BBC’s coverage of same here, NY Times’ here.

DOHA, QATAR — Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Monday that the United States fears Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has gained enough power to potentially supplant the Tehran government.

Speaking to Arab students at Carnegie Mellon’s Doha campus Monday, Clinton made comments about the Guard’s increasing role in the country’s economic and political life that went further than previous administration statements.

Previously, officials said they planned to target new sanctions on the Guard, which is heavily involved in Tehran’s nuclear and missile programs, because such tactics would harm the country’s political elite, sparing, at least in theory, many ordinary Iranians. Clinton suggested proposed sanctions are also designed to thwart the growing role of the Guard in Iran’s internal political dynamics.

Clinton strongly suggested the United States would defend Persian Gulf allies from Iranian aggression, in what appeared to be an echo of her controversial proposal for a defense umbrella for the region.

“We will always defend ourselves, and we always will defend our friends and allies, and we will certainly defend countries in the Gulf who face the greatest, immediate nearby threat from Iran,” she said.

She said the Obama administration believes that the Guard is supplanting the government of Iran. “That is how we see it. We see that the government of Iran, the Supreme leader, the president, the parliament is being supplanted and that Iran is moving toward a military dictatorship,” said Clinton, who arrived Sunday in Qatar, where she spoke at the U.S.-Islamic World Forum.