Experts warn of repression in North Korea style in Iran after the conflict of Israel

In the aftermath of the 12-day war between Israel and Iran, the regime seems to be running into-escalating repression at horrifying speed.

According to Kasra Aarabi, director of IRGC Research at United against Nuclear Iran, the Islamic Republic accelerates what he said is a “North Korea style model of insulation and control”.

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Aarabi, who maintains direct contact lines in Iran, described a country that was besieged by its own rulers. In Tehran he described how citizens are stopped randomly, seized their telephones and searched. “If you have considered content as pro-Israel or mock the regime, you will disappear,” he said. “People now leave their phones at home or remove everything before they step outside.”

This new wave of paranoia and fear, he explained, reflects tactics that are seen in Noord -Korea – where citizens disappear without explanation and information is firmly checked. During the recent conflict, the leadership of Iran set up a total internet black -out to isolate the population, block the Israeli evacuation reports and push propaganda that framed Israel as civilians without distinction.

“It was a perverse objective,” said Aarabi, adding to it, “they deliberately cut the communication to teach and manipulate public perception. No message went through for four days. Even Israeli evacuation warnings did not achieve their goals.”

Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei stands as the army, the Air Force and the Air Defense at the start of their meeting in Tehran, Iran, on 8 February 2018. (Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader’s Official website via AP)

The purpose of the regime, he said, was two -fold: keeping people off the street and running out the surprising bond that had formed between Iranians and Israelis. “At the start of the war, many Iranians welcomed the strikes,” Aarabi noted. “They knew that Israel focused on the IRGC – the forces responsible for suppressing and killing their own people. But as soon as the internet was cut and fear, some started to wonder what happened.”

Dr. Afshon Ostovar, a leading Iran and author of “Vanguard of the Imam: Religion, Politics and Iran’s Revolutionary Guards,” said the domestic repression that the most reliable strategy of the regime remains to survive.

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CCTV cameras can be seen in a street in Tehran, Iran, April 9, 2023. (Majid Asgaripour/Wana (West Asia News Agency) via Reuters)

In the power structure of the regime, the consequences of the war is just as serious. Aarabi said the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) is confronted with an internal crisis and an imminent cleansing. “These operations could not have taken place without infiltration at the highest level,” he said. “There is now enormous pressure to clean the house.”

The next generation of IRGC officers – those who joined after 2000 are younger, more radical and deeply indoctrinated. More than half of their training is now ideological. Aarabi said these newer factions started engaging senior commanders, accused them of being too soft on Israel or even working with Mossad.

“In a turn of irony, Khamenei created these extreme ideological ranks to consolidate power – and now they are more radical than he,” said Aarabi. “He is struggling to control them.”

A police motorcycle burns during a protest about the death of Mahsa Amini, a woman who died after he was arrested by the ‘morality police’ of the Islamic Republic, in Tehran, Iran, on September 19, 2022. (Wana (West Asia News Agency) via Reuters)

A purification is probably, together with the rise of younger, fewer experienced commanders with a much higher risk tolerance – a shift that the IRGC could make inland and internationally more volatile. With Iran’s conventional military doctrine in ruins, terrorism can become the most important influence of influence.

“The three pillars of the regime – militias, ballistic missiles and its nuclear program – are all beheaded or seriously degraded,” said Aarabi. “That only leaves asymmetrical warfare behind: soft-target terrorism with plausible denial.”

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, Left, and Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. (AFP via Getty Images)

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Despite the brutal turn of the regime, Aarabi does not strengthen that this is a sign of weakness. “If the Islamic Republic was self -confident, it would not have to crush his people in this way,” he said. “It acts for fear. But until the oppressive device of the regime is dismantled, the streets remain silent – and the change in the regime remains unlikely.”