A letter from a former IRGC Ground Forces captain who defected from the regime.
“I joined the IRGC twelve years ago because I loved my country. Every day we were told that we were the true defenders of Iran, the shield protecting our borders from foreign enemies and terrorists. For a long time I believed it. I wore that uniform with pride.
But eventually it became impossible to ignore the reality of what we were actually protecting. We were not defending the people of Iran. We were defending the bank accounts of our commanders and the survival of a handful of men at the top of power.
My breaking point did not come on a battlefield. It came in the streets of our own cities. When the order came to treat our own brothers and sisters, students, hardworking fathers, and young women who only wanted basic human dignity, as enemies of God and to fire live ammunition into crowds, the illusion collapsed. You cannot look into the eyes of an unarmed twenty year old lying on the asphalt in a pool of blood and still convince yourself that you are on the right side..
I know there are thousands still inside the ranks of the IRGC who feel the same disgust I once felt. They stay because they fear for their families, because of economic pressure, or because the intelligence apparatus watches everyone. But to my former brothers who still wear that uniform, the regime is using you as a wall between its stolen wealth and the anger of the nation. When that wall finally collapses, and it will, they will flee in private jets to places like Caracas or Moscow. You will be the ones left to answer to the people of Iran.
I left everything behind because I could no longer be a jailer in my own home. Now my only hope is that the world hears the voice of the people inside Iran, and that those who still hold weapons lower them from the chests of our youth and finally stand with the people.”
Mehdi, former captain in the IRGC Ground Forces