“A senior Iranian intelligence official, presumably from the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps’ intelligence wing, was heard in an audio file outlining the IRGC’s involvement in dealing with the opposition before and after the June 12 election last year,” writes Arash Aramesh at InsideIRAN. He was giving “a private speech . . . to a number of high-ranking clerics and state officials in the northeastern city of Mashhad, sometime after the June 12 election.” More:

In this speech, which has become an internet sensation in Iranian political circles, General Moshfegh brags about IRGC’s ability to influence matters of the most sensitive nature such as presidential and parliamentary elections. Moshfegh admitted that the IRGC shut down all SMS [text messaging, etc.] services in Iran on election day last year in order to prevent supporters of Moussavi and Mehdi Karroubi from communicating with each other.

It’s high time their name was changed from Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps to Islamic Guardians of the Status Quo. For that matter, strip them of “Islamic,” too. Any organization that practices torture, rape, and killing defiles a religion. In fact, since their activities are countenanced by the Supreme Leader and are thus de facto state policy, Islamic leaders elsewhere should consider issuing a fatwa calling for Tehran to remove “Islamic” from the Islamic Republic.

Tehran and IRGC ostensibly act in the name of Mohammed, but, like al Qaeda et al, they succeed only in defiling Islam in ways even worse than the Vatican’s casual attitude towards pedophilia does Catholicism.