The IRGC Transforms into an Expeditionary Force

The deployment of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and its proxy Shi’ite militias to Syria have saved the Assad regime. At the same time, however, Syria is transforming the IRGC. A survey of Iranian combat fatalities in Syria shows that a corps once primarily concerned with internal dissent, rebellious Sunni minorities, and border control has become an expeditionary force.

The IRGC’s transformation has been slow and gradual. When Major General Mohammad-Ali Jafari was appointed IRGC commander in 2007, he emphasized the dual threat of a domestic “velvet revolution” and foreign attempts to decapitate Iran. His response was the so-called “Mosaic Doctrine,” which incorporated the domestic Basij paramilitary into the IRGC Ground Forces, and decentralized the corps by strengthening all of the organization’s 31 regional commands. Operations beyond Iran’s borders remained the domain of the Guard’s external arm, the 15,000-strong Quds Force.

An increasing number of Guard fatalities in Syria, however, hail from IRGC Ground Forces and not the Quds Force. Indeed, there have been 157 IRGC members killed in combat in Syria since 2013, including Brigadier General Hossein Hamadani (the most senior IRGC commander killed in Syria), General Hamid Mokhtarband (head of an armored brigade combat team) and his chief of staff Farshad Hassounizadeh.

The Syrian deployment is rapidly blurring the differences between the missions of the IRGC’s Ground Forces and the Quds Force, effectively turning the entire Guard into an expeditionary force. That transformation bodes ill for hopes – rooted more in aspiration than in any observable trends – that in the post-nuclear-deal environment, Tehran might scale back its interventions across the Middle East.

Ali Alfoneh is a senior fellow at Foundation for Defense of Democracies.