,
that Iran follows the Turkish model;
The military as the guarantor of
secular, or at least non-radical
theocratic government ?
Umm. But Iran has two militaries. The regular military and the Revolutionary Guards. If the statement above is true, the regular military is threatening to side with the opposition. The Revolutionary Guards would likely remain loyal to the current regime. If the letter is true and the regime were to get a crack-down, you won’t get a coup or a revolution, you’ll get a civil war…
History shows how tyrannies can be as brittle as they are oppressive. When the time of reckoning comes, it’s good to see the lines of cleavage being drawn with this kind of clarity. In pivotal times, a soldier may have to decide between defending his nation and blindly executing orders contrary to the call of his conscience.
Some organization with real power had to denounce and smoke out the thugs. A key mission was just accomplished, Bravo! Much violence can be preempted by the timely formation of an overwhelming coalition before the battle. The protestors needed to know that the army is with them, and the regime clingers will know to abandon ship, and the thugs are going to hope to find some way to escape justice.
I was thinking along same lines back in June 2009.
http://hyphenatedamericans.blogspot.com/2009/06/can-iranians-win.html
I even used the Lenin’s theory of revolutionary situation to analyse what lies ahead.
http://hyphenatedamericans.blogspot.com/2009/06/revolution-in-iran-quoting-lenin.html
By the way, if this sort of thing could not happen, Milosevich would still be at the top of the pyramid of evil.
I don’t want to sound pessimistic here or disruptive but the letter did not sound LEGIT to me. In the Persian version of the letter, it says it has been signed by HOMAFARS. That rank was abolished 21 years ago from the regular Iranian Air Force. So I don’t know if the original letter has any shred of legitimacy to it. Though I’d like to think that the Iranian regular military is going to stand with the people of Iran in their quest for liberty and democracy.
Btw, I served in the Iranian AF.
Iran is the heart of Islamic terrorism and has actively supported it since the first “students” attacked the U.S. embassy in Tehran in 1979. As long as terrorist nations exist, the war on terror cannot be decisively won. The refusal by the Iranian people to accept the recent stolen election is a golden opportunity to achieve a bloodless victory, unparalleled since Reagan brought down the Soviet Union (partly) by his unflenching morale comittment to the victims of communism. Obama is missing a huge opportunity by focusing his diplomatic efforts on wooing the tyrants, rather than supporting democracy.
TMLutas: As a military officer I assure you that we take seriously our oath to the Constitution, under which President Obama is our commander-in-chief, and which we will never allow him or anyone else to destroy. Just as you say.
Wow. Knock me over with a feather. Let’s all hope this is true and it’s the tipping point for the mullahs.
Please, oh please…
“you won’t get a coup or a revolution, you’ll get a civil war…”
And the difference is…… What?
The differences between the Iranian regular army and the Revolutionary Guards is stark. The first has a history going back thousands of years and is now a conscript army and reflects the population. The RG is the ‘defender of the Revolution’ and thusly an ideologically driven force, which has its own agenda for Iran. The RG, while supporting the regime, has also been working to try and undercut it politically by putting themselves forwards as realistic Revolutionaries guarding a regime slowly ageing out and going corrupt. The promise is a better run society that is more technically forward looking, but run by the RG.
That has not been missed by the regular army and the warning to both the Mullahs and the RG points to the tricky business of trying to subvert the RG into neutrality by a threat of superior forces. The RG needs a semblance of the regime to continue to be able to install itself into the top echelons as the ‘pure defenders’ of the Revolution that is a bit more savvy than the current regime. That bluff is being called and giving de facto cover to RG units that will NOT participate in suppressing the population now drives a wedge into the RG. For the army, the simple truth of being the defenders of Persia/Iran for thousands of years and having a legacy of one of the oldest militaries on the planet means a lot to the people of Iran.
Now RG units have to ask themselves: is it worth repressing this and antagonizing the army? If that is ‘yes’ then the ultimate fight is with the army and regular forces of Iran. If the answer is ‘no’ you have safe haven with the superior force.
A coup or revolution along ideological lines will be a pure horror and will give the exit visa to every minor ethnic group inside Iran to leave as two factions will not have time, effort, money or lives to spare with non-Persians (say the Baluchs or Kurds or Azeris).
A civil war will demonstrate a common, cohesive force of the military with civil society defending all of Iran against the RG. Smaller ethnic groups will have the distinct feeling that there is a chance to get a regime that respects their ethnic differences and allows some autonomy within the Nation with a civil government that is not based on religious ideology. And as everyone in the ethnic enclaves hates the RG, the Middle Eastern concept of ‘payback’ will also be in play.
