The Military in Post-Revolutionary Iran: The Evolution and Roles of the Revolutionary Guards by Hesam Forozan (review)

Hesam Forozan’s book is a welcome addition to the literature on the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). In his review of the research, the author states that, overall, the body of work on the Revolutionary Guard does not engage with theoretical literature. After a long survey of said literature, Forozan settles on the “garrison state” model Harold Lasswell developed in the 1940s (p. 21). As is well known, Lasswell tried to explain how the political system that featured “experts in bargaining” (i.e., politicians), had gravitated towards “experts in violence” (i.e., the military).¹ But Forozan admits that the Lasswell model may not fit the Iranian reality because the Revolutionary Guards did not become “a sort of outright intervener in political affairs” (p. 23).

Trying to fit Iran’s political system into Western terminology is an uphill struggle, something that the author should have learned from his literature review. The fact of the matter is that the Islamic republic has developed a unique system best described as the “negotiated political order”² based on two sectors: the state sector represented by the government and state bureaucracy, and the parastatal sector featuring the Revolutionary Guards and its foundations. Because the state and the parastatals do not control each other, they are engaged in a constant negotiation. However, the IRGC utilizes traditional negotiations alongside posturing and power grabs. In one infamous incident, the Revolutionary Guards — incensed because the administration of Mohammad Khatami (1997–2005) had awarded a Turkish company a concession to run the newly opened Imam Khomeini International Airport — closed the airport by having the IRGC air force divert all flights to Tehran’s other airport, Mehrabad International Airport, which the Revolutionary Guards also control.

Theory aside, Forozan provides a good overview of the role of the Revolutionary Guards in the political system and the economy. Using meticulous charts and diagrams, Forozan offers a full accounting of the command structure of the Guards and its various auxiliaries as well as its relations with the regular army. The author also provides a detailed survey of the IRGC’s intelligence division, a subject not well covered in the standard research.

Forozan’s discussion of the Revolutionary Guards’ growing control of the economy is welcome on two counts. First, it provides a good understanding of the reach of the IRGC, which the author estimates as controlling nearly 40% of the national economy. Second, Forozan observes that, in addition to the original construction projects, the Revolutionary Guards and their subsidiaries have expanded into finance, transportation, telecommunication, and even education.

Some of the weaker parts of the book pertain to the foreign operations of the Revolutionary Guards, and specifically the Quds Force. As the author states, there is little information on the Quds Force which, under its enigmatic chief, Qasem Soleymani, has been “exporting the revolution” — a euphemism for spreading the ideology of the Islamic republic in the region. Still, the Arab Spring, which the Supreme Leader Ayatollah ‘Ali Khamenei considered a God-send opportunity to complete the Islamist revolution, turned Soleymani into a dominant figure in Iranian foreign policy. The massive intervention in Syria, which all the parastatal factions consider to be vital to Iran’s national interest, has amplified his stature and, by extension, that of the Revolutionary Guards.

On its face, the further growth of the IRGC fits Forozan’s concept of Iran as a garrison state. But the negotiated political order theory indicates that the parastatals may have provoked a backlash from the statist sector led by President Hassan Rouhani. In a virtually unheard of occurrence, moderate statists criticized the Revolutionary Guards for their costly intervention in Syria and Yemen.³ More to the point, in the May 2017 election, Rouhani won in a landslide against Ebrahim Ra’isi, a hard-liner who has supported the revolutionary export campaign.

Interestingly enough, Forozan seemed to have allowed for...