Much attention has been given to the IRGC’s asymmetric defense capabilities, its role in Iraq’s post-2003 insurgency, and its alleged hold over the Strait of Hormuz, but there is little scrutiny in open source literature on the significance of the Iranian Army (Artesh) to Iran’s national security.
Since its inception in 1979, the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI) has duplicated almost all state institutions. It retained the institutions that existed under the old regime while creating new Islamic agencies to perform the same tasks. The Iranian armed forces did not escape this process. Under the monarchy, the armed forces were called the Artesh Shahanshahi or Imperial Army. Although called the “Army,” or Artesh, the force consisted of the three main services (army, navy, and air force) plus the Imperial Guard Divisions (Gard-e Javidan) and the Army Aviation Command (Hawa Nirouz).
In an official gathering in December 2010, Major General Attollah Salehi, Commander-in-Chief of the Iranian Army said that during his visits to Army barracks, he would see the pictures of the leaders of the “sedition” (The Islamic Republic’s present hard-line leadership refers to opposition leaders and 2009 presidential candidates Mir Hossein Moussavi and Mehdi Karrubi as leaders of sedition) hanging on the walls.
Along with Egypt and Turkey, Iran is one of the most populous countries in the Middle East. Aware of its strategic significance and millennium-long civilization, Iranian leaders have always aspired to assume a leadership role on regional and international issues and pursued an assertive policy to reach their country’s potential. This ambitious strategy requires, among other things, strong military forces.
The Artesh: Iran’s Marginalized and Under-Armed Conventional Military
Originally posted November, 2011
Ravaged, intimidated, and gutted to the core in a series of purges after the 1979 Revolution, the remnant of the Shah’s military, renamed the Army of the Islamic Republic of Iran, known generally in Persian as the Artesh, put itself together as best as it could to face invading Iraqi forces at the beginning of the Iran-Iraq war.
Iran’s conventional military forces — ground, air, and naval — once stood tall as the best armed military forces in the Middle East aside from those of Israel. The United States lavished the most sophisticated military hardware on the Shah, who was willing and able to tap his financial resources from Iran’s oil wealth to buy modern conventional arms. The Shah had the ambition, the financial means, and the political-military backing of the United States to turn Iran into the Persian Gulf’s most formidable military power.
A United States Marine's View of the Artesh and IRGC
United States military forces use standard procedures for planning operations against other militaries. These procedures differentiate between different branches, or units, of an opposing force depending on their capabilities and limitations. This article presents one such analysis of the Iranian Military, where there are vast differences between the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC)and the Artesh, or the regular Iranian armed forces. The article then draws parallels to the planning for Operation Iraqi Freedom that led to the defeat of the Iraqi Republican Guard and regular Iraqi
As the United States and its allies have tightened sanctions on Iran, they have sought in particular to isolate the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the regime’s most aggressive institution. The IRGC, known in Persian as the Pasdaran, fields its own army, navy, and air force, and dominate a large and increasing share of Iran’s national economy.
Iran’s regular military, the Artesh, receives virtually no attention from international media or scholars on Iran. By contrast, its political rival, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC, also known in Persian as the Pasdaran), is scrutinized constantly by analysts for its visible, high-profile role in Iran’s political system, its economic resources and corporate activities, and its role as a spearhead of Iran’s regional policies.
Introduction to The Artesh: Iran's Marginalized Regular Military
As the US-Iran showdown continues, among Western analysts there is an infinite desire for more data and analysis relating to the workings of the Islamic Republic. From a US standpoint, a better understanding of the various organs and players in the Iranian regime setup is imperative as Washington weighs its options and sets out to formulate its policies.
This Opinion first appeared in the Huffington Post on November 11, 2011
On November 28th, millions of Egyptians will finally breathe a deep sigh of relief as they gather at the polls to vote in the first phase of parliamentary elections following the ousting of the Mubarak regime.
Center for Turkish Studies Second Annual Conference on Turkey
The 2011 Second Annual Conference on Turkey, entitled “Change Within and Beyond and Borders: Turkey’s Domestic and Foreign Policy Agenda,” was organized by the Center for Turkish Studies at the Middle East Institute on June 23rd, 2011 at the University Club. As the Conference coincided with recent important developments in Turkey, especially the general elections, about 300 participants from think tanks, universities, U.S. and foreign government officials as well as private sectors attended the Conference.
This Commentary was first published as an op-ed in Politico on October 21, 2011
Defense Secretary Leon Panetta asserted recently that critics of the Libyan mission “have been proven wrong.” Now, with the death of dictator Muammar Qadhafi, the secretary’s view is supported by the overwhelming majority of Washington’s foreign policy establishment.
Troubled Triangle: The US, Turkey, and Israel in the New Middle East
The trilateral relationship between Turkey, Israel and the United States has deteriorated in recent years as Israel's and Turkey's foreign policy goals in the Middle East continue to diverge. Despite repeated attempts, the United States has failed to reconcile these two important regional allies since the divisive Mavi Marmara incident in May 2010. MEI and The Stimson Center held a discussion of this critical yet troubled trilateral relationship in a time of unprecedented change in the Middle East featuring Prof. William B. Quandt, Edward R.
The Middle East Institute is proud to host Geoffrey Kemp, an expert in US policy in the greater Middle East, for a discussion of his new book The East Moves West: India, China, and Asia's Growing Presence in the Middle East. Professor Kemp will be discussing the manner in which the Asian presence in the Middle East is growing because of the economic outreach of India, China, Japan, South Korea and other Asian countries. He will also address the place of American military power in this new regional alignment.
