Audio recording from Russian-Iranian Relations in the Obama Era
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Iran has two independent naval forces: the Islamic Republic of Iran Navy (IRIN), whose existence predates Iran’s 1979 Revolution, and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy (IRGCN), which evolved separately in midst of the Iran-Iraq war (1985).
One of the most enduring epithets for Hamas, right up there with “terrorist,” is “proxy.” If you Google “Hamas Iran proxy,” you get 1,750,000 hits. The idea that the relationship between Sunni Hamas, the Gaza affiliate of the Muslim Brotherhood, and Shia Iran was merely a marriage of convenience and not a true love match is rejected by those who forget that most enduring maxim of Middle East politics: “The enemy of my enemy is my friend.” And implicit in that maxim are two more words: “for now.”
To truly appreciate the political standing of Iran’s regular armed forces in today’s Islamic Republic, the key is to take into account the impact of the ongoing and unparalleled internal feud in the top ranks of the regime. The feud, pitching the factions of Supreme Leader Ayatollah ‘Ali Khamenei and President Mahmud Ahmadinejad against one another in a bitter contest for power, has turned the Artesh into an inescapable entity that neither faction can afford to ignore.
This Opinion piece first appeared in Frontline’s Tehran Bureau on January 19, 2012.
After months of frosty relations, Iran and Turkey are talking again. The ostensible reason for Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu’s visit to Tehran two weeks ago was to try to jump start stalled nuclear talks with the so-called P5+1 group of nations. Davutoglu conveyed to Iranian chief nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili the European Union’s invitation to resume the talks in Turkey that were suspended a year ago for lack of progress.
The Arab Spring: Implications for US Policy and Interests
More than three decades after the Revolution of 1979, the Islamic Republic of Iran Army [Artesh-e Jomhouri-ye Eslami-ye Iran] and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps [Sepah-e Pasdaran-e Enqelab-e Eslami] (IRGC), remain entangled in a state of fierce rivalry.
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.
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TEHRAN, IRAN – MARCH 10: Smoke rises among the residential buildings following an Israeli attack on Tehran, Iran on March 10, 2026. (Photo by Fatemeh Bahrami/Anadolu via Getty Images)