In Tehran, on Friday, what's left of the Iranian regime staged quite an event. In what appears to be a government-organized event, thousands of "volunteers", men and women both, took to the streets of Tehran, marching with AK rifles and helmets in support of the regime, complete with chants of "Death to America" and "Death to Israel."
We might note that, from the photos we've seen so far, only the men seem to have been issued helmets. Given how that society treats women, that's not terribly surprising.
The regime claims to have recruited 600,000 Iranians willing to fight. A reported 300,000 marched in the demonstration. Iran's total population is about 86 million.
Hundreds of thousands of Iranians rallied Friday in a government-organized show of defiance after months of war, pledging their readiness to take up arms in the biggest such demonstration since the United States and Israel attacked in February.
Iran’s government has sought to rally the people and stress national unity, even as the economy worsens under a U.S. naval blockade of Iranian ports and new U.S. sanctions. On Friday, it claimed another attack on a tanker in the Strait of Hormuz, a key waterway it has sought to control since the start of the war.
Estimates varied of the number of people volunteering to receive limited military training and defend the country in an effort described as “Janfaday-e Iran,” or the “ones who sacrifice their lives for Iran.” They marched through downtown Tehran in combat uniform, carrying flags, as onlookers cheered.
The government is making some impressive claims about what may be history's largest production of astroturf.
Tehran’s Guard chief, Gen. Hassan Hassanzadeh, told the state broadcaster that over 600,000 people had registered to participate, with over 1 million expected to take part in the training. On Friday morning, the broadcaster estimated over 300,000 people were on the streets.
The new head of the Basij, Hossein Taeb, declared in a speech as the rally began that the volunteers will be ready for “full-fledged defense” and similar rallies will take place in other cities soon.
As you might expect, I have some questions.
First, let's just say that a million people do sign up, and are trained, however minimally, and are armed. What percentage of that newly armed militia might turn their new weapons against the regime? The 300,000 that marched in Tehran, assuming we take that number claim at face value, may well include some of the many thousands who marched in protests against the regime, or may have relatives and loved ones who were among the thousands killed by the Iranian government in the course of repressing those protests. And wouldn't that be a great irony: The remnants of Iran's government inadvertently opening a Second Amendment-like back window for the resistance.
Second: What we have seen in this rally is many people afoot. They have AK-pattern rifles, and we have no assurance that they are in working order or are even real. Even if they can rally 300,000, 600,000, or even a million volunteers, what can they do? The United States can put a steel umbrella over Iran at any time. Militia members with AKs can't strike an American aircraft carrier that may be cruising hundreds of miles from the Iranian coastline. There may be a lot of militia members, if Iran's claims are truthful, which assumes facts not in evidence. But precisely what role they can play now is unclear.
Iran's regime is great at putting on impressive but meaningless shows. This is likely another one of those. Yes, Iran has managed to hold out longer than expected; but this is propaganda, not a sign of some great surge in Iranian military might.
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