{"id":4167,"date":"2018-01-03T15:05:55","date_gmt":"2018-01-03T12:05:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/arabiangcis.org\/english\/?p=4167"},"modified":"2018-01-03T15:05:55","modified_gmt":"2018-01-03T12:05:55","slug":"what-will-irgc-do-with-the-recent-protests","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rasanah-iiis.org\/english\/monitoring-and-translation\/articles\/what-will-irgc-do-with-the-recent-protests\/","title":{"rendered":"What will IRGC do with the recent protests?"},"content":{"rendered":"

With the continuation of street protests in different cities of Iran, the question is: what role will Iran\u2019s Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) play in confronting the current situation?<\/strong>
\nIn normal conditions, confronting whatever is considered as a \u2018security threat\u2019 is the responsibility of law enforcement agencies, the Intelligence Ministry, and, if necessary, the Basij. In critical security conditions and with the decision of various security councils, the IRGC becomes the main security force in different cities.
\nIn Iran\u2019s capital, the decision to activate the IRGC rests with the Supreme Council of National Security. If this council decides that law enforcement agencies, the Intelligence Ministry and the Basij cannot confront existing \u2018security threats\u2019, the responsibility is handed over to the IRGC at the Sarallah Base. In case this occurs, other security and law enforcement agencies will act within its directives.
\nAs an example, the day after the presidential election on June 12, 2009, Basij forces, upon the request of law enforcement agencies, confronted the protesters. But after June 15, the main responsibility was handed to the IRGC which continued until August 16.
\nDuring recent demonstrations, the main responsibility for confronting the protests has been obviously with law enforcement agencies. But in case the protests spread, it can be imagined that the decision about giving – or not giving – the main responsibility of confronting the protesters to the IRGC will be the priority of security councils, such as the Supreme Council of National Security.
\nHowever, currently the IRGC confronting protesters will be much more complicated, compared with similar situations that unfolded in 1999 and 2009.
\nThis time, since the street protests broke out, the IRGC\u2019s Spokesperson and affiliated media have tried to rather consistently stress that they have no problems with the protests, and have shown sympathy towards the protesters given the stagnating socio-economic realities in the country.
\nAt the time of street protests in Mashhad, obviously the IRGC affiliated media portrayed the protesters as showing disenchantment towards certain parts of the government, and that they did not belong to those parts. It was from this position that at the time when the protests started, politicians and IRGC affiliated media noticeably tried to align themselves with \u2018those with demands\u2019.
\nBut with each hour that has passed from the beginning of the protests, with their spread to other cities, and with the radicalization of chants covering a diverse spectrum of governmental institutions and policies \u2013crossing \u2018absolute red lines\u2019 in Iran \u2013 such political steering by politicians and IRGC affiliated media has become much more difficult. The likelihood of the IRGC confronting the protesters, even though imaginable, will be much more difficult than in 1999 and 2009, when the ruling conservatives had called the middle-class protesters \u2013mainly in Tehran \u2013 \u2018counter-revolutionaries\u2019 from the very beginning.
\nA while after the IRGC was called on to put down popular urban protests in Islamshahr in 1995 \u2013which was the first Sarallah Base operation, in which several protesters were killed \u2013 there was some news in Iran\u2019s political media that showed dissatisfaction of some mid-level IRGC commanders about the use of force in similar confrontations.
\nA number of critical IRGC commanders had asked their senior officials that in case of another economic protest, the responsibility of confronting it would be given to non-IRGC forces, so that IRGC would remain immune from criticism and prevent reputational damage for \u2018cracking down on protestors demonstrating for their livelihoods\u2019. Such protestors, unlike the politically motivated middle-class, couldn\u2019t be charged with political-security accusations. It can be guessed that currently similar preoccupations and dilemmas exist in the ongoing discussions in the Iranian establishment. The result of the discussions, whatever they may be, will naturally influence the direction of future developments in Iran.
\nTranslated Piece: BBC Persian<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Opinions in this article reflect the writer\u2019s point of view, not necessarily the view of The Arabain GCIS<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

With the continuation of street protests in different cities of Iran, the question is: what role will Iran\u2019s Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) play in confronting the current situation? In normal conditions, confronting whatever is considered as a \u2018security threat\u2019 is the responsibility of law enforcement agencies, the Intelligence Ministry, and, if necessary, the Basij. In […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":156,"featured_media":4168,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[52,42,1296,125,12,2371,355,386,361,73,38,28,624],"class_list":["post-4167","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-articles","tag-52","tag-agcis","tag-arabian-gulf-center-for-iranian-studies","tag-basij","tag-iran","tag-iran-protests","tag-irgc","tag-khamenei","tag-media","tag-press","tag-rouhani","tag-tehran","tag-u-s"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rasanah-iiis.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4167","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rasanah-iiis.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rasanah-iiis.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rasanah-iiis.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/156"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rasanah-iiis.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4167"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/rasanah-iiis.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4167\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4170,"href":"https:\/\/rasanah-iiis.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4167\/revisions\/4170"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rasanah-iiis.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4168"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rasanah-iiis.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4167"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rasanah-iiis.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4167"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rasanah-iiis.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4167"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}