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The Post-Revolutionary Purge of Iran's Armed Forces: A Revisionist Assessment

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Gregory F. Rose
Gregory F. Rose*
Affiliation:
University of Texas, Austin
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Extract

The popular press and the Iranian exile community have suggested that the Imperial Iranian Armed Forces ceased for the most part to exist as a result of the Islamic Revolution. This view has also been held by some scholars. However, the continued success of the Iranian military on the battlefield against Iraq is strong circumstantial evidence for questioning such a view. While it is true that Iran's professional military fell into considerable desuetude during and after the revolution, this results from other factors, not the postrevolutionary purge of the armed forces. This study will demonstrate the relatively limited scope and impact of the postrevolutionary purge.

The purge of the Imperial Iranian Armed Forces took place in two phases: the first from February 1979 to September 30, 1979, the second from October 1979 to mid- September 1980. Each phase differed in intent, scope, intensity, and method.

Type
Articles
Information
Iranian Studies , Volume 17 , Issue 2-3 , Spring Summer 1984 , pp. 153 - 194
Copyright
Copyright © Association For Iranian Studies, Inc 1984

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References

Notes

1. Time, February 26, 1979, 26-7; ibid., March 26, 1979, 34-35; ibid., April 23, 1979, 32-36; such titles as “Guns, Death and Chaos,” “A Nation on Trial,” “Summary Justice,” and “Reign of Terror” give the tenor of the coverage. Time was not the sole malefactor; viz. Newsweek, April 23, 1979, 52ff, “Mullah Justice.” An excellent example of the academic claims for the alleged extermination of the Iranian armed forces is Zabih, Sepehr, Iran since the Revolution (Baltimore, Md.: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1982)Google Scholar, where such claims are put forward as: “Khomeini did not wish the armed forces to remain intact because he knew that as long as they did so they would continue to pose an inherent threat to his regime” (p. 18); “Khomeini wanted the disintegration of the armed forces and not merely their neutrality” (p. 18); “the militant clergy recommended two significant measures to Khomeini immediately after 11 February. One was to punish the officer corps of the military on a massive scale….They volunteered to preside over revolutionary courts and mete out swift and vengeful punishment against high-ranking officers” (p. 21). Even Hickman's, William F. Ravaged and Reborn: The Iranian Army, 1982 (Washington, D.C.: The Brookings Institution, 1982)Google Scholar, an otherwise excellent study and virtually the only scholarly work to give attention to the postrevolutionary reorganization of the armed forces, while admitting that “the purge of the military was much less severe in the early months of Islamic Iran than was originally thought” (p. 8), argues that the purge had “a devastating effect on the army's ability to conduct combat operations” (p. 18).

2. Those executed included General Nematollah Nasiri, the former director of SAVAK, General Mehdi Rahimi, the military governor of Tehran, Major General Manuchehr Khosrowdad, commander of the IIAA, and Lieutenant General Reza Naji, military governor of Isfahan.

3. Foreign Broadcast Information Service, Daily Report: Middle East and North Africa [hereafter, FBIS/MEA], February 21, 1979, R1-2.

4. Viz. Khomeini's remarks in Algar, Hamid, ed., Islam and Revolution: Writings and Declarations of Imam Khomeini (Berkeley, Ca.: Mizan Press, 1981), pp. 235–6, 240, 260Google Scholar; also Khomeini's appeal to the army on February 11 (FBIS/MEA, February 12, 1979, R17-18) and Ayatollah Shari'atmadari's appeals (ibid., February 12, 1979, R15, R22-3).

5. Viz. Khomeini's remarks in ibid., February 13, 1979, R1; February 15, 1979, R3, R8; February 27, 1979, R3; March 1, 1979, R2; also Ayatollah Shirazi in ibid., February 12, 1979, R35-6, and Ayatollah Shari'atmadari in ibid., February 14, 1979, R4-5; viz. also ibid., February 12, 1979, R8.

6. Ibid., February 12, 1979, R28, R29, R39; February 13, 1979, R1, R11-12; February 14, 1979, R3, R8; February 16, 1979, R2; March 1, 1979, R2; instructions for security measures at military installations issued by the provisional government and the Revolutionary Council may be seen in ibid., February 12, 1979, R19, R25, R30.

