Routledge Handbook on Iranian Security

Despite being less “prominent” than Iran’s contested nuclear program, the Islamic Republic’s security apparatus has increasingly become a concern for the international community. The EU travel bans for regime luminaries, many of them related to the security apparatus, and the listing of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC, Pâsdârân-e Enqelâb-e Eslâmi or Sepah) as a terror organization by the U.S. are a testimony of how seriously this threat is taken. This said, not much is known about Iran’s security apparatus. When debating Iran’s security apparatus, the main focus usually lies on the Intelligence Ministry’s foreign operations (“Mykonos”), the IRGC’s regional role especially in Iraq, and Afghanistan (General Soleymani, Quds Force), but also on their role in the economy of the country, the role of the Basij and other militias during the 2009 upheavals, and on Iran’s newly founded “cyber-war” capabilities.