From: bavafa@netcom.com (Hooshyar Naraghi)
Subject: An Incompotent Army
Organization: Depratment of People
Date: Fri, 18 Dec 1992 11:00:04 GMT

In article <1992Dec17.215458.14043@CSD-NewsHost.Stanford.EDU> 
aref@Tehran.Stanford.EDU (Modda'iyeh har hAzer va Vakileh har ghAyeb) writes:
>
>The Iranian Imperial Military structure was essentially unable to
>organize and act on its own with the absence of the person of the
>Shah.

That's why it was called Imperial.  Shah was the pointer.  :-)

>newly trained homafars and almost non-trained civilians in the 
>streets of Tehran during the four day period of 20/21/22/23 Bahman
>of 1357. I vividly remember the news and the stories and the systematic
>fall of military bases and government establishments. A military
>of that magnitude, with such machinery and firepower, trained 
>and sometimes certified as the best, fell prey to a bunch of
>armed civilians, several "homAfar"s and some khordeh-bacheh's.

Your observation must be correct, Aref.  This is a question every one asks.
The military might you are referring to (I am talking about its not being
able to organize) was not trained and educated to attack its people.  It was
mainly a military to deal and confront foriegn armies.  In other words,
there was no division _within_ the army to teach the personnel as such.  As
you mentioned there were infra-agencies that were doing that, but their
power was zilch except their prison cells which could not fit the whole
population of a nation, and conducting their tortures to a select group of
people.

Ask any person who had done military service if they ever received any
special training to attack people.  So I am not surprized that this 
'artesh' could not even recognize its left hand from its right hand when
ordinary people, as you witnessed, reached army garissons.  I was to
some degree aware of few transactions going on at 'gArd-e jAvidAn-e
shAhanshAhi.'  A relative of mine was serving there under ghara-bAghi
and the rest.  All he can remember was special desert prectices to
confront psuedo foriegn armies and in at least during 74-76 some gArdi's
being recruited to go to 'zoffAr' war.

>Especially when one considers the billions of $$$ spent. Everything justk
>fell apart.  Just like "pooshAl".

Funny you say that.  He used to come to our house and when I would enquire
about our glorious 'gArd,' he would become 'akhmoo' and reply 'artesh-e
too-khAliy-e pooshAli.'  He left Iran in 76 and told me that in 2 years Iran
would crash from inside.  He felt the army was just a front-end to frighten
Iraq and other enemies in the region.  The generals knew that and they
heavily depended on Shah's wisdom to guide this machinery at THE critical
moment.  So your assessment of 'khodA-shAh-mihan' is correct at least
according to this eye-witness member of the gArd.  This artesh could not
possibly face its own people.

Is it coincident that the theoreticians of the revolution repeatedly asked
the people (the masses) to confront the army?  Somebody must have known
that this army was not capable of facing its own people.  It is true that
the army finally opened fire at people.  That was the "trigger."  It was
the "tir-e khalAs."  From that moment all that front-end glory vanished,
and nobody feared this army any more.  It became the real 'artesh-e
too-khAliy-e pooshAli.'  Yeap!  It DEMONSTRATED to people that it could
not suppress the protesters voices and myrtyrs.

Please note this view does not suggest that we had a good or bad army.  I
was saying that the army 'velow shod' perhaps because it never had any
formal training to attack the three vertices of the triangle.

Regards,
Hooshyar F. Naraghi
bavafa@netcom.com
(415) 322-8056
Newsgroups: soc.culture.iranian