7. These included Commodore (later Vice Admiral) Ahmad Madani, Major General Mohammad Vali Gharavi, Major General Valiollah Qarani, Brigadier General Afsar Imanian, Major General Naser Farbod, Brigadier General (later Major General) Hossein Shaker, Brigadier General Kiumars Saqafi, Colonel (later Brigadier General) Ezzatollah Momtaz and Colonel (later Brigadier General) Naser Mojallali. The majority of these officers had been dismissed and/or imprisoned under the shah. Colonel Nasrollah Tavvakoli, a retired Special Forces officer who had been imprisoned under the shah, was the only former military officer in Khomeini's immediate entourage and played a vital role in recruiting the services of these antishah officers for the postrevolutionary armed forces.

8. Appointment of senior officers proceeded very rapidly after the establishment of the provisional government. On February 12, Major General Gharavi was appointed chief of the general staff and major General Qarani Chief of the ground forces (Army) staff (FBIS/MEA, February 13, 1979, R3-4). Vice Admiral Madani and Brigadier General Saqafi were appointed to command the Navy (February 16; ibid., February 21, 1979, R2) and the Air Force (February 14; ibid., February 21, 1979, R8), respectively. On February 17 Colonel Momtaz and Colonel Mojallali were given command of the gendarmerie and state police, respectively (ibid., February 21, 1979, R4). Also on February 17 Colonal Ata'ollah Paybordi was appointed commander of the 16th Armored Division and Colonal Heshmat Dehdordi commander of the 1st Brigade of that division (ibid., February 21, 1979, R7). Other divisional and brigade commands were equally swiftly filled:

- February 19: 64th Infantry Division, Colonel Kowsar (ibid., February 21, 1979, R19);

- February 21: 2nd Infantry Division, Colonel Iraqi Nikzad; Qasr-e Firuzeh Brigade, 2nd inf. Div., Colonel Hasan Malek-Mo'ezzi; Eshratabad Brigade, 2nd Inf. Div., Colonel Mohsen Shoja'i-Far; Qasr Brigade, 2nd Inf. Div., Colonel Zeyn al-Abidin Varsowsaz (ibid., February 27, 1979, R4-5); commander, Shiraz Armored School, Colonel Hemmati; deputy commander, Shiraz Armored School, Colonel Mohammad Kazem Golshani; 37th Armored Brigade, Colonel Mojtaba Yaghma'i; commander, Shiraz Infantry School, Colonel Farhang Azmudeh; deputy commander, Shiraz Infantry School, Colonel Mohammad Kelarestaqi (ibid., February 22, 1979, R3-4);

- February 25: Supervisor, Military Tribunal, Colonel Zeyn al-Abidin Tula'i; 92nd Armored Division, Colonel Mohammad Hossein Haqiqi; Dezful Armored Brigade, 92nd Arm. Div., Colonel Ali Asghar Fattahi; Ahvaz Armored Brigade, 92nd Arm. Div., Colonel Ali Asghar Hossein Soruri; Tehran Training Center, Colonel Mahmud Saba; Chehel Dokhtar Training Center, Colonel Sa'id Keshvari; Shiraz Airborne Brigade, 55th Airborne Division, Colonel Nosratollah Nasiri; 88th Armored Division, Colonel Manuchehr Farzaneh; Zanjan Armored Brigade, 16th Arm. Div., Colonel Shokrollah Chavoshinezhad; Hamadan Armored Brigade, 16th Arm. Div., Colonel Hasan Fuladi-Najib (ibid., February 26, 1979, R14-15); also on February 25 Brigadier General Afsar Imanian was appointed Chief of Staff of the Air Force (ibid., February 27, 1979, R1);

- February 26: 23rd Special Forces Brigade, Lieutenant Colonel Fereidun Kian (ibid., February 27, 1979, R4).

9. FBIS/MEA, February 21, 1979, R32; the evolution of combat units of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps is outside the scope of this study. However, they appear to have developed out of the need for better organization and heavier weaponry to deal with the widespread Kurdish insurgency in the summer of 1979; viz., Gregory Rose, “The Iranian Islamic Armed Forces: An Assessment,” in Assistant Chief of Staff, G2/DSEC, 4th Infantry Division (Mechanized), Intelligence Bulletin, September 1983, 19-20.

