Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC)

Overview

The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), known in Farsi as Sepah-e Pasdaran, is a branch of Iran's armed forces established on 22 April 1979 in the wake of the Islamic Revolution. Unlike Iran's regular military, which is tasked with defending the country's borders, the IRGC was created specifically to protect the revolutionary regime and its ideology. It answers directly to Iran's Supreme Leader — currently Ali Khamenei — not to the elected president or parliament.

Today the IRGC is one of the most powerful institutions in Iran, simultaneously functioning as a military force, an intelligence service, a political power broker, and a vast commercial conglomerate.

Structure

The IRGC is composed of several major branches:

• Ground Forces – the largest branch, geared primarily toward internal security and asymmetric warfare.

• Navy – controls Iran's presence in the Persian Gulf and Strait of Hormuz.

• Aerospace Force – operates Iran's ballistic missile arsenal.

• Quds Force – the IRGC's external operations arm, responsible for training, funding, and directing Iran's network of regional proxies.

• Basij – a popular paramilitary militia subordinate to the IRGC, primarily used for domestic repression and crowd control.

The IRGC operates through ten regional headquarters, each commanding provincial corps capable of operating independently — a deliberate design to ensure regime survival even under extreme pressure.

The Quds Force and Regional Proxy Network

The Quds Force is the IRGC's primary instrument for projecting power beyond Iran's borders. It provides guidance, training, weapons, financing, and operational planning to a network of non-state armed groups across the Middle East, collectively known as the "Axis of Resistance":

• Hezbollah (Lebanon) – Iran's most capable proxy; receives hundreds of millions of dollars annually from the IRGC.

• Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (Gaza/West Bank) – receive funding, weapons, and military training.

• Houthi movement (Yemen) – supplied with advanced drones, ballistic missiles, and anti-ship weapons, used to attack commercial shipping in the Red Sea throughout 2024.

• Kata'ib Hezbollah and other Shia militias (Iraq/Syria) – used to extend Iranian influence and attack US forces in the region.

Economic Empire

The IRGC controls one of the largest non-state economic empires in the world. Its construction arm, Khatam al-Anbia, has been awarded contracts worth tens of billions of dollars for oil, gas, and infrastructure projects inside Iran. IRGC-linked entities dominate sectors including telecommunications, ports, road construction, and more.

Iran's 2025 national budget formally allocated the IRGC the right to export approximately 600,000 barrels of oil per day and retain the proceeds — worth an estimated $13 billion annually. This comes on top of a formal budgetary allocation of over 311 trillion tomans (~$6B), nearly double what Iran's regular army receives.

Terrorist Designations

The US designation in 2019 was unprecedented — it was the first time Washington had designated a component of a foreign government's official military as an FTO.

Domestic Repression

Through the Basij militia, the IRGC serves as the regime's primary instrument for suppressing internal dissent. It played a central role in crackdowns following the 2009 Green Movement, the 2019 fuel protests (in which hundreds were killed), and the 2022–23 "Woman, Life, Freedom" uprising triggered by the death of Mahsa Amini in morality police custody.

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