The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps was created in the months after the Shah fell in 1979, and its founders gave it one job: protect the new revolution. Think of it as a second army that the clerics built because they did not trust the first one. Iran’s regular forces keep the country’s borders. The Guards answer to the supreme leader, and their chain of command bypasses the elected president.
That arrangement has lasted. The Council on Foreign Relations, quoting the IISS, counts upward of 190,000 troops under the corps’ command, roughly half of them conscripts. Al Jazeera puts the figure at about 190,000 active personnel and 600,000 once reserves are counted. It has ground, naval and air forces, plus the Basij, an internal security militia. And it has the Quds Force, which works outside Iran’s borders.
What the Quds Force does
Here is what that means in practice. The Quds Force became the Guards’ de facto external affairs branch after the corps began backing armed groups in the 1980s, starting with the Iran-Iraq War. Its contacts reach armed groups from Afghanistan to Yemen, via Iraq, Lebanon and the Palestinian territories, and it hands them weapons, cash, training and advice. Tehran sees these groups as part of an “axis of resistance” aimed at the West. Some operate on their own, without Iran’s direction.
The history is long. Blame for the 1983 attacks in Beirut, on the American embassy and on Marine and French paratrooper quarters, has fallen on Iran and Hezbollah, its proxy. In 2007 Washington, under George W. Bush, charged that the Quds Force was supplying roadside bombs to Shiite militants who targeted U.S. soldiers. After 2011, it deployed to Syria; Iran first called the mission a limited defence of Shiite shrines, then admitted the force was helping Bashar al-Assad put down unrest. In Yemen, the Guards channeled intelligence, training and weapons to the Houthis.
Missiles, money and politics
The practical upshot for the wider world: the Guards, not the regular army, run Iran’s ballistic missile programme. Al Jazeera adds that they are responsible for security around the nuclear programme.
The corps is also a business and a political machine. Veterans have moved into the cabinet, parliament and provincial posts. CFR says the corps has made itself billions of dollars richer through illicit commercial and financial networks that get around sanctions. Its economic role grew during the Iran-Iraq War, when it handled engineering and logistics.
Outside pressure has followed. The United States designated the corps a foreign terrorist organization in 2019, and Brussels followed in February 2026. Tehran retaliated that same month by labelling the naval and air forces of every EU member state terrorist organizations. On the first day of March 2026, after US and Israeli strikes on Iran, Al Jazeera reported that Iranian state television said the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, had been killed. The IRGC fired drones and missiles at Israel and at Arab states hosting American forces.
Sources
- The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) (Council on Foreign Relations backgrounder)
- Has Trump misunderstood Iran's IRGC and the Basij forces? (Al Jazeera)
