The Sepah’s Chain of Command within Iran’s Post-Revolutionary Armed Forces Forces

Similar to the structure of the modern armed forces in a host of secular states, post-revolutionary Iran adopted a vertical, top-down chain of command. Unlike the presidential systems in Latin America and the United States, however, the command of the armed forces is held under the authority of a religious guide, the Supreme Leader. Though the president of the IRI has some say over general policies regarding the reform of the armed forces, his only link to the armed forces is the Ministry of Defence and Logistics. In this respect he is shunned by the Supreme Leader, who appoints the heads of the armed forces and has the last say in determining the direction of military and security policies of the regime (see Moslem, 2002, p. 79).

Thus, any presidential policies regarding the reform of the armed forces need to be approved by the Supreme Leader.

The Iranian armed forces’ top-down structure is composed of multitudes of key figures at the military commanding heights, particularly in the Sepah (see Figure 2.1). The equivalent to a Defence Organisation in the IRI, the Ministry of Defence and Armed Forces Logistics (Vezarat-e Difa’ va Poshtibani-ye Niruha-ye Mosalah), does not take part in operational command or direction of the armed forces. Its position is limited to providing logistics and funding for the armed forces (see Islamic Consultative Assembly, 1989).

The chain of command of the IRI armed forces is partially unified and yet at the same time independent. Theoretically, the command of the two armed forces, the Sepah and the Artesh, is placed jointly at the general staff level. However, the two armed forces are composed of their own individual chain of commands below the general staff level. In the case of the Sepah, the chain of command is even more complex because of its intelligence apparatus and various political and ideological military units (more details are provided in the following paragraphs). In addition to its air force, ground force and navy, which mirror the defence structure of the Artesh, the Sepah also includes internal security forces at the district, regional and provincial levels, as well as command of the Basij. It also has at its disposal the extra-territorial Qods force, which seeks to export the Islamic revolution beyond the boundaries of Iranian territory.

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The Supreme Leader (currently Ali Khamenei) is the Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces, and has the sole responsibility to declare war or peace as well as to appoint the Supreme Commander of the Sepah, the Supreme Commander of the Artesh, the Commander of the Joint Staff of the armed forces, and the General staff of the armed forces. Below the Supreme Leader is the Commander-in-Chief of the Sepah, who is in charge of overseeing and formulating the organisation’s political and military policies and its entire operation. Below the Commander-in-Chief of the Sepah are the divisional Commanders of various ground forces; these include regional, district and base Commanders (see Islamic Consultative Assembly, 1982).

The Commander-in-Chief of the Sepah appoints and dismisses regional and divisional Commanders. These Commanders are entrusted with the same rights in relation to the levels of command below them (Shahgaldian, 1987, p. 78). Also below the Commander-in-Chief of the Sepah is the Deputy Coordinator of the Sepah (known as the former Chief of Joint Staff of the Sepah until 2007) who oversees the Joint Staff of the Sepah (Setad-e Moshtarak-e Sepah-e Pasdaran-e Enqelab-e Eslami) (Keyhan, 7 March 2008). The Deputy Coordinator of the Sepah coordinates the activities of the Corps’ specialised military components, including the navy, air force, ground forces, the Qods force and the Basij (see Payame Enqelab, 1990d, pp.

20-21; Khamenei, 1992).

To coordinate the activities of the Sepah with those of the Artesh, command of the Sepah and Artesh are formally subordinated to the Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces (Setad-e Kol-e Niruha-ye Mosalah, occupied by Hassan Firouzabadi since 1990), while the logistics, planning and funding of the two armed forces are entrusted to the Ministry of Defence and Armed Forces Logistics under the government (currently occupied by Ahmad Vahidi) (see Khamenei, 1989a;

