Basij chief threatens ‘deviant’ Islamists

Now that the Green Movement leaders are isolated and stripped of most of their influence, the instruments of repression are hunting for enemies in their own camp.

Iran’s leadership is officially at war with itself. The showdown is between an increasingly assertive President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his nationalistic Islamists versus the doddering clerical leadership of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. The chief of the Basij paramilitaries recently proclaimed that the real enemy is not the secular opposition or the reformist Greens, but deviant Islamists in the government.

Could this be a time for the democratic opposition to lay low and regroup while the dogs rip each other apart?

The regime seems focused the power struggle between the ruling factions led by Ahmadinejad and Khamenei. Part of the internecine conflict is taking place within the Ministry of Intelligence. IranChannel will follow this story over the next few days, but first we’ll look at this power struggle and what it means.

Mohammad Reza Naghdi (pictured), head of the Basij paramilitary force that serves as a streetfighting enforcement arm of the regime, warned April 20 that his forces would go after Islamists deemed “deviant.” According to Khabaronline.ir:

“The nature of the next sedition will be different from the sedition of 2009. In the last sedition we were confronted by people whose sacriligious attributes were easy to recognize. But in the next sedition, the conditions will be hazy and it would be very difficult to distinguish between friend and foe. It’s possible that we will be confronting a group that, in the name of the Koran and prayers, and a superficial love for justice and Mahdaviat [belief in the efforts to prepare for Mahdi], starts a campaign against the leadership. It is probable that the deviants, under the guise of the pious, stand face to face against the revolution.”

Before, the Green reformists and the democratic opposition were the “sedition” and the “deviants.” Now the enemy is among the “pious.” That’s Ahmadinejad’s brand of Iranian Islam versus the mullahs’ Shi’a Islamism.

It appears that the Basij are weighing in on behalf of the mullahs. According to Payvand News, Naghdi also said that the Basij force “does not engage in politics but remains under the command of the Supreme Leader.”

Source: http://iranchannel.org/archives/1347