The Islamic Republic features a number of institutions of repression, including especially the IRGC and one of its units with a specific mandate to ensure domestic security, the Basij. All states are concerned about their security, both internationally and domestically. Authoritarian states pay special attention to the domestic dimensions of their security, at times so much so that their security concerns can verge on paranoia. To address these security concerns, states devise a variety of mechanisms and institutions that specialize in surveillance, intelligence gathering, identifying opponents, and, when needed, the threat or actual use of repression against adversaries. In addition to the Revolutionary Guards and the Basij, for domestic security the state also relies on the Security Forces of the Islamic Republic of Iran, or Nirouha-ye Amniyati-e Jomhuri-e Eslami-e Iran, NAJA.

The Iranian state is a complex political machine. Today’s Iran is a product of the combined forces of evolutionary change and abrupt political upheavals. The Iranian state is remarkable for its longevity and its combination of traditional and modern (Western) features, which has resulted from its long and varied life. The Islamic Republic is a product of a series of political compromises that have their origins partly in the bureaucracy created by the Pahlavis and partly in the interactions of the revolutionary coalition that wrested power from the monarch in 1979.

This chapter shows that, under the Pahlavi monarchy, the country had one of, if not the, best-equipped and best-trained military in the Middle East and North Africa region. In this chapter, the focus is on how the Imperial Armed Forces changed following the revolution. Attention is drawn to the structure of the Islamic Republic’s military machine and to the historical and strategic forces that have come to determine the shape, doctrine, and capabilities of the country’s armed forces. The impact of the revolution itself on the armed forces was significant, compounded by the role-defining war with Iraq (1980–8). As a consequence of developments since 1979, the Sepah has emerged as the republic’s most powerful fighting force, the establishment’s trusted weapon against domestic dissent, and the regime’s leading weapon in regional conflicts. This centrality is largely attributed to the IRGC Command Network.