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Iran
The Revolutionary Period
Lack of leadership at the general staff level and below in the
Imperial Iranian Armed Forces (IIAF) had literally frozen the
military between December 1978 and February 1979. In the melee
of the Revolution, mob scenes were frequent; on several occasions
the army fired on demonstrators, killing and injuring many civilians,
the most famous such encounter occurring at Jaleh Square in Tehran.
In response to these incidents, army units of the IIAF, responsible
for law and order in Tehran and other large cities, were attacked
by mobs. Within days after the Revolution's success, several religious
leaders, however, claimed that the armed forces had "joined the
nation" or "returned to the nation" and cautioned against indiscriminate
vengeance against the military.
The government took prompt steps to reconstitute the armed forces,
weakened in both numbers and morale. Contrary to the general perception
in 1979 and 1980, Khomeini did not seek the disintegration of
the armed forces but rather wished to remold the shah's army into
a loyal national Islamic force. Troops that had heeded Khomeini's
appeal to disband were called back in March 1979. A new command
group established in February 1979 was composed of nine officers
with impeccable revolutionary credentials: they had all been imprisoned
under the shah for different reasons. Khomeini relied on the advice
of Colonel Nasrollah Tavakkoli, a retired Special Forces officer,
to recruit ideologically compatible officers for the armed forces.
General staff personnel were all called back to coordinate the
nascent reorganization; division and brigade command positions
were promptly filled by loyal and reliable officers. The Imperial
Guard, the Javidan Guard, and the Military Household of the shah
were the only organizations that were permanently disbanded.
The revolutionary government decided to formulate as clearly
as possible the functions and roles of the armed forces, particularly
in relation to internal security. In contrast to the shah's regime,
it entrusted internal security functions to the newly established
Pasdaran. Pasdaran clergy were also engaged to disseminate Islamic
justice and were assigned to units of the armed forces to help
communicate Khomeini's instructions and to provide religio-political
indoctrination.
Much of this early cooperation was an extension of the military's
existing support for the Revolution. For example, even though
the head of the air force, General Amir Hosain Rabii, opposed
the Revolution, many air force cadets and young homafars
(skilled military technical personnel) supported it. Revolutionary
groups that had played prominent roles in the seizure of power,
however, were hostile to the military. These included the Mojahedin
(Mojahedin-e Khalq, or People's Struggle), the Fadayan (Cherikha-ye
Fadayan-e Khalq, or People's Guerrillas), and even the Tudeh,
which called for a drastic purge of the military. The Mojahedin,
especially, threatened the military's position because it had
captured the Tehran arms factory and government arsenal depots
and was thus armed. Moreover, the Mojahedin quickly organized
into "councils" and recruited personnel in military posts throughout
the country, seeing themselves as the military core of the new
order. These councils were then turned into debating forums where
conscripts could air past grievances against officers. The Tudeh,
for its part, called on the government to return to active duty
several hundred officers dismissed or imprisoned under the shah
for their membership in the Tudeh.
The provisional government recognized the threat implicit in
these demands. In the absence of a centralized command system,
the military balance of power would eventually tilt toward the
heavily armed guerrilla groups of the left. Hojjatoleslam Ali
Khamenehi (who became president of Iran in 1982) and many of the
leading ayatollahs were very suspicious of the leftist guerrillas.
The members of the Revolutionary Council (a body formed by Khomeini
in January 1979 to supervise the transition from monarchy to republic)
would have preferred to balance the power of the leftist guerrillas
with that of the Pasdaran, but the Pasdaran was in its formative
stage and had neither the necessary strength nor the training.
The ultimate elimination of the Mojahedin, Fadayan, and Tudeh
was a foregone conclusion in the ideological framework of an Islamic
Iran. To this end, revolutionary leaders both defended and courted
the military, hoping to maintain it as a countervailing force,
loyal to themselves. In one of his frequent public pronouncements,
Khomeini praised military service as "a sacred duty and worthy
of great rewards before the Almighty" and solicited military support
for his regime, declaring that "the great Iranian Revolution is
more in need of defense and protection than at any other time."
Prime Minister Mehdi Bazargan denounced guerrilla demands for
a full-scale purge of the military.
In the end, the leadership decided in February 1979 that a purge
of the armed forces would be undertaken, but on a limited scale,
concentrating on "corrupt elements." The purge of the military
started on February 15, 1979, when four general officers were
executed. Two groups were purged, one consisting of those elements
of the armed forces that had been closely identified with the
shah and his repression of the revolutionary movement and the
other including those that had committed actual crimes of violence,
particularly murder and torture, against supporters of the Revolution.
A total of 249 members of the armed forces, of whom 61 were SAVAK
(Sazman-e Ettelaat va Amniyat-e Keshvar, the shah's internal security
organization) agents, were tried, found guilty, and executed between
February 19 and September 30, 1979. Significant as this figure
is, it represented only a small percentage of military personnel.
