Con Coughlin of The Telegraph reports:
"Senior officers in Iran's Revolutionary Guards have written a letter to their commanding officer demanding assurances that they will not be required to open fire on anti-government demonstrators.
Western diplomats, who have also seen the letter and confirm its authenticity, say it has now been passed to Mr Ahmadinejad and Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the country's Supreme Ruler, although no official response has been forthcoming."
A lot of folks are under the mistaken impression the Revolutionary Guards are the force involved in crowd control operations following the post-2009 election unrest in Iran. They're not.
NAJA, Iran's national law enforcement and its branches, is the primary agency involved in these efforts, and not the IRGC. The IRGC has not been engaged in such operations. Furthermore, NAJA is currently under orders to employ less lethal force in its antiriot operations.
So obviously the letter is a not-so-clever forgery.
(Anyone in possession of a copy of this letter is encouraged to send it to Uskowi on Iran. We could use a laugh)
