It looks like February 11th will be the most violent confrontation to date. The regime is taking unusual measures to put down the promised demonstrations. In many ways it resembles the “Chinese solution.” First, an unprecedented mobilization: 120 trains and something like a thousand buses have been deployed from as far away as 250 kilometers from the capital. They will be used by the Revolutionary Guards and Basij to bring tens of thousands of paid “volunteers” to Tehran. These will consist of entire families (dependent on the regime) to counter the Green Wave. Each family gets $80 for the day, plus free food. The regime is aiming at 300,000 thugs in the streets. The Greens don’t think the numbers will be that high, and in any event they expect ten times that number of protesters, upwards of three million increasingly angry people, demanding freedom and justice.
Their resolve has undoubtedly been hardened by the very tough interview released earlier this week by Green leader Mir Hossein Mousavi. As before, Mousavi put himself on the line, defying the regime to move against him as the mullahs have moved against his friends, allies, and family members. It’s quite a challenge:
Today, the prison cells are occupied with the most sincere and devoted sons of this nation: students, professors and others. [Security forces] are trying to prosecute them with espionage or charges related to financial or sexual misconduct – charges based on expired formulas – while the real criminals and thieves who steal public money are free. Instead of looking for the real spies, they accuse decent religious people. I should take this opportunity to express my regret that all of my advisors, who are decent, honest and educated individuals, have been arrested; that I am not with them. These days, there is not a [single] night that I do not think of Imam [Khomeini], martyr Beheshti and others. I whisper to them that what was achieved is far from what they sought…
Khamenei has still not mustered the courage to strike directly at Mousavi or Karroubi, which everyone sees as a sign of weakness. They see it as I do, as evidence that he is not prepared for a real showdown, fearing the vastly greater numbers of the Greens, and the unreliability of his armies. He knows that the recent Green video, appealing to the armed forces to join the revolution, is having an effect.
Still, I don’t think there has been anything in recent history that compares to the regime’s planned actions. All internal communications are supposed to be shut down: internet, cell phones, SMS, you name it. Since this would in any case paralyze the country, offices, factories, banks and practically everything else will be shut down until the 14th; thus they can afford to shut down the internet. The Chinese have reportedly provided essential services (including internet) for key security offices and Khamenei’s residence.
This does not look to me like a strategy for a “final solution;” it’s more like a desperate throw of the dice with fighters of unproven courage and reliability. We know, after all, that considerable numbers of trained police have been fired of late, that their replacements are “country boys” with little experience and probably poor discipline, and that the ex-police are likely to have become (if they weren’t already) Green recruits.
While exact numbers have not been secured, Fox News is reporting that sources within Tehran are reporting that 20 to 30 percent of the police force are being let go. That equates to roughly 5,000 officers and more that have been dismissed throughout the country.
Meanwhile the officers that have been let go are being replaced by 700 to 900 civilians during times of protests and those numbers falling during times of peace.
A former police officer told NewsCore that the police are bring replaced by village people who desperately need money and would [use] violence without hesitations.
Forces are typically under the control of the Revolutionary Guard, and they are responsible for keeping local peace. Now sources report that they will be much less organized and possibly have much less control.
One former officer was reported saying, “Many of us are being replaced by bus loads of people from villages who are willing to do anything for a piece of bread instead of protecting the ideas of the 1979 Islamic Revolution.”
via Faster, Please! » The Iranian Revolution Devours Its Young.
