Revolutionary Guards alarmed by new protests

Iran Channel, A top Revolutionary Guards commander has publicly voiced alarm at the growing breadth and size of the opposition protest movement, and said that the changes could affect next years parliamentary election.

He says that if the elections go against the Islamic Republic regime, “bloodshed” would result, Radio Zamaneh reports.

“If the results of the parliamentary elections are not in line with our values, the coming year will be so dangerous it may even lead to bloodshed,” General Salar Aubnoosh tells the Guardian Council, the panel that oversees the suitability of candidates to run for election.

Aubnoosh referred to former top regime figures Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi as “reformists” and leaders of the “sedition” faction of opposition, but said that a new faction is emerging, an apparently more dangerous one that he called “deviation.”

“But now there is also something called deviation, which will need greater alertness to identify because it is more complicated,” Aubnoosh said.

According to Radio Zamaneh, “Aubnoosh did not elaborate on this ‘deviation movement’ but the reformists have repeatedly warned the establishment that failing to respond adequately to the reformist demands may lead to more extremist forces taking over the protests.”

That is precisely what has happened – the more radical protesters have come to dominate the opposition. Unlike Mousavi and Karroubi, they do not seek to reform the Islamic Republic but to change the entire regime in favor of a western-style secular democracy.