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Islamic Revolution’s Guard Corps (IRGC) Commander Major General Mohammad Ali Jafari’s speech on September 2, delivered in front of early military leaders of the Iran-Iraq War is significant for several reasons. First, it is noteworthy for his public acknowledgment of IRGC’s direct involvement in the elections and the crackdown. This acknowledgment came in reference to a February 2009 statement by former president Mohammad Khatami According to Jafari, Khatami said, “If in this election Ahmadinejad falls, then rahbari [office of the leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei] will be effectively eliminated…through the defeat of principlists, we must contain the power of rahbari.”

In Jafari's telling, the IRGC had to enter the fray well before the June 12 election in order to prevent the weakening or even elimination of rahbari. It did this by taking note of what the reformists were doing and identifying them as enemies of the Islamic state as embodied in rahbari.

If Jafari is be taken at his words, even if in the official narrative the election had been won by Mir Hossein Mussavi, then IRGC would have had no choice but to enter the fray and overturn the results since such a victory would have brought to power people who wanted to undermine the Islamic Republic.

Jafari's second admission was that, in his mind, there is no difference between a change in the policy direction of the countr... >>>