Have the Iranians Started Eating Their Young?

In the unrest following the Iranian presidential elections a disturbing report has emerged. According to a post yesterday on niacINsight, a blog for the Iranian-American community, "According to our private phone conversations with people in Tehran, hundreds of parents have gathered by a police station in Yousef Abad, now known as Seyyed Jamal Aldin Asad Abadi, with their hands raised to the sky saying “Obama, please help us, they are killing our young children.” They were gathering there because their kids are missing and they were trying to find out where they are." Although this is the only report of this nature noted so far, I believe it is entirely possible following the Saturday night rampage at Tehran University by members of the Revolutionary Guards Corps and the Basij militia.

This type of action is certainly not unprecedented and brings to mind two incidents from the 1970s. At that time the military dictatorships in charge of Greece and Chile were the targets of student unrest and demonstrations. They responded by rounding up student leaders and activists and secretly executing them en masse without legitimate trials. This subsequently cost them the political and military support they needed to sustain their juntas and led to their downfalls. Could the same thing happen in Iran?

That is certainly a possibility, but it is important to remember that the Greek and Chilean juntas were based upon the support and backing from the military. When the militaries could no longer bear the political pressure on them, the dictatorships succumbed. That may not be the case in Iran.

Grand Ayatollah Khameini's theocracy has never really relied upon military support to sustain its rule. Its power is derived from the Revolutionary Guard Corps and the Basij militia. Both of these organizations are idealogically motivated and may not be susceptible to the political pressure that doomed the Greeks and Chileans. While the pleas of desperate mothers with their children whisked away in the night are compelling, so far they have fallen on deaf ears in Washington. Without outside help of some sort to topple the regime, the fanatics comprising the Revolutionary Guards and the Basij will probably be able to secure the situation and ensure the continuance of the Islamic Republic.