Is This a Coup? IRGC Now Calls the Shots in Weakened Iran

Has there been a coup in Iran?

If there has been, it has been perpetrated by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), which is striking a defiant tone against the United States and Israel. That's a real problem.

"Nobody knows who to talk to," President Donald Trump said Tuesday at the White House, describing what he portrayed as both chaos and opportunity inside Iran’s leadership. "But we're actually talking to the right people, and they want to make a deal so badly."
His remarks come as the U.S. claims it is engaged in talks with a "top" Iranian figure, even as Tehran publicly denies negotiations are taking place.
The question now is not just whether talks are happening, but whether anyone in Tehran has the authority to deliver. With U.S.-Israel strikes on senior Iranian leadership and growing internal fractures, Iran appears to be operating less like a centralized theocracy and more like a wartime system run by overlapping power centers, with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) at its core.

That's an interesting question, and it may well cast a shadow over President Trump's efforts to make a deal. There's the old problem, of course, in dealing with the theocratic regime of the mullahs, in that they lie as reflexively as they breathe and anything they say can be presumed to be unreliable.

There's little reason to think that an Iran under the thumb of the IRGC would be any more forthcoming.

Report: Trump Sends 15-Point Peace Plan to Iran, Wants Monthlong Ceasefire

What's more, the IRGC has perhaps more influence in Iran at the moment than any other group.

Across intelligence assessments and recent reporting, one conclusion is consistent: the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has emerged as the dominant force in Iran’s political system.
Behnam Ben Taleblu, senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies Washington, D.C., think tank, said the current moment is accelerating a long-standing trend.
"No doubt both the 12-Day war and this current conflict have trimmed the commanding heights of the Islamic Republic's political and military leadership," he said. "But it has also expedited the trend lines inherent in Iranian politics, which is the dominance of the security forces and the ascendance of the IRGC."

That wouldn't be the best outcome. The mullahs and their civilian minions may well have some survival instincts; a deal that allows them to retire with their Swiss bank accounts may be more palatable to them than to the IRGC, who, as I've noted before, may be more inclined to go down swinging.

"Yes, there is more IRGC control over the state than ever before, but the state is weaker than ever before and more of a national security rump state than ever before," he said.
"It shouldn't particularly preoccupy Washington, who is and isn't offering negotiations," Ben Taleblu added. "The preeminent preoccupation of Washington has to be working toward a military win at a political win, and that does not come by working with the IRGC, but actually beating them on the battlefield and supporting the forces most arrayed against them in Iran, which are the Iranian people."

That's the best option. Iran has to be defeated on the battlefield, which is already happening. It's not possible to make a deal with people who are not dealing honestly, and the current regime in Iran is notorious for not dealing honestly with, well, anyone.

That's not to say the USA should become involved in any nation-building in Iran. Circumstances indicate that it won't be necessary in any case; that's properly the job of the Iranian people, and they seem more than ready to get cracking.

And so events in Iran are still unfolding. Stay tuned.

Editor's Note: For decades, former presidents have been all talk and no action. Now, Donald Trump is eliminating the threat from Iran once and for all.

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