Copying Iran: Erdogan inaugurates his own Revolutionary Guard to discipline opponents

Nahla Abdel Moneim

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced on August 23 his approval for the establishment of a new security unit operating under the administration of the Istanbul Security Directorate, in a procedure that the Turkish opposition has classified as the creation of a Revolutionary Guard equivalent to the state apparatus.

The opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) considers this step unconstitutional and dedicated to establishing security forces parallel to the Ministry of Interior in Istanbul, which drives the country to have two contradicting police forces, in addition to violating the law regulating security units, their formations, and their missions.

Turkish-Iranian project

This new unit is made up of 500 policemen who follow the president directly, representing a clear clone of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard (IRGC). Through these forces, Erdogan will have a special iron arm to secure his power and discipline his opponents.

This highlights some congruence between the Turkish and Iranian project in terms of features and application mechanisms with different ideological doctrines, meaning that both parties seek regional expansion and imposing Islamist morals on their citizens by marking all their movements as religious, in contrast to their purely political reality. This means that Erdogan is relentlessly determined to pursue his agenda around the world, starting with Turkey’s largest city.

Moreover, the new entity would be the nucleus of an overt military organization for the international Brotherhood, which would start its work in Turkey after years of armed training and militarization in secret. This in turn poses a great danger to all regimes opposed to the Brotherhood and the political regime in Ankara.

Istanbul

The decision raises the question about the particularity of Istanbul and why was it chosen to be the seat of Erdogan’s new power. Al-Arabiya reported a poll by Optimar on August 20 about Erdogan’s main competitors in the upcoming presidential elections in 2021. It appears that the Istanbul CHP Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu is the primary competitor, having received the most votes of the research sample.

Imamoglu represents a political nightmare for Erdogan, as the Istanbul mayor is able to draw his popularity from the largest Turkish cities, and he wages repeated battles against Erdogan. On July 9, Imamoglu accused Erdogan of causing the high treason of Istanbul by launching the Istanbul Water Canal project that links the Sea of ​​Marmara and the Black Sea on the European side, parallel to the Bosporus Strait, which he believes does not bring real benefit to citizens, but rather is a preoccupation with what has no benefit, amounting to illegal waste.

In light of this, a major problem arose between them, prompting Erdogan to say that Imamoglu should only care about his own affairs, adding that if he does not see any benefit in this project, then he should sit at home to watch the achievements of the channel from the media.

Opposition escalation

For its part, the opposition launched an escalation campaign against Erdogan due to his approval of the establishment of parallel security forces, describing them as very dangerous and similar to Hitler’s forces. Whether resembling the Nazis or the Iranians, Erdogan aims through to establish an independent military arm that carries out his orders, creating a state within the state. Sky News quoted opposition CHP MP Ibrahim Kaboglu as saying that the Turkish president is violating the constitution and establishing an alternative police force that poses a great danger to the state.