But the attacks are also increasing the chance of a change in leadership that would concentrate power in the hands of the elite military force, potentially resulting in a more hawkish and anti-Israeli Iran.
Recent Israeli strikes killed many senior Guard personnel, including its top commander and the architect of Iran’s ballistic-missile program. The Revolutionary Guard has responded with daily missile barrages over Tel Aviv, including at military sites and a hospital on Thursday, and warned the U.S.
not to get involved.
The war has dealt the most severe blow to Iran in four decades, and thrust it into existential peril. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s rule depends to a large extent on loyalty from the Guard. In turn, he has empowered the military force to the extent that it is likely to outlive the supreme leader. If Khamenei were toppled or killed, the Revolutionary Guard would most likely step in and dictate a new ruler—and in doing so, assume unprecedented power.
“The balance of power within Iran in the aftermath of this will shift in the direction of the military, in the direction of the Guard,” said Ray Takeyh, an Iran expert and senior fellow with the Council on Foreign Relations. “Those in charge will be the men with guns. And they will try to bring back some sort of clerical leadership because, after all, this is an Islamic Republic.”
Since its formation in 1979, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, or IRGC, has been the most powerful branch of Iran’s armed forces and is separate from—and more powerful than—the national army. It has its own ground forces, navy, air force, intelligence and special forces, totaling roughly 125,000 personnel. It is also deeply embedded in Iran’s economic system, political affairs and social fabric.
The Islamic Republic isn’t a one-man rule but a constellation of power centers coalescing under the supreme leader’s authority. In a fragmented country, the Revolutionary Guard has over time emerged as the single-most powerful actor, partly due to an
expansive economic empire.
The U.S. has sought to curb the influence of the Guard by designating it a terrorist organization in 2019 and targeting it with economic sanctions. In 2020, during the first Trump presidency, a U.S. military strike killed Qassem Soleimani, the head of the Guard’s international Quds Force and its most prominent commander.