Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in the context of "Khamenei"

Iran has a network of private, public, and state-affiliated universities offering degrees in higher education. State-run universities of Iran are under the direct supervision of Iran's Ministry of Science, Research and Technology (for non-medical universities) and Ministry of Health and Medical Education (for medical schools). According to article 3 of the Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Iran guarantees "free education and physical training for everyone at all levels, and the facilitation and expansion of higher education." IANI representatives say that academics in Iran are "ultimately directed by the regime and military when it comes to specific areas of research". Rana Dadpour, who taught at an Iranian university, said that certain areas of research are directed by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and could be employed for "surveillance or military purposes".

From the 2000s until the fall of the Assad regime, the Islamic Republic of Iran and the Syrian Arab Republic were close strategic allies, and Iran provided significant support for the Syrian Ba'athist government in the Syrian civil war, including logistical, technical and financial support, as well as training and combat troops. Iran saw the survival of the Assad regime as being crucial to its regional interests. When the uprising developed into the Syrian civil war, there were increasing reports of Iranian military support, and of Iranian training of the National Defence Forces both in Syria and Iran. From late 2011 and early 2012, Iran's IRGC sent tens of thousands of Iranian troops and Shi'ite foreign paramilitary volunteers in coordination with the Syrian government to prevent the collapse of the regime; thereby polarizing the conflict along sectarian lines.

Iranian security and intelligence services advised and assisted the Syrian military in order to preserve the erstwhile Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's hold on power. Those efforts included training, technical support, and combat troops. Estimates of the number of Iranian personnel in Syria ranged from hundreds to tens of thousands. Lebanese Hezbollah fighters, backed by Iran's government, had taken direct combat roles from 2012 until 2024. From the summer of 2013, Iran and Hezbollah provided important battlefield support for Assad, allowing it to make advances on the opposition.

The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Aerospace Force, officially known as the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Air and Space Force (IRGCASF; Persian: نیروی هوافضای سپاه پاسداران انقلاب اسلامی, romanized: niru-ye havâfazây-e sepâh-e pâsdârân-e enghelâb-e eslâmi, acronymed in Persian as NEHSA), is the strategic missile, air, and space force of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). It was renamed from the IRGC Air Force to the IRGC Aerospace Force in 2009.

The force's commander, Amir Ali Hajizadeh, was killed along with 20 other senior officers during the series of Israeli strikes launched on 13 June 2025. The role was vacant for a day before being filled by Majid Mousavi.

The Alliance of Builders or Developers of Islamic Iran (Persian: ائتلاف آبادگران ایران اسلامی; E'telāf-e Ābādgarān-e Īrān-e Eslāmī), usually shortened to Abadgaran (Persian: آبادگران), was an Iranian conservative political federation of parties and organizations. Described as "Iran's neocons", main groups within the alliance were Front of Followers of the Line of the Imam and the Leader members and Society of Devotees of the Islamic Revolution.

According to the Columbia World Dictionary of Islamism, the Abadgaran "seems to have been formed in 2003 and is made up broadly of figures under the age of fifty, who are non-clerics". The group originally consisted of Basij and Revolutionary Guards veterans who rose to mid- and senior-level administrative positions but marginalized during government of Hashemi Rafsanjani.

The Fordow Uranium Enrichment Plant, officially the Shahid Ali Mohammadi Nuclear Facility (Persian: تأسیسات هسته‌ای شهید علی‌محمدی), is an Iranian underground uranium enrichment facility located 30 kilometres (20 mi) north of the Iranian city of Qom, at a former Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps base. The site is under the control of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI). It is the second Iranian uranium enrichment facility, the other being the Natanz Nuclear Facility.

Under the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action effective January 2016, Fordow was to cease uranium enrichment for 15 years, and carry out civilian research and production.

The Iran hostage crisis (Persian: بحران گروگانگیری سفارت آمریکا) began on November 4, 1979, when 66 Americans, including diplomats and other civilian personnel, were taken hostage at the Embassy of the United States in Tehran, with 52 of them being held until January 20, 1981. The incident occurred after the Muslim Student Followers of the Imam's Line stormed and occupied the building in the months following the Iranian Revolution. With support from Ruhollah Khomeini, who had led the Iranian Revolution and would eventually establish the present-day Islamic Republic of Iran, the hostage-takers demanded that the United States extradite Iranian king Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, who had been granted asylum by the Carter administration for cancer treatment. Notable among the assailants were Hossein Dehghan (future Minister of Defense of Iran), Mohammad Ali Jafari (future Commander-in-Chief of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps), and Mohammad Bagheri (future Chief of the General Staff of the Iranian Armed Forces). The hostage crisis contributed to a dramatic decline in Iran–United States relations. After 444 days, it came to an end with the signing of the Algiers Accords between the Iranian and American governments; Iran's king had died in Cairo, Egypt, on July 27, 1980.

The American magazine Time described the Iran hostage crisis as an entanglement of vengeance and mutual incomprehension. American president Jimmy Carter called the hostage-taking an act of "blackmail" and the hostages "victims of terrorism and anarchy." Among proponents of the Iranian Revolution, it was seen as an act against perceived attempts by the United States to undermine the uprising against Iran's king, who had been accused of committing numerous human rights abuses against Iranian dissidents through his Bureau for Intelligence and Security of the State. The Carter administration's refusal to extradite Pahlavi was cited by the hostage-takers as proof of complicity on the part of the United States, which, in turn, denounced the Iranians' hostage-taking as an egregious violation of the principles of international law, such as the Vienna Convention, under which diplomats and diplomatic compounds are to be granted immunity from coercion and harassment.

The Islamic Republic of Iran Armed Forces, also known as Iranian Armed Forces, are the combined military forces of Iran, comprising the Islamic Republic of Iran Army (Artesh), the Police Command (Faraja) and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (Sepah).

Iranian Armed Forces are the largest in the Middle East in terms of active troops. Iran's military forces are made up of approximately 610,000 active-duty personnel plus 350,000 reserve and trained personnel that can be mobilized when needed, bringing the country's military manpower to about 960,000 total personnel. These numbers do not include Law Enforcement Command or Basij.