A Basij Mutiny?

Posted by johnhouk on Jun 23, 2009
 Gary H. Johnson, Jr. has an interesting take on the voting riots taking place in Iran. Since Johnson is remarkably versed in the knowledge of Islam, it would be well worth diplomats to pay attentions to his assessment.

Basically Johnson sees the unrest in Iran as a reaction of third generation of radicalized Shi’ites whose fathers and grandfathers were heroic martyrs of the Iraq-Iran war of the Eighties. Couple the radical indoctrination of a devotion to Shi’ite Islam and unemployment may be the undergirding of why Mousavi has become a symbol of change.

In my opinion that “change” is not a change of Khomeini revolutionary ideas, rather it is a change of radical Shi’ites sensing an abandonment of privilege that should be available to the descendants of the heroes of the past.

Read Johnson’s essay to discover your own take.

JRH 6/23/09
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A Basij Mutiny?

Gary H. Johnson, Jr.
Posting as huntingnasrallah
June 22, 2009
United Against Islamic Supremacism

Are we witnessing a Mutiny of the Basij in the Iranian Streets?

Generally, experts and writers on any topic strive to demonstrate their grasp of crisis situations and intend to bring order out of the chaos of geopolitical turmoil by relying on their years of research and study of the regional or local stage in question. However, in terms of grasping the situation in the Iranian Street, following the election of Ahmadinejad over Moussavi and the Ayatollah’s blessing of the Islamic Establishment’s deliberation on the populist vote’s legitimacy, what is important are the unknowns, particularly in relation to the Basij Militia.

In the Ayatollah Khameini’s Friday Sermon of June 19th, 2009, the Ayatollah scolded Basij elements who perpetrated heinous crimes against humanity in their assault on homes and barracks in the name of the Khomeini Revolution. In addition, Khameini chastised those who believe in the possibility that the Islamic Establishment of the Wilayat al Faqih could make an 11 million vote counting error, while dressing down reformers such as Khatemi and Rafsanjani, who hold the ability direct and incite masses of their supporters to the will of the agitating protestors. The children of Rafsanjani were also recognized in the invective and given sharp warning over their activities. The problem is, the Western World, slowly finding itself in solidarity with the “democracy” seekers whose blood is running in the streets of Iran, is blind to the realities of the struggle.

On the surface, the reason for the blindness is because of the media blackout imposed by the Islamic Establishment, which has summarily blocked Western Journalists from taking notes or shooting footage at the street level; which has singled out and targeted Western Journalists and rounded them up into prisons for the crime of curiosity and truthseeking; which has jailed dissenting editors, thinkers and writers of the Persian, Arabic, and Muslim stripes without regard for anything but the Will of the Khomeinist Elite; which has blocked visas for Western and outsider journalists, who seek to cover the story inside the auspices of the Iranian borders. This blindness gave rise to the cyber guerillas on YouTube, FaceBook and Twitter, who seek, no doubt at their own peril and for a multiplicity of agendas and reasons, to open the closed system of totalitarian dictatorship and pierce the veil of the Ayatollah’s stomp grounds.

However, this surface tension, while vivid in its growing body counts now in the dozens, while tragic in its suddenly martyred symbolic faces, and while epic in its 3 mile long stretches of Moussavi loyalists that have over the last week grown and shifted and amazingly refused to pick up weapons as hundreds of the have been forced into paddy wagons and unmarked vans, while these realities are the focus of the Media that decidedly omits the contextual background and makeup of the struggle. This is problematic, through the whir of images and flashes and breaking second and third hand reports of rumor mixed with fantasy mixed with fact, since Americans, on the whole do not understand the internal framework of the Iranian Islamic Establishment and the nature of the Wilayat al Faqih.

Who are the Pasdaran? Who are the IRGC? Who are the MOIS? Who are the Mullahs? Who are the Basij? These questions are not only not answered, the Western Media seems to have determined that it is unimportant to consider the makeup of the leadership of these organizations, the structure of the commands, the linkages, the guiding principles, the geographic centralization of their bases, the levels of indoctrination and zealotry at play, the jurisdiction claimed by each, the schools of thought in competition for the capacity to lead, the arsenals of each separate entity, the intelligence capability of each branch, the influence of each over the other, and the history of the organizations since the Khomeinist Revolutions activist expansion, through the Iran-Iraq War and into the age of strategic depth and the imamate lust engendered by proxies such as Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Mahdi Army in Iraq, and Hamas in Gaza, not to mention the Western sanction-running underground efforts in Afghanistan’s opium and gun running lines that span from the Ishmael Khan checkpoints on the Iranian border and into the Baluchistan blackhole of Pakistan’s steppe deserts and marshalling zones for FATA and NWFP forays by a Taliban grappling with Nuclear ambitions.

