Ahmadinejad Accuses Opponents of Treachery Over Nuclear Secrets

This blogger wrote here yesterday that the reports circulating in Tehran point to a serious breach of security at the highest levels of the Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) as the reson behind the change of command in the all-powerful organization. The existence of the Green Salt Project, reportedly IRGC’s nuclear weapon program, had been compromised and the US had shared the information with the IAEA.

President Ahmadinejad, during his press conference in Tehran today, referred to the “treachery of some people inside the country on the nuclear issue.” (Fars News Agency, 2 September). He, however, pointed his finger to a large number of his opponents within the country’s establishment.

“These people were not just one or two individuals but eight to ten people,” Ahmadinejad said of the people involved in the security breach. These people “think only they can run the country and whose newspapers are filled with foul languages everyday. They were transferring the latest news and information and were telling the Westerners that they should exert as much pressure as possible.” (Fars News Agency, 2 September).

Ahmadinejad is accusing a large number of presumably former government officials (“those who think only they can run the government”) of high treason. The president is using a security breach within the IRGC to launch an unprecedented attack on his opponents within the regime only months prior to the parliamentary elections. We should expect the hard-line Guardian Council to disqualify former high-ranking officials from the reformist and moderate camps from running in the Majlis elections on charges of “treachery.” We are indeed witnessing an emerging picture of a regime in disarray.