A civil war to remove the regime will not be nice, easy or bloodless, but the choice is a Nation in upheaval or the entire region in upheaval as the ethnic enclaves petition to other Nations that have larger amounts of their ethnic groups to let them IN and protect them. The first, a civil war, is preferable to a revolution or coup where the entire Nation goes into upheaval and fractures. And I can’t see any coup going bloodless: the regiime is one-deep at the top, which includes the RG which has no good second tier of leaders. And any autocrat or authoritarian regime coming into power will likely antagonize the army by settling scores against the defeated group… that turmoil of paybacks escalating was stopped in Iraq by letting small enclaves burn it out the hard way at the small scale and locally. In Iran, because it has a more homogenous population, the political paybacks will be more widespread, oppressive and bring counter-reactions to it and they will be pleading with the army to end the madness. Thus getting the worst of all worlds when it does so as you would then have coup, counter-revolution and civil war.
And I really don’t see any of the top RG commanders being the ‘bloodless coup’ type who can lead a popular ‘velvet revolution’. I do hope I am wrong on that, but I just don’t see it.
#’s 1,2 and 12, Obama has already used SEIU thugs in street beatdowns of Teaparty people. He wants to set up the equivalent force to the Iranian RG or the Nazi SA. Thats why Obama called for a civilian security force equally funded to our Military. The US Military Officers and Enlisted men and civilian police forces have formed a group called oathkeepers that state specifically they will uphold their oath to the Constitution; and NOT Obama personally as Chrissy (tingles) Matthews desires.
Following on M. Report’s musings, could this statement be a consequence of increasing contacts between Iranian & Turkish governments & militaries? If so, Erdogan has outdone himself. This statement reads almost like it was dictated by Turkish officers. Very interesting.
3. Tammy:
Why should the US warn Khommeni?
Let the people of his country TAKE HIM OUT!
Don’t give him warning,
~~~
Khamenei’s HAD warning. He’s a student of “the revolution” and knows how the Shah was ovethrown, surely he’s seen the current officers statement – against himself, no less. If he chooses to ignore that the army sees him as he saw the shah, ces’t la vie.
24. John “birther” Samford:
“you won’t get a coup or a revolution, you’ll get a civil war…”
And the difference is…… What?
~~~~
who wins. If the party in power wins, it’s a civil war. If the opposition wins, it’s a revolution.
7. Mike_K
Very good observation, perhaps our “community organizer and chief” can help them out by sending the NEA union to Iran to dumb them down.
As for their civil war being a terribly blood thing, that really is too bad, but as we’ve seen in Afghanistan and Iraq, and all too often right here in the U.S., when people are simply handed freedom and democracy without fighting for it they do not hold it dear enough.
If the people of Iran man up and take the freedom that should be the birthright of all people, then they will truly become a beacon for all of mankind, one in who’s light pretenders like His “O”lliness can not hide.
I agree that any type of coup, civil war, or revolution will be bloody. This may not be the best comparison but the IRGC (Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps.) is basicaly a Waffen-SS type of military force and the regular Iranian military is like the Werhmant and the Luftwaffe. The IRGC gets the best of everything: incoming recruits, equipment, weapons, training, etc. The regular Iranian military is a bit inferior in all the above. If a situation develops where the leadership cracks down hard on the population and the regular military starts fighting for the people, the IRGC would must likely fight against the regular military and civillians. So basically, you would have a small well trained/equipped group of fighters (compared to the size of a regular military/civilian combo) against a much larger force lacking weapons/training. That will be ugly in every sense of the word. The only hope is if the senior IRGC leadership sees the writing on the wall and tells their men not to engage even if ordered to by the religious leadership. If the IRGC sits out the fight, then the regime will fall quick.
Faster, please……..Marg bar dictator
chicagodude…,
very interesting, you’re the first i’ve seen make the obvious connection between the old waffen schutzstaffel and the iranian “revolutionary guard”, (as well as sadaam’s “fedayeen guard”.) while the r.g. may have the fancy toys i would not write off the regular army, even though the rank and file may be conscripts given motivated and reasonably competent leaders, and “civilian auxiliaries”/militia they could have a chance,
So, dare we ask if this is in fact true? I’d have thought we’d have heard about them being jailed before reading a threatening release.
Very interesting development…. However
What I find most disturbing here in these posts are all of the suggestions that the US President should learn from this display. Never in my life would I have thought that I would hear this many rational arguments along this line of thought (which I fully agree with, unfortuatly)
This road we are taking is very disturbing, however this may just be what the American people need to get this country back on course if we can get some eyes open.
If every right thinking American took it as their personal responsibility to the Men and Women who died to give us this country to open just one persons eyes to the reality of what this administration is doing to us we will be back on our way to greatness.
If true this would be awesome, I’ll be keeping an eye out for it.
Doubt it.
Once a warning such as this is given the next thing that happens is the wife, children, mother, father and all other relatives of the signers of the letter are kidnapped by the bad guys. Then it is just a matter of time before the signers of the letter are terminated.
One either does it or not. No warnings.
