As U.S. and Israeli airstrikes have heightened uncertainty in Iran's political landscape, some analysts say the country's fate has effectively fallen to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).
Bloomberg reported that after the recent military clashes, the Revolutionary Guard's role within Iran's internal power structure is growing more important, and that the organization is emerging as a key variable that will shape the political scene ahead.
Iran's Revolutionary Guard is a military organization established after the 1979 Islamic Revolution. It operates separately from Iran's regular army and is tasked with safeguarding the regime. It is regarded as Iran's core military force, equipped with missile capabilities, a navy, and intelligence and cyberwarfare capabilities. In particular, the Revolutionary Guard wields immense influence not only in the military sphere but also in the economy. It is also a conglomerate that controls major industries such as construction, energy, and telecommunications. Even if government funding is cut off, the force can sustain itself and keep social systems running through oil smuggling and its own concessions, a "self-sustaining economic network" that is the decisive reason for its durability.
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran's supreme leader who was killed in U.S. and Israeli airstrikes, had maintained a mutually beneficial relationship with the Revolutionary Guard by granting it privileges and entrusting it with defending the regime. Bloomberg analyzed, "With Khamenei gone, the Revolutionary Guard has become the sole power broker that will decide not only who succeeds him but also the very form of the Islamic Republic's survival."
In fact, the Revolutionary Guard's sway was immediately evident in the power transition after Khamenei's death. On the 3rd (local time), Iran International, a specialist outlet on Iran, cited sources as saying, "The Assembly of Experts, under heavy pressure from the Revolutionary Guard, has chosen Mojtaba Khamenei, Khamenei's second son, as the next supreme leader." This is seen as a strategy by the military to quickly stabilize the situation by putting forward a symbolic figure of the old order to preserve its vested interests.
The Revolutionary Guard also suffered significant internal damage, including the death of Commander-in-Chief Hossein Salami in a U.S. airstrike. However, even when the military's top echelon falls in battle, the Guard maintained control thanks to a system in which next-in-line commanders immediately act according to a predefined order of succession, and to regional commands spread nationwide like capillaries, which helped bridge any temporary gaps in the central command.
It remains unclear whether the Revolutionary Guard will continue to step to the fore and rule directly. Bloomberg assessed, "Having witnessed Hezbollah in Lebanon struggle as it transitioned from an armed group into a formal government force, the Revolutionary Guard may have little appetite for seizing direct governing authority." Observers say it is more likely to prefer a behind-the-scenes "kingmaker" role, controlling the military and economic levers while avoiding responsibility for a shattered economy and everyday hardships.
The United States designated Iran's Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist organization in 2019 and has tightened pressure since. According to U.S. authorities, the Revolutionary Guard commands about 200,000 active-duty troops and the Basij militia. Experts said, "Even this figure does not capture the influence of former operatives embedded throughout Iranian society," adding that, for the time being, the Middle East's fortunes hinge on what the Revolutionary Guard commanders gathered at the Tehran command post say.