‘Nothing to Save’: Defections, Command Breakdown Grip Iran’s Security Forces as US-Israel Strikes Pound Regime

A taxi driver in Tehran this past week said he had picked up a commander from Iran’s Basij parliamentary force who, midway through the ride, hurled his mobile phone out the window into the rubble of a bombed building. The officer explained that many of his comrades in the Basij, the paramilitary organization operating under the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), were doing the same, hoping the Iranian regime would assume they had been killed.

The anecdote was relayed to The Algemeiner during a press briefing by Maneli Mirkhan — an Iranian strategist and founder of Dorna, an organization working on plans for a democratic transition in Iran — and reflected what she described as the “defection and collapse” of the regime’s forces of repression.

Similar stories abound in other reports from inside Iran. The French Le Monde newspaper recounted an incident in which a woman was caught by a neighbor, an intelligence services employee, while filming an airstrike. The man accused her of spying, and his wife called the police to report the “infidel,” the newspaper said.

“The irony: nobody answered. A mundane scene, but one that reveals much,” the article noted.

Mirkhan cautioned against overstating the regime’s immediate collapse, saying it remains in place. But “the confidence within the regime and within its ability to survive is no longer there,” she said.

The families of members of Iran’s security apparatus were increasingly urging their sons to stay home, she said, as targeted strikes by the joint US-Israeli operation hit bases used by repression units. According to her account, “several hundred” personnel linked to those forces were being killed daily in strikes on their facilities.

Among the targets in recent days was the IRGC’s Sarallah headquarters, a central node of Iran’s internal security system, as well as the headquarters of three brigades belonging to the Faraja special units, which handle crowd control and the suppression of protests.

With some facilities destroyed, units have begun moving into civilian infrastructure such as sports centers and other public buildings as backup bases and resting areas, she said. But the more immediate problem, according to Mirkhan, is that the chain of command is fraying.

Her organization, she said, is in contact with networks inside Iran to help provide exit strategies for members of the security forces who are seeking to defect. Most of those reaching out are rank-and-file personnel and mid-level commanders, she said.

“What we are witnessing is that they are disoriented because of a lack of clear command,” Mirkhan said.

She described what she called “moral fatigue” among regime forces, saying that in this environment state propaganda has been one of the few things still “giving them a bit of energy.” But even that, she said, is now being weakened as the system that carries and reinforces the regime’s messaging comes under pressure.

Mirkhan argued that expanding access to outside information — including through satellite television and internet connections — could further erode loyalty among security personnel by showing them there is “nothing to save anymore.”

She said the public response should be read in the context of the fighting. The Israel Defense Forces is warning Iranian civilians in some areas to stay home ahead of major strikes — similar to its policy in Gaza — and with attacks concentrated in specific zones, many people are not evacuating or gathering in the streets for now. But Mirkhan said that should not be mistaken for support for the regime or an absence of public anger.

“We saw it on the first night of strikes, when the news of [former Supreme Leader Ali] Khamenei’s death was confirmed,” she said. “Even with lots of risk to their lives, people were in the street.”

Mirkhan outlined the war’s three aims — destroying the regime’s nuclear program, weakening its capacity for regional aggression, especially its missile arsenal, and opening space for Iranians themselves to bring down the regime. That last goal, she said, would not be achieved by military action alone.

“Regime change is not something that will be operated by the attacks,” she said. But the strikes can help “open the space where people can regain strength, can go out in more security, and build up what they need to bring down the regime and replace it.”