commander in Irans Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) top brass pledged today to serve the new ultra-conservative President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and welcomed the rise to power of the fundamentalist faction of the clerical establishment following last months presidential elections.
He called on the new President to swiftly establish an Islamic fundamentalist government.
Iran Focus
The Revolutionary Guards Second-in-Command, Brig. Gen. Mohammad-Baqer Zolqadr, speaking to a gathering in Tehran of top commanders of the Bassij, a paramilitary branch of the Revolutionary Guards, stressed that the IRGC and the Bassij were both ready to safeguard the Islamic Republic and serve Ahmadinejad.
Zolqadr congratulated Ahmadinejad on his win and termed him a model fundamentalist.
On Tuesday, Zolqadr said, With the U.S. army on our borders, if the turnout had been low in this election, the enemys appetite would have been wetted.
Zolqadr, who said the outcome of the election fulfilled all the objectives of the Supreme Leader, played a key role in organizing the 300,000-strong IRGC and the Bassij force to influence the outcome of the elections through massive fraud.
Zolqadr, who has been implicated in several terror attacks abroad and in the murder of prominent dissidents inside the country, said the new president must choose pious and ethical men for his cabinet and pay no attention to political groups lobbying for more cabinet chairs.
The pledge to serve Ahmadinejad came as the hard-line President-elect faces a volley of accusations regarding his past role in the killing of Iranian dissidents in Vienna and his involvement in the 1979 hostage-taking of U.S. diplomats at in Tehran in 1979.
