These days in Tehran, rather than hearing the voice of moderates who call for calm, one hears the voice of proud and irreconcilable men who call for the continuation of war with the reformists who are protesting the official results of the June 12 elections and their supporters.

At one end of this battle are the commanders of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards (IRGC), military men who proclaim their mission to be the defense of the ideals of the 1979 revolution and confrontation with domestic threats. During the presidency of Mohammad Khatami, a relatively liberal and moderate cleric, the IRGC emerged as one of the staunchest opponents of the administration. But since the Mahmoud Ahmadinejad came to office in 2005, not only was the IRGC free from the pressures of the executive branch, it even expanded its economic power by signing large and lucrative contracts with the government.

In the bloody events that followed the deeply contested June 12 presidential elections, IRGC commanders appeared to have taken the position of dealing a final blow to all critics and dissidents. For example, when IRGC commander Aziz Jaafari learned that Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, a cofounder of the Islamic Republic and the most prominent cleric in the regime’s 30-year history, was displeased with events around him, he authoritatively told him to remain silent. At the other end of the spectrum are clerics  close to ayatollah Khamenei who are working in step with the guards to remove their rival clerics who contrary to those who view Khamenei’s words as to be final and decisive, believe that the public and the law are supreme. Recently, Taghavi, who heads the Friday Prayer Policy Council called protesting critics to be traitors to ayatollah Khamenei adding that traitors should not be let go easily.

Hardliners became even more aggressive when Mahdavi Kani, the secretary general of the Jame Rohaniyat Mobarez association (a moderate cleric grouping) spoke of its goal to act as intermediary between the two fighting factions in the country. This news brought forth a harsh response from pro-administration media. During the last four months, these media groups have repeatedly angrily called on the judiciary to arrest and prosecute the leaders of the Green Movement as the agents for the recent “subversive activities”.

On the other hand is the battle that is going on with the reformists. Mehdi Karoubi, Mir-Hossein Mousavi and Mohammad Khatami have joined forces and their calls for resistance. And while their media outlets have been shut and their allies are behind bars, their messages come across to their million supporters in the Green Movement.

The deep consequences of divisions and groupings in Iran, and the spread of this idea among the public that the Islamic republic of Iran is no longer able to run and manage the country because of the extremist measures of Ahmadinejad’s administration, and the allies and person of the supreme leader. Because of this, during their demonstrations their slogan and call is the Iranian Republic.

While this is not known to be an alternative to the Islamic Republic, but its certainly is a message and a statement which is that if the Islamic Republic is the regime that its current leader and president  advocate, then it would be best if it gave way to another form of government. And that something else is what the demonstrators call the Iranian Republic, which would be based on the views of the majority of Iranians, and not just some.

The call for such a change is important because when the Green Movement initially began its protests, it was merely calling for an investigation into the fraudulent measures during the June 12 presidential elections. Whereas now, the new measure is a warning to the rulers of Iran that they have brought this state of affairs onto themselves and the public is calling for more serious changes.