In scenes reminiscent of the freedom marches and peace-ins of the United States in the 1960s complete with grainy pixolated footage of baton wielding, water cannon firing dispersal units of the riot police chasing after student demonstrators, the American political and diplomatic leadership have been reliving amd reconsidering its checkered past, without any ability to transmit the lessons of American history to the Iranian leadership without being conceived as imposing a moral stand against the Ayatollah and Mullocracy and ruining the momentum of the affair by allowing for a common enemy to re-unite the competing factions on the ground. Whatsmore, if the young Netanyahu administration or Peres fold in Israel backs the conceivably liberalizing element of Iranian society chanting “Death to the Dictator” they run the risk of spoiling the welcomed fracturing of the Khomeinist Revolution by coining the agitators as Zionist pawns. In the face of these geopolitically self-imposed roadblocks, the Obama administration has responded to the broil with a whimper and a whisper, quoting Martin Luther King Jr.’s “long arc” of justice with a snarky bromide spin on voting “present”. Notably, the Obama team is reorganizing the positions of the Muslim “Engagement Clique” made up of Holbrooke, Mitchell and Ross, by pulling Dennis Ross into the inner sanctum of the Presidency and out from under the control of Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton.

Unfortunately, though, the American public has no idea as to the nature of Dennis Ross’ understanding of “leverage”, does not realize how much profit is on the table for a Holbrooke alliance with USAID, and cannot come to grips with the reality that George Mitchell is aiming to create peace in the Palestinian sphere by refusing to admit that the militant arms of Hamas, Fatah, and Hezbollah are entrenched in their political wings, just as he did in his famed Northern Ireland peace brokerage at the dawn of the decade, neverminding the fact that the outcome of legitimizing the political wing of a terrorist organization is the legitimizing of its constitutional aims, which in all cases in the Arab-Israeli question tend to include the obliteration of the Zionist State as a prerequisite for the establishment of a just state. The combination of these realities have left America blind to many realities and jumping from story to story to determine the truth of the situation in Iran and the nature of the political and diplomatic responses of the leaders of the world do not licit anything but more questions due to the blindered vision of the present coverage of the fray. This blindness and ineptitude is demonstrated well in a recent New York Times article by Helene Cooper in which Ross, Holbrooke and Mitchell were compared to Lebron James, Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant…as if the Diplomatic World could ever be comparable to a basketball fantasy dream team pick…an article only possible in a multicultural environment run flattastically to the brink of pandering to Obama’s tastes.

Without depth of understanding, the situation on the streets of Iran, which has already yielded a suicide attack on the Khomeini mausoleum and untold numbers of black bag lynchings, it is virtually impossible to read the terrain or understand the motivations of all sides of the argument, much less the rights and wrongs in the variables of the Washington equation. And more or less, the only truth that can be had is the reasonable disbelief that, out of a nation of 31 million souls, that 31 million votes were cast. Any time nearly 100% of a population are said to have voted on any election, anywhere in the world, the Western instinct is to reject the validity of the ballot, simply because the Western model is hard pressed, in its established secular model, to garner votes from over 50% of the voters much less to register over 75% of the eligible voters. In essence, this instinctive impulse of Western thinkers to rely on the nature of free elections renders the Iranian election schema as the ultimate in irregularity and a slap in the face of justice, whether it ends in an accurate portrayal or a false portrait in its count. Moreover, considering the nature of the handpicked mullah insiders running for the post of the Iranian executive high command, what is obvious is that the Islamic Establishment in the Islamic Republic of Iran trumps the power of the executive on all fronts and the jurists of Shariah Law hold the power over both the Executive administration and Legislative assemblies. In this frame, the vote for leadership of the Revolution is not free, it is a forced semblance of choice. Pinnocchio’s nose may grow, but the strings of the marionet serve as constant reminders of the fact that the Puppetry of the Executive is not a real boy.

Upon consideration, then, the remarkable outcome of the quasi-election in Iran on the June 12th is the ability to recognize the existence of a vast chasm between the lack of facts on the whole of the stand-off and the ability of Westerners to generate a reasonable hypothesis or theory as to the nature of the storms brewing across the third generation of the Khomeinist State.
As a researcher and writer, breaking ground on the ideology of Islamic Supremacism is a challenging enterprise, especially considering what Vali Nasr, Dennis Ross’ special advisor on Iran, has referred to as “Ascendance” in the Shia Crescent. The geopolitics of statecraft in the Muslim world and the non-state players and movements which (both) hold to an intentional sense of borderlessness in their jihadi and Islamist agitations. In the Shia variety, however, under the Khomeinist umbrella of influence lay the dispossessed. The Khomeini Revolution played to the sensibilities of the Shia Muslims who felt powerless to better their station and capacity in the face of Western influence, Sunni derision, and geographic isolation. Saddham Hussein recognized the earthquake of the Khomeini rise, particularly since he spent a great deal of effort purging his indoctrinated devotees (especially of the Sadr familiy) which spawned from the Khomeini presence in Najaf during his 1970s exile.