Islamic Consultative Assembly, 1989; Payame Enqelab, 1990d, p. 21). The two offices were set up in 1989 in order to enhance cooperation and counterbalance the rivalry between the two armed forces. The general staff of the armed forces is in charge of policy implementation and command of the Sepah, the Artesh and the Law Enforcement forces. Nonetheless, the Sepah has its own independent command structure and directly reports to the Supreme Leader via its Joint Staff (currently Deputy Coordinator) and the Commander-in-Chief of the Sepah. This independence goes back to 1979, when the Sepah acquired the right to have a

Commander-in-83

Chief. In contrast, the post of Commander-in-Chief had not existed in the Artesh until 1998, when it was established by the Supreme Leader’s decree (Einestaat, 2001, p. 7; Buchta, 2004, 10). Before then, the Chief of the general staff of the Armed Forces, previously known as the general staff of the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces was delegated with the command and coordination of the army’s ground force, air force and navy divisions (Payame Enqelab, 1990d, p. 21).

At the brink of political crisis with the Taliban regime in Afghanistan in 1998, Khamenei saw that it was necessary to have a more unified and independent central command in the Artesh, and duly appointed General Ali Shahbazi as its first Commander-in-Chief. This step seemed to represent the regime’s effort to upgrade the significance of the army by putting it on a more equal footing with the Sepah (Einestaat, 2001, p. 7). Nevertheless, the Sepah continues to play a more significant role in the country’s national defence than the Artesh. During the Iran-Iraq war the Sepah acquired naval and air force units which reduced the Artesh’s monopoly on external defence. Since then, the Sepah has retained a crucial role in military operations. Indeed, the Sepah’s naval branch has been at the forefront of asymmetrical warfare – namely unconventional hit-and-run tactics – against external threats and has been given a purview to safeguard the Iranian waters in the Persian Gulf. Moreover, the Sepah’s naval operations in the Persian Gulf provide it with leverage to tighten Iran’s control over the Strait of Hormuz, a vital sea passage where a considerable flow of oil shipping takes place (see Robert S. Strauss Centre, 2008; IHS Janes Defence Weekly, 2012, p.18). The closure of the Strait of Hormuz remains a potential retaliatory option by the Sepah in the event of a US military strike on Iran. The recourse to such an option is particularly plausible given the Sepah’s naval exercises in the Strait of Hormuz and its timely use of the threat to disrupt shipping in the Strait and, by extension, dampen the world market. These campaigns of intimidation were particularly evident during the Iran-Iraq war in response to the US and the west’s cooperation with Baghdad (see Payame Enqelab, 1983e, p.3).

Another important factor that props up the Sepah’s position in relation to the Artesh is the Sepah’s ground forces. More recently, this division has gone through a reorganisation to adapt to the nature of external and internal security challenges.

Under its current Commander-in-Chief (Mohammad Ali Ja’fari), the Sepah

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provincial forces have been divided into 31 brigades in line with the total number of provinces in Iran (see Chapter 6). In recognition of the Sepah’s role in asymmetrical warfare and the move towards decentralisation, the provincial Corps is provided with greater power to act swiftly in the case of an attack on Iranian territory. The Sepah is also in control of Iran’s strategic missile and rocket forces and, more recently, has established autonomous missile units (see The Middle East-Iran, 2000; IHS Janes Defence Weekly, 2012, p.18)

The Sepah’s other components include paramilitary forces, namely the Basij (Mobilisation Army) – also known as the Basij Resistance Force (Niru-ye Muqavemat-i Basij) and Mobilisation of the Oppressed (Basij-e Mostaz’afin) – and the Qods force (Niru-ye Qods). The Basij or Mobilisation army was set up on 26November 1979, following Khomeini’s decree for the establishment of the Army of 20 Million, to defend the Islamic Republic from its internal enemies. Once an independent paramilitary organisation, in 1980 it came under the control of the Sepah following an act of the Majles (Schahgaldian, 1987, p. 87). The Basij is made up of approximately 90,000 soldiers, with an active and reserve strength of up to 300,000 and a mobilisation capacity of nearly 1,000,000 men (Cordesman, 2005, p.

