In an interview with FRANCE 24, the co-founder of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), the exiled dissident Mohsen Sazegara, said the organisation has “converted to a monster” and is the “backbone of keeping the dictator in power,” referring to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Speaking to FRANCE 24 from Washington, Sazegara recalled that when Iran‘s Revolutionary Guards were conceived during Ayatollah Khomeini’s 1978-79 exile in France, “nobody had [the] imagination that we will win just in 110 days” since they envisioned a “type of Vietnam War.” He added that the organization was initially designed as a people’s army “from the people, for the people, by the people.”
While they helped the new regime establish control, the Revolutionary Guards have since morphed into its brutal enforcer, especially during the most recent crackdown on nationwide protests, in which thousands of Iranians have been killed.
Sazegara welcomed the EU’s designation of the IRGC as a terrorist organisation, but suggested creating exemptions for conscripts and defectors, saying this would “deepen the cracks inside [the] Revolutionary Guard.”
Sazegara insisted that the regime “has no legitimacy and no popularity amongst the people”. He also predicted that “later, soon, there will be other protests and actions by the people.”
FRANCE 24/AFP
