While the anti-neocons in the American left congratulated themselves and The One over the past weeks for meddling excessively in Iran’s internal poliics, Globalsecurity notes that the big winners in the unrest were the Revolutionary Guards:

The re-election appears to have depended on systematic fraud, as alleged by vocal opponents. What it represents is a defeat for Iran’s ruling clerical class, led by such revolutionary luminaries Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani – and a victory for the increasingly powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, who are in many ways the real power behind the upstart Ahmadinejad.
The Guards indicated even before the election that they would not allow Ahmadinejad’s challenger, Mir Hussein Mousavi, to succeed. And they are willing to use any means possible, including mass arrests of opposition leaders and the use of military force against protesters, to maintain their grip on power. Iran’s ruling political elite have earned much popular hostility in the last few days, but they appear to have enough military support to withstand the protests for now. Regardless, the Islamic Republic may no longer be able to count on the people’s will to maintain its legitimacy

The result has serious implications for the Iranian people – including continued social repression, economic mismanagement, and the stifling of political dissent – and for the international community, especially the United States. The Guards’ continued political ascent and their military aspirations, including expanding missile and nuclear programs, will pose a new challenge to the Obama administration’s efforts to engage Iran.

The Guards are the kind of groups most dictators set up – a second army to play against the real army, like the SS or the Republican Guards.

June was a good month for ’em…

This entry was posted by by Mitch Berg on Thursday, July 2nd, 2009 at 6:15 am and is filed under War On Terror, Western Civilization. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.