Who Are The Iranian Revolutionary Guards?

In 1979, the Iranian Revolution took over the country like a bonfire. The main objection of the people against the Shah was not religious issues, as it has been depicted in Western media. The main objection of the people against the Shah and his main supporter, the U.S., was his brutality and corruption. At that time, Carter was the U.S President but he was paying the price for the things Nixon had done.

Initial igniting of the Iranian Revolution was quite difficult. The Shah had killed all the opposition and there was no political organization to unify the people. The only person who was against the Shah, and alive, was Ayatollah Khomeini who was living in exile in Iraq.

Saddam Hussein used to use him as a pawn against the Shah. The Shah put a lot of pressure on Saddam Hussein to kick Khomeini out of Iraq, which was probably the biggest mistake he ever made. Khomeini left Iraq and with the help of his students, he landed in Paris and from there, he got access to the world media. In addition, he was able to organize the mosques and other religious organizations in Iran against the Shah.

Once the Revolution was done, and the Shah was kicked out, the residues of these small groups gained power and many people joined them. At this time, they were all well armed as they had taken a lot of arms out of the garrisons of the Shah’s Army. They were totally against the U.S. and each one had a different agenda. When Carter permitted the Shah to come to the U.S. for medical treatment, members of one of these groups who were loyal to Khomeini, took Americans in the American Embassy hostage, and created the “hostage crisis”.

Khomeini used this opportunity to get rid of his internal enemies’ .While the attention of the world was turned toward the hostages he massacred every group which was not loyal to him.

Ayatollah Khomeini

Early during the revolution Khomeini was faced with a big dilemma. The Shah Army was still there. He could not dismantle the military as he might have needed them to operate the military machinery against Iraq. At the same time, The Army was still loyal to the Shah, so he had to create a new force to balance the Army out. That was when he ordered the recruiting of militia and combining all Moslem guerilla groups who were loyal to him, thus creating the “The Army of Revolutionary Guards.”

The members of the guard were a mixture of very religious youth who were in love with Khomeini’s brand of Islam, criminals, opportunists, psychopaths, and "city thugs”. Khomeini put the son of a street thug who had been killed by the Shah and was a follower of Khomeini with the name of Mohsen Rezai as the leader of this group.

Mehdi Rezai

With the vast amounts of money from Iranian oil, they were able to arm and train these creatures to build a force of 150,000, whose job was to protect the regime of Khomeini and his followers -- and do its dirty work. Khomeini gave them the open hand to do whatever they wanted; torture, murder, bribery, political oppression, continuous harassment of women and minorities and total annihilation of the dissident groups.

The revolutionary guards created an environment of terror by far more brutal than that of the Shah. One of the main functions of the guards was turning the society from a secular society to a religious society. They enforced strict Islamic laws in the streets and brutally crushed any opposition of any kind. Their atrocities are famous and endless. The harsh methods of revolutionary guards made them extremely unpopular and hated.

Probably their worst crimes were the massacre of teenagers who were selling opposition newspapers in the streets of Tehran during the early months after the revolution.

I remember being at the house of one of our relative’s in the afternoon when suddenly, we heard a women screaming and crying outside. After a couple of minutes my cousin came in to tell me that a neighbor lady was screaming because her two daughters were executed by the guards. The poor girls were only fourteen and fifteen years old and were selling newspapers in the streets.

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