Nico Pitney says the Revolutionary Guard has taken over and cites this LAT article Notice what the Guard boss is saying:

Maj. Gen. Mohammad Ali Jafari, commander of the elite military branch, said the guard's takeover of the nation's security had led to "a revival of the revolution."

"These events put us in a new stage of the revolution and political struggles, and all of us must fully comprehend its dimensions," he said at a Sunday press conference, according to reports that surfaced today.

"Because the Revolutionary Guard was assigned the task of controlling the situation, [it] took the initiative to quell a spiraling unrest. This event pushed us into a new phase of the revolution and political struggles and we have to understand all its dimensions."

Jafari is referencing the 1979 revolution rather than the current velvet revolution. This is the military coup d'etat some people were talking about.

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BTW, I think there's a plan for a general strike on 7/9.

Edited at 2009-07-06 06:46 pm (UTC)

Thanks for passing this along. What interests me is the complete silence of the actual army. The IRG is very much in the pocket of Khameni and is really just a large security force. like rent-a-cops but with fancier uniforms.

Where's the actual military in all of this? At the beginning of the protests, the general in charge of the armed forces was arrested and lost his position because he refused to use the army against the protesters. So...who's in charge now? What is their position?

The silence is provocative, to say the least. They could still end up being the key players in all of this. I guess it's back to wait and see...