Apart from the replacement of senior officers, various structural
changes were introduced in the aftermath of the Revolution (see
Command and Control; Organization, Size, and Equipment , this
ch.). But because of the lack of leadership at headquarters, command
and control were at best tenuous. Local commanders exercised unprecedented
autonomy, and integration of the regular armed forces with the
Pasdaran was not even considered. Lack of coordination within
the Pasdaran and between it and regular army personnel resulted
in shortages for the Pasdaran of desperately needed supplies,
ranging from daily rations to ammunition; such supplies usually
found their way only to army depots.
In isolated areas, cooperation between the Pasdaran and the regular
military eventually emerged. For example, in West Azarbaijan,
prorevolutionary officers in the 64th Infantry Division in Urumiyeh
(also cited as Urmia to which it has reverted after being known
as Rezaiyeh under the Pahlavis) extended a helping hand to the
Pasdaran in the latter's efforts to crush an uprising. The 64th
Infantry Division's leading officers, including Colonel Qasem
Ali Zahirnezhad and Colonel Ali Seyyed-Shirazi, were strong advocates
of cooperation. They made proposals in which they argued that
the Pasdaran and the regular military should be completely integrated
at the operational level while maintaining separate administrations.
They envisaged joint staffs at divisional and higher echelons,
joint logistical systems, and joint procurement of equipment.
By accepting logistical assistance from the military, the Pasdaran
could become combat ready. From the regular armed forces' perspective,
cooperation would turn members of the Pasdaran into professional
soldiers. The process would also create a level of mutual dependence,
thereby preventing antimilitary measures. Airings of proposals
for similar cooperative measures received sympathy from some officers
at the National Military Academy, where Commandant Colonel Musa
Namju, expanding on Colonel Zahirnezhad's and Colonel Seyyed-Shirazi's
earlier proposals, wrote several widely read documents. Little
or no support came from Minister of Defense Mostofa Ali Chamran,
who was more concerned with the impact that a full and rapid reorganization
of the military might have on the Revolution.
Neglected for over a year, Iran's ground forces fared poorly
during the first stages of the Iran-Iraq War (see The Iran-Iraq
War , this ch.). Ironically, logistical shortcomings rather than
desertions or combat defects were the problem. By the end of 1980,
Iranian leaders finally recognized supply deficiencies and the
more important command-and-control problems that were crippling
the military. Colonel Namju resurrected the group proposals, and
Chamran appointed Colonel Zahirnezhad and Colonel Seyyed-Shirazi
to senior command and staff positions at the front.
In Tehran, President Abolhasan Bani Sadr attempted to gain control
of the armed forces but failed for several reasons. Above all,
Khomeini would not permit the Supreme Defense Council (SDC) to
be dominated by any faction, and he was not prepared to make an
exception for Bani Sadr. Prime Minister Mohammad Ali Rajai, Bazargan's
successor, and his Islamic Republican Party (IRP) allies, concerned
with the Revolution as much as the war, were adamant in their
opposition to Bani Sadr's unilateral decisions. Bani Sadr was
also weakened by his frequent interference in purely military
affairs (in which his poor judgment in military matters became
evident) as well as by competition with clergy members.
Despite the rift between Bani Sadr and the IRP, the SDC appointed
him supreme commander over all regular and paramilitary units.
His control of the military was tenuous, however, because by early
1981 IRP members were demanding representation at the senior levels
of command. In addition, the front as an operational area was
organized into subordinate field sectors and operational sectors,
with little official liaison among the different service staffs.
Moreover, the war effort was going poorly.
Bani Sadr's ouster from the presidency and Chamran's death at
the front galvanized the Urumiyeh group to push for implementation
of the reorganization proposals. Colonel Namju was the new defense
minister, and reorganization of the command system received his
full support. By September 1981, SDC approval was ensured and
coordination with the Pasdaran initiated. Deputy Commander in
Chief of the Pasdaran Kolahduz supervised the first operational
integration of the regular military with the Pasdaran. Even the
air force relented, and Brigadier General Javad Fakuri authorized
additional close air support for ground forces. On September 24,
1981, a new command and control system was finalized at a Tehran
meeting hosted by Pasdaran commander in chief Mohsen Rezai, who
agreed to test the new proposals. An operation was launched to
liberate Abadan and force the Iraqis to the west bank of the Karun
River. Within four days, Iran's coordinated attack was successful,
and the Iraqis retreated. For the first time since the outbreak
of hostilities, a full-scale integration at the staff level produced
positive results.
On September 29, 1981, several high-ranking military leaders,
including Colonel Namju and Kolahduz, were killed in an airplane
crash. Colonel Zahirnezhad, promoted to brigadier general, took
over as chief of the Joint Staff of the armed forces, and Colonel
Seyyed-Shirazi took Zahirnezhad's post as commander of armed forces.
These appointments ensured the full implementation of the new
command system.
Data as of December 1987
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