Al-Monitor | Esfandyar Batmanghelidj: The US Treasury Department’s recent move to designate Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) under terrorism authority has put the military organization back in the spotlight. The subsequent tweet by Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, in which he declared that “all Iranians are IRGC” ready to defend their homeland in response to US pressure, gave rise to spirited debate on social media about the Guard Corps and its role in Iranian society.


The US Treasury’s action and Zarif’s response illustrate the dual character of the IRGC as it exists in Iran today. On one hand, it is a political and military organization and the principal actor behind Iran’s internal and external security posture. On the other hand, it is an organization of great social significance, motivated by the ideology of the 1979 Islamic Revolution, and a patron of institutions and bodies that define the orthodoxy of Iranian patriotism.

To undergird its position as a cornerstone of the Islamic Republic, the IRGC has long sought proximity to the Iranian public in another, more universal domain — namely, the economy. The Guard Corps has have developed economic proximity with a wide swath of Iranian society through its control of two types of entities. First, the IRGC oversees a network of companies active in strategic sectors such as the operation of airports and seaports, the construction of roads and bridges and the extraction of energy sources and minerals, giving it a stable economic base beyond the money guaranteed to it by the central government. Second, the Guard Corps controls holding companies, often in the guise of bonyads, or charitable foundations. Through these foundations, the IRGC is the indirect shareholder of a number of publicly listed companies, enmeshing its ownership with that of the private sector.

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