It shouldn’t be surprising to find that Hezbollah’s Secretary General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah was studying in the holy city of Najaf, Iraq during the initial crackdowns by Saddham Hussein, in all probability, while Khomeini was building his borderless movement. Following the Khomeini assumption of power, Saddham Hussein invaded Iran. Iran’s initial instinct of aerial bombardments led to the destruction of the Iranian Air Force in the first year of the confrontation. The tide of the war, then, was forced into a ground offensive for the Islamic Establishment’s infancy. The Basij were the pivotal forces that broke the spirit of the Iraqi advances into Iran. The Basij, staring the oblivion of Baathist dominance in the region represented the heart of the dispossessed Shia. Facing down a far superior foe, in terms of military numbers, training, and firepower, lacking any airsupport of note, the nacent Islamic Republic’s leadership chose to declare jihad upon the Baathist Imperial designs. Tanks and ammunition were in short supply among the Pasdaran and IRGC forces, so Ayatollah Khomeini and his leadership Moussavi included, chose the fateful course of will to conscript and press into service the young men of the Revolution. The Basij Militia formed as a function of State Jihad, tens of thousands of young men were given Korans and fisher price-styled plastic keys to hang around their necks as the sum total of their weaponry. Their purpose was to overrun the Iraqi forward positions, while using their bones and blood as minefield sweepers in the zealotry of revolutionary fervor. The willful decision to sacrifice tens of thousands of young men, eyes aglaze with thoughts of entering the gardens beneath which the rivers flow of milk and honey in ever lasting paradise in the grace of Allah, was mortifying and terrifying to the disbelieving Iraqi shock troops dug in on their newly conquered land…and the rearguard last ditch effort served to throw the Baathist front into disarray as Iranian tanks rolled over twisted and mutilated corpses to regain their footing in the long war. Four or five separate Basij militia offenses over a five year period broke the Spirit of the Iraqis from the Kurd regions in the North to the oil rich marshlands of the South.

No Westerner experts have truly pierced the veil on the indoctrinating methodology utilized to establish the Basiji reckoning. In fact, since the United States decided not to punish the Ayatollah militarily for the affront of taking US Embassy personnel hostage for 444 days, and since the Western Media refused to recognize the enormity of the quake as Saddham Hussein did, the Islamic Republic managed to eek through the Iran-Iraq war and emerge as a new triumphant force in the ascendance of Shia Islam. Thousands upon thousands of Basij militia were “martyred” in their suicide waves over the course of the war and were held aloft as heroes of the Revolution as the conflict ebbed. For over 20 years, the survivors have remained heroes, and as they have raised families in the ensuing decades, the Basij Militia has grown to a force of between three and five million men. What does America know about the depth of the Basij militia in the Muslim Establishment? What do the experts on Middle Eastern Affairs teach about the leadership structure, the indoctrination manuals, and the technical efficiency and prowess of the second and third generation Basij fighters? Zero. Little attention is paid to what amounts to 2% of the Iranian population and the Shia State’s zealous national guard. What percentage of the Basij are employed by the state of Iran? What percentage of the Basij militia have brothers, uncles, fathers, grandfathers, and sons in the IRGC, the Pasdaran and the MOIS? What type of tribal and cultural affiliations beyond the Tehran lights and into the rural societies of Iran exist in the mosque network? What percentage of the new Basij blood are in the reformist camps of Rafsanjani and Khatemi? What percentage of the Basij are loyal to Ahmadinejad and the Ayatollah? Moussavi? These are the questions that the Western Media refuses to ask primarily because they do not understand the relevance of the issue.

With plain clothes Basij officers beating protestors, with Hezbollah and IRGC gunmen cowing crowds with live ammunition, with MOIS activists imprisoning perceived threats to the regime, what percentage of the Basij has broken into the Moussavi wing? And, considering this reality, what percentage of the Pasdaran, IRGC, and MOIS forces hold sympathy, family, tribal, or geographic solidarity with the Basij that have fractured from the main?

