Some Iranian ultra-hardliners online are blaming the ouster of Tehran's Syrian allies on the Revolutionary Guards and the commander of its foreign arm the Quds Force in cautious but rare social media broadsides at a key ruling institution.
Ultra-hardliners who refer to themselves as 'arzeshi' or guardians of Islamic Republic's values were venting their frustrations against Esmail Qaani in closed groups such as the homegrown Eitaa cast platform and on Telegram.
“Why doesn’t anyone say anything? Why were Iran Air’s flights to Damascus and Iraq to Damascus halted? Why was the Lebanese border to Syria blocked? Why didn’t they let us go there [to fight]?” one user wrote, asking why has the Quds (Qods) Force - the regional spear of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards had not acted or spoken up.
Deploying the hashtags Qaani and Quds Force on Tuesday, another user snapped: “Leaders of Hezbollah were martyred, the Axis of Resistance withdrew from Syria, yet no one heard anything from the Quds Force commander."
Others pointed out that Qaani was not present at the Parliament’s closed meeting with the Revolutionary Guards’ Commander-in-chief General Hossein Salami on Thursday and wondered whether he had been dismissed by Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.
Qaani has been seen in public only rarely since October.
Commentators at the time viewed his absence as a sign of possible disfavor given huge setbacks dealt to Hezbollah by Israel including the assassination of its leader Hassan Nasrallah alongside a top Quds force commander.
The last time Qaani appeared was at a mourning ceremony on the death anniversary of Prophet Mohammad's daughter, Fatima, at Khamenei’s residence on Dec. 7. Iranian media noted that Qaani appeared in civilian clothing, unlike other military commanders at the ceremony.
Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) forces and foreign militias such as the Fatemiyoun and Zeynabiyoun brigades were deeply involved in defending Assad during Syria’s civil war for over a decade.
In a speech on Wednesday about recent developments in the region, Khamenei accused the United States and Israel of orchestrating the overthrow of Bashar al-Assad.
Unusually, state television did not give live coverage of the speech and only aired two excerpts as the Islamic Republic faced some of the biggest blows to its regional influence in its near half-century existence.
Assad’s fall has presented a serious challenge to commentators who claim to be guardians of so-called Islamic revolutionary values on how to interpret the events but steer clear of questioning the system's ultimate ruler Khamenei.
Most have directed their ire toward the country’s military institutions according to a commentary titled in part, “Has the Revolutionary Current Lost Its Trust in the Military?” by the relatively independent Rouydad24 news website on Thursday.
“With the fall of Damascus and the end of Bashar al-Assad’s rule in Syria, groups in cyberspace which until now interpreted the equations in the Middle East in Iran's favor are facing an analytic crisis and blaming parts of (the Iranian) government,” the commentary added, noting that many among the arzeshi groups are silent “mostly because they do not dare to speak openly” about the matter.
Iranian authorities have stepped up censorship after Assad’s ouster.
Iran's Attorney General’s Office on Thursday warned media outlets and online activists to avoid discussions of the downfall of Tehran's ally Bashar al-Assad in Syria that could undermine domestic security. Iranian media on Thursday reported that the judiciary has indicted at least eight commentators, journalists, and activists in relation to their social media comments in this relation.