The Militarisation of Iran’s Presidency: The IRGC and the 2021 Elections
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards have always been influential. They are about to get even more so. This piece is the first analysis on what a Hossein Dehghan presidency would mean for Iran's domestic and foreign policy
For decades, the Iranian regime’s ideological army, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), has formed part of Iran’s ‘deep state’. Today, it is on the verge of taking over the state in its entirety and in doing so has set its eyes on Iran’s presidency.
The IRGC has several strong presidential candidates, including IRGC member Parviz Fattah, head of the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei’s ideological charity, the Mostazafan Foundation, and Saeed Mohammad, who leads Khatam Al-Anbia, the IRGC’s construction conglomerate. Yet they are becoming increasingly overshadowed by an IRGC heavyweight, Hossein Dehghan, a Guards commander who served as Iran’s incumbent president Hassan Rouhani’s defence minister and is currently Khamenei’s military advisor.
Read the full article at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI)