The Army Between the People and Power
S. Rouzbeh
۲۴ دی ۱۴۰۴

An analysis of an army statement as a sign of strained deterrence, institutional responsibility and the tension between military loyalty and social conscience.

The Army at the Crossroads of the People and Power: An Indirect Admission of Eroding Deterrence

S. Rouzbeh

Two weeks after a new wave of nationwide protests began, the Islamic Republic’s army issued an official statement invoking phrases such as ‘countering conspiracy’ and ‘protecting strategic infrastructure’. More than a simple military position, it conveyed a message from deep within the hard core of power. When an institution whose traditional duty is to defend the borders suddenly enters the sphere of ‘domestic order’, it means that the usual machinery of repression — the Law Enforcement Command, the Revolutionary Guards and the Basij — has been worn down in its efforts to contain the streets, and the government has been forced to unveil its last instruments of deterrence.

Creating a Security Frame to Evade a Social Crisis

The army’s statement should be read less as news than as a ‘political document’ for criminalising protest. By reducing public anger over failed governance and economic misery to an ‘enemy conspiracy’, the authorities seek to give the armed forces greater latitude for violence. Issuing the statement in the name of the ‘army as an institution’, rather than a particular commander, suggests an attempt to distribute political responsibility for repression across all military bodies: an effort to display unity within a structure that has become internally exhausted and faces serious doubts.

The Strategy of ‘Layered Substitution’: The Army Serving the Machinery of Repression

One less visible dimension of the statement is the government’s strategy for freeing up its strike forces. The assumption is that, by concentrating on ‘protecting vital facilities’ — power stations, refineries and telecommunications centres — the army is effectively serving as a supporting layer. This releases special police units and Revolutionary Guards previously assigned to guard sensitive sites, allowing them to be deployed as a mobile force for direct repression in the streets. Without firing directly, the army multiplies the capacity for repression through logistics.

Legal Pretexts: Self-Serving Interpretation for Survival

To justify this presence, the government invokes Articles 143 and 147 of the constitution. Article 143, which defines the army’s duty as protecting the ‘system’, leaves room for interpretation. By also invoking Article 147, the authorities seek to make the military’s presence in cities appear legitimate under labels such as ‘relief’ or ‘protection’. Yet under Article 79, any restriction resembling martial law must receive parliamentary approval: a legal cost the government tries to evade through ambiguous language.

The Army’s Rank and File: The Nightmare of the Hard Core of Power

The authorities’ great weakness in this gamble is the army’s rank and file. Unlike the Revolutionary Guards, tied to a vast network of patronage, economic interests and politics, army personnel — particularly conscripts, non-commissioned officers and officers — come from the same social classes crushed by inflation and discrimination. This ‘status gap’ between the army and the Guards creates a moral conflict at the moment of direct confrontation with the public. Through this statement, the government is effectively ‘spending the army’s credibility’, drawing on an institution still seen by many citizens as more ‘national’ than the other forces. Destroying that image in the public mind is a major risk that could lead to defections or insubordination among the army’s lower ranks. And the army does not want to find itself in the layer responsible for repression.

Conclusion: Power Speaking from Fear

The army’s entry into the scene is less a sign of strength than an admission that the ordinary security forces’ deterrent capacity is eroding. The government has moved from ‘containing gatherings’ to ‘protecting the survival of infrastructure’. This shift in emphasis reveals a fear that protests and strikes could paralyse the country’s basic functions.

Bringing the army into the streets is the final gamble of a system seeking to use the army’s name to make its cracked pillars look sound. Yet history has shown that when the distance between ‘soldier’ and ‘protester’ is reduced to a minimum, orders do not necessarily travel from the top down. The army’s statement marks not the end of protest, but the beginning of a chapter in which ‘organisational loyalty’ confronts ‘social conscience’. Today, both the world and the regime have recognised the unity and strength of the Iranian people and know that the authorities cannot hold the streets.

Source: https://srouzbeh.com/en/posts/archive-0eb6f938-f6c9-1a2b-f29f-fce34742fe55
Please credit the author and link to this edition.