In remarks on Dec. 5, Salehi said the military found that "some
soldiers" had hung posters of the Green Movement in their barracks. The
opposition movement emerged in wake of the massive protests against the
re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in June 2009.
Salehi said the sympathy for the opposition reflected doubts among young
Iranians regarding the Islamic republic. He warned that this could spread.
"The seditions could become stronger," Salehi said.
The chief of staff's acknowledgement of opposition within the military
was reported by the state-owned Iranian Labor News Agency. Hours later, the
article on Salehi was removed from the agency's Web site.
This marked the highest level confirmation of reports by defectors and
opposition figures of the Green Movement's influence within the military.
The opposition influence was said to have marked a rift between Iran's
conventional military and the mullah-driven Islamic Revolutionary Guard
Corps. IRGC played the leading role in the quelling of anti-Ahmadinejad
protests in 2009.
"The discontent within the army has been far greater than within other
branches of the military," Behrouz Khaligh, an Iranian political analyst
based in Germany, told Radio Farda. "So, the Revolutionary Guard has tried
to keep the army under its constant control."
The opposition's influence was also said to have penetrated IRGC. In
July 2010, IRGC commander Gen. Mohammed Al Jafari reported that "some
Revolutionary Guards" supported the "sedition," a reference to the Green
Movement.
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