Is it possible that the West is witnessing the Mutiny of the Basij in the Iranian YouTube youth? Heroism and Charisma are wound into the Basij tradition; and, though the student democratic movements, and the women’s rights agitations and the Rafsanjani and Khatemi reform attitudes may play into the Moussavi camps as victory signs replace bullets in a tear gas laden reproof, the Basij are the heart of the dispossessed that breathe integrity into the Islamic Establishment of Khameini. In this frame of reference, though the players are blackfaced and hard to cypher and identify for the Western thinker, the Basij, if fracted…represent the broken heart of the Khomeini revolution…and it is unlikely that the remaining Basij will seek to confront the mutinous members of their gracious circle of heroes. Instead, what appears more and more plausible is that Moussavi is ushering in an age of Iranian Unionism.

Two generations after the Iran-Iraq war, the Basij militia make up 2% of the Iranian population; and according to Business and State reports on the economic viability of the Persian Nation, 12% of the population of Iran is without a job. If this is the case, then it is likely that a large portion of the Basij Militia are out of work heroes, no longer able to feed their families with the glossy finish of their father’s and grandfather’s exploits on the field of battle decades before. What percentage of the Basij Militia are unemployed? What percentage of Mosques whose congregations hold a large number of Basij militia are faltering on the brink of starvation amid the sanctions of the UN? Without these answers it is impossible to determine the nature of or existence of a Basij Mutiny.

However, considering that the Iranian government operates on deceit as a strategy of geopolitical statecraft, one can only take their confirmation that the Pasdaran, IRGC, and Basij as unified in their loyalty to Ahmadinejad with a blink and a shrug. Indeed, it is impossible not to recognize that there are 3 to 5 million Basij militia members and 3 to 5 million unemployed workers in the state. What percentage of the Basij receive a government grant, handout or prize for their familial connection or physical enlistment in the Basij? No one is answering this question. Why? Look at it another way, let’s say 2% of the 3 to 5 million unemployed in Iran are Basij – could 100,000 Basij be without a paycheck? More and more it looks as though the “Dispossessed” and the “unemployed” of Iran are forging solidarity behind the banners of Moussavi.

When considering the need for the Ayatollah to save face in the winds of Western concern as all eyes turn to the brutality of the totalitarian closed system that is attempting to retain order, one can see that Moussavi may be on the road to creating a Union of the “broke” Basij and the “unemployed” Dispossessed. It is possible to view the protestations of the crowds supporting Moussavi in the light of an American Labor Union Strike. The terms of employment are at the crux of the matter. And, in full, as a former Foreign Minister in the upper echelons of the Khomeini Decade, the question will be over the rewards of the unemployed who take to the underground jihad, maintain the gunrunning and opium ratlines from the Russian Mafia to the Quds forces forward Fatah bases at the gates of Jerusalem and a new Imamate. Moussavi, if he seeks to survive as a leader, will be forced to organize the assimilation of the Basij and the Dispossessed along the frontlines of the Shia Crescent’s jihadi activity. In fact, with rumors of 5,000 Hezbollah soldiers retained to help with crowd control, it will only be a matter of time before the crowd control becomes an enlistment campaign for the Hezbollah ratlines and frontlines. With a 25,000-strong Hezbollah army in Lebanon, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah may earn the concession of culling a secondary army of radicalized zealots to fill its levy for the next war upon Zion. In the end, the West may be watching the lights dim, completely unaware of the possibility that when they go out, Hezbollah’s capabilities might quadruple.

As it stands, so long as this possibility exists, for Western pluralist advocates to side with Moussavi is not an exercise in pro-democracy bolstering; rather, it will be the creation of self-imposed blinders, today, that may yet yield the blindsiding of Jerusalem tomorrow at the worst or at the least, the creation of a new structure for the underground gunrunning and drugrunning syndicates of the intelligence and foreign relations departments of a deceitful totalitarian power. The final question is, will President Obama now realize, with Dennis Ross in his hip pocket that the position of strength in the search for leverage exists in the division and fracturing of the Iranian entity in a profound way today, that may not come again in his presidency. Voting “Present” on the international sphere when staring down a Totalitarian, apocalyptic, Islamic Supremacist regime is not the measure of resolve…it is the measure of complicity and weakness. Diplomacy is not the answer to the statecraft of piracy. The American Leadership must consider the possible impact of a Basij Mutiny on the psyches of the whole of the Iranian Tapestry. To focus on democracy in this farce of an election is the ultimate in arrogance – it demonstrates a complete lack of understanding of the paramaters of the fight and the long lasting and deep rooted structures at stake. Heroism, in this case, is in the tragic justice possible only from the perspective of victimization and the yields of the dispossessed’s fields.

Gary H. Johnson, Jr. (5:20pmEST)
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