Watch: What images of Iran's security forces may reveal about a revolt
. As a woman sat facing a handful of riot police on a Tehran street, a video shot from a passing car picked up what she was shouting to them: “I’ll hit you so you’ll run like rats!”
When Iranians manage to get online, they exchange evidence supporting that conclusion. Among the videos circulating is one of anti-riot forces jan arrest in a swarm that assures mass casualties if they come under attack. In another, young people laugh and applaud as they record anti-riot police struggling to control their motorcycles. “Look, I told you!” one exclaims in Persian. “They don’t know how to drive at all.
Augmented forces are not necessarily less dangerous. Untrained police—if they are police at all—may be more likely to use live fire out of panic, or worse. In 2009, when as many as a million Iranians peacefully took to the streets to protest a stolen election, the 45,000militia on hand were judged insufficient to the task. At that point, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps , which reports directly to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, looked to local jails.