Khatami to Revolutionary Guards: "We must be prepared to deal with any havoc"

The clerical regime's President Mohammad Khatami heaped praise on the Revolutionary Guards in a speech delivered at the annual seminar of Revolutionary Guards commanders on Wednesday. "The Revolutionary Guards is the most popular revolutionary institution and the most revolutionary popular institution," he told the commanders of the military agency notorious for its role in suppression and terrorism. "The Guards Corps' dignity as a revolutionary institution must be upheld."

Referring to the clerical regime's unstable and shaky state especially in the wake of the extensive popular uprisings in Tehran, Tabriz and other cities, Khatami told the Guards: "We must be prepared to deal with any havoc."

The commanders of the mullahs' machinery of war, terror and repression who were listening to Khatami's speech included the 24 senior Guards commanders who wrote a threatening letter to Khatami during the July uprisings and gave him an ultimatum. "The reservoir of our patience is running low," they told Khatami. "We can no longer allow ourselves to tolerate this situation."

Khatami described the Revolutionary Guards as "intelligent, thoughtful, tactful and elitist forces."

Khatami declined to address a similar seminar of Revolutionary Guards commanders held in mid-September 1998. The difference between Khatami's position last year and his kowtowing to the Guards today is a clear indication of the sharp decline in Khatami's clout in the mullahs' internal balance of power.

Secretariat of the National Council of Resistance of Iran
September 16, 1999

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