49). The Basij was established as an organisation with both military and non-military components. The Basij forces are composed of regular, active and special members.

Unlike regular and active members, its special members serve as the permanent personnel of the Sepah and are called to duty on a full-time basis when necessary (see the Islamic Consultative Assembly, 1982). The Basij provided the bulk of the dedicated youth and elderly volunteers for the defence effort during the Iran-Iraq war. After the war it was provided with the lion’s share of socio-cultural functions, such as scrutinising the activities of citizens, enforcing an Islamic dress code for women (the wearing of the hejab), and withholding indecent material and satellite dishes. The Basij also acquired an internal policing role in urban areas to quell civil unrest through the establishment of its Ashura Brigade. The Brigade was established following popular unrest in 1994 (Cordesman, 2005, pp. 49-50).

Since 2007, the Sepah has pushed for the merging of the Basij and the Corps’

ground units. Command of the Basij has been merged with the Supreme Command of the Sepah, while Basij provincial forces have been incorporated with provincial brigades under the Sepah’s headquarters in each province. These changes reflect the

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regime’s desire to build up its ideological militaries to their full potential in response to the changing security environment both within and without Iran (see Chapter 6).

The Sepah also has at its disposal the paramilitary Qods force, which engages in military operations abroad. It provides military and financial support for Islamic militant movements such as Hamas and Hezbollah, and is reported to have contacts with various Islamic groups in the region such as the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIR) and its militia, the Badr Corps. The historical antecedent of the Qods force lies in the Sepah’s multiple bodies and independent affiliated units that were engaged with exporting the revolution in the heyday of revolutionary Iran under Ayatollah Khomeini. Among these were the Sepah’s Lebanese contingent and the Office of Liberation Front under its firebrand leader, Mehdi Hashemi (Payame Enqelab, 1982g, pp. 26-28). Mehdi Hashemi later separated from the Sepah while continuing to actively export the revolution, until the dissolution of his organisation by the IRI leadership in the mid-1980s. In 1990, these various bodies were merged into a single unit called the Qods force, which was then charged with masterminding activities related to the export of the revolution (Daily Report Middle East, 1996).

The new unit was led by a politically oriented command called the Command of the Islamic Revolution. This command devised the specifics of military operations, but also carried out surveillance and intelligence gathering on Iranian opposition groups in a number of countries. For this purpose, it has several branches: 1) the Iraqi Directorate; 2) The Lebanon, Palestine and Jordan Directorate; 3) The Turkey Directorate; 4) the Afghanistan, Pakistan and Indian Subcontinent Directorate; 5) The Western Nations Directorate; 6) the North Africa Directorate; 7) the Arabian Peninsula Directorate; and 8) The Republics of the former Soviet Union Directorate (Daily Report Middle East, 1996). Since the toppling of the regimes in Afghanistan and Iraq, the Qods force has been granted overarching scope to influence the political direction of the two countries on behalf of the Islamic Republic. Indeed, the Qods force has been accused by the US of interfering in the affairs of Iraq, and its Commander General, Qassem Suleimani, is considered by the US State Department to be the main actor directing and formulating Iraq policy with authority second to only to the Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei (Embassy of United States Baghdad, 2009, cited in Alfoneh, 2011).

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Figure 2.2 Organisational Chart of the Military and Security Forces in the Islamic Republic of Iran

Note: Adapted (with substantial revisions) from IRGC Organisational Chart cited in Cordesman

&Seitz, 2009, p.12.

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Figure 2.3 Organisational Chart of the Sepah since 2009

Note: Adapted (with substantial revisions) from The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Diagram 13: (IRGC) cited in Buchta, 2000, p. 69; Figure 3.2: IRGC Organisational Chart cited in Cordesman and Seitz, 2009, p.12.

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2.4.2 Political and Ideological Control of the IRI Armed Forces, in particular