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WEEKLY NEWSLETTER
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Iran
Index
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.
Members of the shah's Imperial Iranian Armed Forces
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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