"Today we are actively and selflessly present in all domains of national life in the service of our Great Leader and martyrdom-seeking people."
This was how two-star General Hossein Salami, Commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), boasted about his force's role in Iran.
Leaving aside the "selflessly" and "in the service of...," the general is right.
The IRGC and its appendages such as the Mobilization of the Dispossessed (Baseej), the Quds Force and at least four security and intelligence services account for less than five percent of the Iranian population. Yet they have the largest share of plum jobs in the public sector.
In other words, the IRGC is active in every field except the one that is supposed to be in: national defense.
In the past three to four years the IRGC has taken a low profile in performing its initial mission: crushing anti-regime popular uprisings. That task is now performed by sections of the Baseej and non-Iranian recruits.
Created as an ideological army after the Islamic Revolution had triumphed, the IRGC was designed to counterbalance the regular army, which the late Ayatollah Khomeini saw as a threat.
The force was designed as an assemblage of diverse social and regional groups on the basis of what Ibn Khaldoun called al'aasabiyah ("social cohesion"). Divided into a dozen regional commands, sometimes asked to locally raise the money they needed, the IRGC never succeeded in developing an esprit de corps.
Its military experience consisted of fighting secessionist groups in the frontier provinces and, later, crushing unarmed protesters.
"Supreme Guide" Ayatollah Ali Khamenei led two massive purges of the IRGC in 2009 and 2019 to promote a new generation of commanders loyal to him personally.
Under the influence of commanders such as Hadi Kajbaf, Muhammad Hejazi and Gayb-Parvar, Khamenei tried to re-militarize the IRGC and develop a coherent defense doctrine. Under that doctrine, Iran was supposed to acquire triple capabilities in the shape of a 20-million-man army, a huge arsenal of rockets and missiles and the wherewithal needed to develop nuclear warheads.
Despite many efforts and the investment of huge sums, more than twice what is allocated to the regular army, the IRGC never became a military force in the classical sense. Rather than being the army of a nation-state, it morphed into an armed force that owns a nation-state.
The IRGC has developed into a factory producing large numbers of one-star generals who retire at 60 but live to be 80 or 90. Thus, you need to find them jobs to keep them out of making mischief. The decade-long Syrian war provided an outlet, as hundreds of young retirees "volunteered" to go there to supervise the killing of Syrians and return home with a medal and a bundle of cash. But, as the "Zionist foe" started killing them with airstrikes, the flow of "volunteers for martyrdom" dried up. According to Stephane Dudoignon, a French scholar who specializes in the IRGC, over 100 IRGC generals were killed by the Israelis.
Last month, when for a brief moment it seemed that the "Supreme Guide" might be forced to risk direct war with the "Zionist foe," a question that has haunted many Iranians resurfaced: Is the IRGC capable of fighting a real war?
My guess is that Khamenei's answer was a "no." This is why, having held consultations for several days, he decided to choose "tactical retreat," as he called it, and walk the cat back from the brink.
Khamenei may have had another reason for staying out of harm's way.
The defense doctrine developed almost 30 years ago is obsolete. With Iran's demography on a downward trend, the 20-millon man army that Khomeini dreamed of would require recruitment among djinns and fairies. In 1977, the average Iranian couple produced 5.6 babies. That number is down to 1.3, which, taking into account mass emigration by young Iranians, leads to a dramatic demographic deficit.
The second plank of the doctrine, an arsenal of rockets and missiles, was tested against Israel but made little impression. It was, perhaps, intended not to make an impression because the "Supreme Guide" knew Iran isn't prepared for war.
Regardless of what some say in Washington, the third plank of the doctrine, nuclear capability, remains a chimeric but costly concept rather than a cashable asset.
Khamenei may have another reason to tone down his usual tantrums: simmering dissatisfaction in both the IRGC and the regular army.
Without massive and well-organized local help, how could the Israelis obtain several truckloads of "top secret" documents from Tehran transported over 800 kilometers of Iranian territory to reach the Caucasus in a well-executed military fashion?
And how could the "Zionist foe" assassinate so many top civilian and military officials without help from local groups who for whatever reason bear a grudge against the present leadership?
The favored treatment of the IRGC in terms of salaries and the latest weaponry may be the cause of discontent in the regular army as bravely spelled out by its former commander two-star General Salehi.
The IRGC's discontent may be rooted in a new wave of purges planned by Khamenei, while aging generals close to him continue to warm their seats.
Amir Taheri was the executive editor-in-chief of the daily Kayhan in Iran from 1972 to 1979. He has worked at or written for innumerable publications, published eleven books, and has been a columnist for Asharq Al-Awsat since 1987. He is the Chairman of Gatestone Europe.
This article originally appeared in Asharq Al-Awsat and is reprinted with some changes by kind permission of the author.
shloime