UNCLASSIFIED//FOUO
 |
Marine Corps Intelligence Activity |
(U) Key Points:
- (U) There are two key components in the Iranian military:
The first is the Artesh, a conventional fighting force, is a a hold-over from
the Shah’s pre-1979 military.
- (U) The second is the Islamic Revolution Guard Corps
(IRGC, Sepah Pasdaran-e Inqilab-e Islam-e),
an Islamic army with an unorthodox doctrine of jihad and people’s war,
higher ideological motivation, and close ties to the clerical regime.
- (U) The Artesh’s mission is to protect the
integrity of the Iranian state from internal and external threats and to project
power. It stays out of the political process and refrains from attacking
legitimate indigenous protests by loyal Iranian civilians.
- (U) The IRGC’s mission is to protect the revolution
at home and expand it abroad. The IRGC is a partisan in domestic political
disputes and works closely with the right-wing religious establishment to
attack any dissenters.
- (U) While the Artesh and the IRGC have become more
compatible over the past ten years, a serious rivalry remains. The Artesh
considers itself a professional fighting force and views the IRGC as untrained
and undisciplined, while the IRGC considers itself a revolutionary leader
and sees the Artesh as elitist and politically unreliable.
- (U) Members of the IRGC equips and trains the Basij
(Mobilization) paramilitary auxiliary who volunteer out of ideological conviction.
The Basij also work with right-wing vigilante groups to enforce religious
law and suppress reformists and political opponents.
- (U) Members of the Artesh tend to be clean shaven
or mustached, and wear conventional military uniforms. They are not particularly
religious; they serve out of patriotism and professionalism.
- (U) Enlisted men in the Artesh are mainly conscripts
and likely the least motivated of all the Iranian armed forces.
- (U) The IRGC tend to wear full beards and uniforms
different form the Artesh. They display a great deal of outward religious
devotion, including regular prayer. Officers show high degrees of ideological
conviction towards the regime.
- (U) The Basij are mainly teenagers or old men. They
tend to wear beards and irregular uniforms, or street clothes. They are distinguished
by their red, green, or black headbands bearing religious slogans. The Basij
are extremely religious and tend to come from the rural and urban poor.
- (U) The IRGC and the Basij in particular believe
their ideological fervor and willingness for self sacrifice is their secret
weapon. They consider themselves re-enactors of the battle of Karbala, where
the Imam Husayn sacrificed his life to resist oppression. This contributes
to an ethos of martyrdom and suicide tactics.
- (U) The IRGC has considerable domestic political
influence in Iran. Its members serve in top positions in other agencies,
including the national police and large business conglomerates. The IRGC
frequently intervenes in political affairs, and officers often deliver speeches
at Friday prayer which threaten reformist political groups.
- (U) Iranians believes that their country needs to
become self-reliant in weapons production and technology. This lessens the
anxiety of simply imitating Western technology to the detriment of Iranian
authenticity and also decreases the risk of being cut off from arms supplies,
as happened during the Iran-Iraq War.
- (U) Junior officers in the Artesh and IRGC are too
young to have seen combat in the Iran-Iraq War. They tend to be well-trained,
but lack initiative and ingenuity because they are micro-managed by their
superiors.
- (U) It is difficult to gauge the level of ideological
commitment in either branch of the military, but IRGC officers tend to have
more ideological conviction and greater initiative, but this does not guarantee
military competence.
- (U) NCOs are extremely weak in both the IRGC and
the Artesh, caught between unmotivated conscripts and distrustful officers.
Many NCO positions are reserved for ethnic minorities, who serve in non-sensitive
technical areas like aircraft maintenance.
- (U) The Iranian military has a history of subservience
to political leaders who claim religious or spiritual authority.
| Cultural Style of Warfare >> |
UNCLASSIFIED//FOUO