Iranians are Persians first,they wrote the book on civiliations advancements:That the passion for AGW could be tranfered to supporting those who dare to decry annilation by the insane. Time for the people of the world to act and maybe the fools representing us will listen. Obama has already sold out the protesters but there are other vices that can rally.
My apolgies I did mean ,voices not vices, that has me thinkig about a new keyboard or a reread of Freud.
Irans military is the key.When the protests were happening in the summer and Basijj units were being used, i suspected that the mullahs did not have army support for the falsely guided govt.I believe that the time is ripe for Iranians to take back their country from those who have abused it for so long.Persians were around before Islam.Theyll still be there after its long gone.
What an inspiring turn of possibilities. First we have the defiant people of Honduras taking a constitutional sovereignty stand against Central/South American leftist regimes, the UN, and the US monster in the making regime.
And now this. What history could we be witnessing here?
The surge in Iraq did not succeed because of the surge. The surge showed to the people of Iraq that they were not being deserted yet by their benefactors ie. us in the US. The Iraqis themselves turned on the terrorists. That is why the surge succeeded.
And now Iran. The people of Iran have their backs against the wall. The people also know that if their fundamentalist Islamic oppressors remain in power, that regime will acquire nuclear weapons and will use them. They also know that these weapons will be used against their nation unless this regime is not stopped. And they are putting their lives at risk now to end this regime. Many of their fathers and sons have told them that they will not blindly follow orders to exterminate them if they resist. And now this signed statement of many military officers saying that they will not stand by or cooperate in overreaching repression of the Iranian citizenry. Astounding.
We have our Oathkeepers here in America. If any of you reading this have not experienced the statements of members of our military and police forces at Oathkeepers yet, go read their statements at oathkeepers.org..
I believe them. The Iranians have them too. Thank God for that.
It’s very much like combat. A soldier knows that he could be in combat and willingly deals with that reality. When in that situation he will expose himself to death for his brother fighting next to him. We all may find ourselves in the situation of having to protect and defend ourselves and families at some point. It is comforting to hear that many of our military and police personnel are serious about their oath to defend our citizens and Constitution here. I am sure that the Iranian people are happy to hear the same from many of their military personnel.
Could we be seeing a critical mass being achieved in world history? If the jihadist regime in Iran could be made to fall and sanity prevail there, this world will have good reason to hope in a future to strive for.
What an inspiring turn of possibilities. First we have the defiant people of Honduras taking a constitutional sovereignty stand against Central/South American leftist regimes, the UN, and the US monster in the making regime.
And now this. What history could we be witnessing here?
The surge in Iraq did not succeed because of the surge. The surge showed to the people of Iraq that they were not being deserted yet by their benefactors ie. us in the US. The Iraqis themselves turned on the terrorists. That is why the surge succeeded.
And now Iran. The people of Iran have their backs against the wall. The people know that if their fundamentalist Islamic oppressors remain in power, that regime will acquire nuclear weapons and will use them. They also know that these weapons will be used against their nation unless this regime is not stopped. And they are putting their lives at risk now to end this regime. Many of their fathers and sons have told them that they will not blindly follow orders to exterminate them if they resist. And now this signed statement of many military officers saying that they will not stand by or cooperate in overreaching repression of the Iranian citizenry. Astounding.
We have our Oathkeepers here in America. If any of you reading this have not experienced the statements of members of our military and police forces at Oathkeepers yet, go read their statements at oathkeepers.org..
I believe them. The Iranians have them too. Thank God for that.
It is comforting to hear that many of our military and police personnel are serious about their oath to defend our citizens and Constitution here. I am sure that the Iranian people are happy to hear the same from many of their military personnel.
Could we be seeing a critical mass being achieved in world history? If the jihadist regime in Iran could be made to fall and sanity prevail there, this world will have good reason to hope in a future to strive for.
@ Rall
I agree with you 100%. I strongly believe that if this Iranian regime who prefers to support terrorist organizations over their own people, will be crushed out, there will be a brighter hope of peace in the middle east and in the world.
26. If Obama does that, the cries of “Marg bar dictator!” will come to our own shores at TEA parties. The difference is, we, unlike the Iranian protesters, have guns.
This type of statements will not have any impact on the coup d’etat government. It is not time for words anymore, rather it is time for action. I believe Iranian people expect strong action from its military. It is their duty to defend the people. Iranian military should take action to eliminate the heads of Sepah and Basij(Revolutionary Guard) and let the people take care of the rest.
Are suggesting an organized coup followed by unfettered transparency from foreign overseers is just a shout away?
Or the Iranian government could just require all military personnel to take the tainted flu shot. Then they could institute martial law, by bringing in foreign troops and use civilian labor to clean up and bury the bodies of military troops who might have otherwise rebelled if they hadn’t been killed by the vaccine. Hey, if it works for the U.S. government, it could work for the Iranian government too. But they’ve probably already thought of that.