10. E.g., FBIS/MEA, February 15, 1979, R2; February 27, 1979, R5; viz, Bazargan's remarks in ibid., March 1, 1979, R9.

11. Zabih, op. cit., 18.

12. Mojahedin cadres were involved in the attempt on the lives of Major General Mo'tamedi and Brigadier General Malek of the 16th Armored Division in Qazvin on February 17, 1979, when both officers attempted to promulgate orders banning the Soldiers’ Councils (FBIS/MEA, February 21, 1979, R5). Both officers were later executed by the Islamic revolutionary court in Tehran for ordering troops to fire into crowds during the revolution. However, it was not for this crime that the Mojahedin initially attacked them.

13. FBIS/MEA, February 15, 1979, R5.

14. Ibid., March 1, 1979, R2.

15. Ibid., February 27, 1979, R4.

16. Ibid., March 2, 1979, R4.

17. Ibid., March 1, 1979, R2.

18. FBIS/MEA, March 5, 1979, R14-15.

19. The problem is made somewhat more complex by the tendency to second regular military officers and enlisted to the state security apparatus; those persons holding military rank whose careers were primarily served in the regular armed forces, as well as those whose seconding to the state security apparatus cannot be determined as consonant with a career spent primarily in the state security apparatus are counted as regular military personnel. Thus, any error, if present, is made to increase regular military representation, not diminish it.

20. The presumption of an actual crime committed is made where the court record indicates conviction on the basis of evidence of a specific, cited act perpetrated against a specific, named individual or individuals on a specific, cited date.

21. FBIS/MEA, February 21, 1979, R6, R10-11, R18, R20-21, R31; February 22, 1979, R1; February 26, 1979, R13; February 27, 1979, R2; March 2, 1979, R13; March 7, 1979, R1.

22. Ibid., February 21, 1979, R22.

23. Ibid., July 5, 1979, R1-3.

24. Ibid., July 10, 1979, R1-3.

25. Ibid., July 16, 1979, R13-14.

26. Viz. FBIS/MEA, October 1, 1979, R14-15; October 1979, R1.

27. Ibid., October 1, 1979, R14.

28. Ibid., October 5, 1979, R2; viz. Rose, Gregory F., “Alienation, Ideology and the Recovery of Islamic Identity in the Thought of Ayatollah Khomeini,” in Keddie, Nikki, ed., Religion and Politics in Iran (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1983)Google Scholar for a discussion of the philosophical basis for this preoccupation with ideological restructuring of identity.

29. FBIS/MEA, October 5, 1979, R3.

30. Ibid., October 9, 1979, R13.

31. Ibid., supplement 048, February 22, 1979, 9.

32. Foreign Broadcast Information Service, Daily Report: South Asia [hereafter, FBIS/SAS], October 15, 1980, 112.

33. Hickman, op. cit., 16-18.

34. These data were provided by three Iranian military officers who went into exile at the time of Banisadr's ouster; two served in the personnel and administration section of the Defense Ministry, one served on the president's liaison staff with the Defense Ministry.

35. Viz. Gregory Rose, “Soldiers of Islam: The Iranian Armed Forces since the Revolution,” unpublished paper presented to the Seventeenth Annual Meeting of the Middle East Studies Association of North America, November 1983, for a discussion of political-ideological controls in the armed forces and their institutionalization since the revolution.

36. Hickman, op. cit., tends to downgrade the role of the regular armed forces against the Kurdish and other peripheral insurgencies and suggests that the Iraqi invasion of September 1980 was the catalyst for rehabilitation of the regular military. A careful study of the counterinsurgency operations of 1979-80 casts doubt on this thesis. The regular military provided crucial combat support and combat-service support for the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps in these operations, and the revolutionary leadership cited this support prominently as an indicator of the Islamic character of the armed forces. The decision to safeguard the technical expertise of the armed forces in light of the Kurdish experience best explains the diminishing vigor of the purge after early July 1979; viz., Gregory Rose, “Counterinsurgency Operations in Kordestan,” unpublished paper presented to the Southwest Social Science Association/International Studies Association, Southwest meeting in Fort Worth, Texas, March 21, 1984.