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Since the June 12 Iranian presidential election stirred massive anti-regime demonstrations, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his inner circle of hard-liners have used the armed forces -- particularly the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) -- to suppress dissent. Western observers have commented on the country's slide toward military dictatorship. Fareed Zakaria, for instance, devoted his Sunday news show to it this past week. But what was once a theory now seems commonly acceptable fact, as Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's latest appointments to the IRGC demonstrate.

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