UNCLASSIFIED//FOUO
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Marine Corps Intelligence Activity |
(U) Culture and Rank
Ahram Ariel(U) General Officers
This section describes Iran’s generals and flag officers in the Artesh and IRGC who came to the fore during the Iran-Iraq War.(U) General officers are the last generation in the Iranian military with first hand knowledge of the Revolution of 1979 and the Iran-Iraq War. Revolutionary forces purged the upper echelons of the regular military, but some were reinstated during the Iran-Iraq War. The IRGC’s general officers came from the anti-Shah guerrilla movement and had less professional training and experience. Many received their ranks through field appointments. Those who survived the Iran-Iraq War did so by a combination of political connections and military effectiveness.
(U) Many high ranking IRGC officers are now better educated than their Artesh counterparts, having been exposed to both military and civilian educational systems and greater experience in the field. Since the 1990s, the Artesh and the IRGC have been reorganized under a single, combined command and the IRGC has put new stress on professionalism in its ranks.
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(U) Through the mid-1990s, the IRGC has demonstrated some degree of political autonomy in the ability to resist the appointment of commanders whom the IRGC senior leadership does not accept. The IRGC requires its leaders be promoted from within, rather then appointed from outside. With the implementation of the unified command structure, the IRGC has been forced to submit to greater civilian control.
(U) Junior Officers
This section describes Iran’s junior officers, who have no memory of the 1979 Revolution or the Iran-Iraq War.(U) Junior officers in the Iranian military were extremely weak before the Revolution and remain weak today. Few junior officers in either the Artesh or the IRGC who have seen combat or remember the 1979 Revolution. Superiors micromanage their juniors, who, in turn, display little initiative or ingenuity. IRGC officers tend to have greater ideological conviction and closer ties to the political centers of power; this by no means ensures high quality leadership or fighting skills. Officers in the regular military have little hope of gaining political prominence through service; especially in the navy and air forces, they are motivated by family tradition and the desire to gain technical training.
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(U) Noncommissioned Officers (NCO)
This section describes non-commissioned officers (NCO) as technical specialists.(U) The Iranian NCO corps mainly consists of technical specialists in aircraft and naval maintenance and other non-sensitive areas. Often these technical experts are from specific ethnic minorities, such as the Armenians who serve as technicians for the air force. These positions are reserved for groups who cannot be trusted with regular combat duty. In general, the NCO corps is extremely weak, caught between unmotivated conscripts and suspicious superiors.
Ahram Ariel(U) Enlisted
This section describes the social profile of enlisted men, their generally low morale and the differences between conscripts in the IRGC and the Artesh.(U) Iranian males are legally eligible for conscription at age 18 and serve for 24 months. Those who are admitted to the university are allowed to defer until after graduation. However, males may begin military service as young as 16 for the Artesh and IRGC and even younger for the Basij militia. About 80 percent of Artesh personnel and 60 percent of the IRGC are conscripts; navy and air force personnel are mainly volunteers.
(U) It is unclear whether there is a significant difference between conscripts assigned to the IRGC versus the Artesh, but many believe conscripts are assigned at random. This means that some otherwise irreligious young men are forced to submit to the strict schedule of prayer, grow beards, and conform generally to the IRGC’s puritanical lifestyle, none of which prevails in the Artesh. In general, IRGC conscripts takes greater care of their uniforms, equipment, and outward appearances than their Artesh equivalents. IRGC conscripts wear short beards to indicate their Islamic outlook.
(U) The quality and orientation of the enlisted men in the Artesh and the IRGC are not easy to determine. Today’s conscripts are “grandchildren of the revolution,” with no memory of the Revolution and little of the Iran-Iraq War. On one hand, they have been brought up in the Islamic Republic’s education system to revere Ayatollah Khomeini and the theocratic system he created. On the other hand, they are a generation that has shown weariness of a closed cultural system that prohibits popular expression and true political participation. The incidence of social delinquency, such as intravenous drug use and related medical problems, including HIV infection, is significant among this age group. Many Iranians see conscription as a burden to avoid if possible. They try to use political connections or bribery to get out of service, to get a less onerous assignments closer to home, or to delay service by gaining entry into a university. The penalty for draft dodging and desertion in Iran includes prison time, fines, and disqualification from future government jobs. The government enforced these penalties as recently as 1996.
(U) It is next to impossible for an Iranian man to gather enough money to get married while he is in the army. Service is often seen as a distraction from money-making career opportunities. Most conscripts try to return to their family home in the evening after training is completed. Not being allowed home, whether because it is too far to travel or because a superior denies permission, is considered a serious hardship.
(U) The military skill of enlisted men is generally low. More than 90 percent of Iranian men in their 20s are literate, but significant disparities in opportunity remain between rural and urban areas. Also, the standard by which literacy is measured does not necessarily entail comprehension, only the ability to read. The military provides some remedial instruction mainly for non-native Persian speakers to learn military terms in Persian. With only two years in service for the typical conscript, they are not expected to obtain high technical or fighting skills.
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