A man installs a giant poster with the portrait of the former commander-in-chief of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), Hossein Salami, killed by an Israeli strike on June 14, 2025, in Tehran. (Credit: Majid Asgaripour/West Asia News Agency (WANA)/Reuters)
Despite the loss of senior commanders, Iran's Revolutionary Guard has tightened its grip on wartime decision-making, according to high-level sources cited by Reuters, pursuing an uncompromising strategy marked by a sustained military campaign of drone and missile launches across the Middle East in response to the U.S. and Israeli offensive.
Six Iranian and regional sources with detailed knowledge of the Guard all confirmed to the international agency that the group has taken on a much more significant role within the power structure since the start of the war on Feb. 28, and is now involved in all major decisions.
A security official close to the Guard indicated that its new leader, Ahmad Vahidi, has been present at every high-level meeting, while the organization's ultimate goal remains the survival of the Islamic regime and the fulfillment of its ambitions.
A strategy of decentralization to ensure resilience
Anticipating the possibility of having their leadership decapitated, the Guard has appointed successors up to three vertical tiers, ready to step in.
Decentralization has been part of their doctrine in case of attack for nearly 20 years and was developed after observing the collapse of Iraqi forces during the U.S.-led invasion in 2003, explained Kasra Aarabi, director of research on the Guard at United Against Nuclear Iran, a U.S.-based organization.
"The whole idea was to decentralize so that if a particular province was attacked, it could defend itself and sustain the regime’s authority and power," he said.
Thus, well before Saturday’s U.S.-Israeli attack, Guard commanders had already delegated tasks to lower ranks. This resilience strategy also carries a risk of miscalculation or an escalation of the conflict, as mid-level officers are authorized to strike neighboring states.
On Wednesday, Iran fired on Turkey, a NATO member. Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi admitted that Iran’s response had already been planned.
"These units operate on the basis of general instructions given to them in advance, rather than real-time direct orders from the current political leadership," he told Al Jazeera.
Whereas today, the Guard participates in virtually every strategic decision — far beyond the central role they held before the war — it can also count on the country’s political leadership, whose three main officials are all former militia members.
President Masoud Pezeshkian was a war surgeon; Parliament Speaker Mohammad Baqer Galibaf fought on the front lines before leading the Guard's air unit, while Ali Larijani, principal adviser to Ali Khamenei, the Iranian leader killed by the Israeli-Americans, was a staff officer.
Inside Iran, the central role of the Guard at every level of the regime and its draconian security approach could also make protests harder to emerge, compromising any American or Israeli hope that the war might spark an uprising and regime change.
Their dual approach — as the spearhead of Iran’s military response to external attacks and as guarantors of domestic security within the Islamic Republic — seems to be holding for now, though prolonged Israeli-American attacks targeting both top and lower-ranking commanders could eventually test their capacity to maintain strategic coherence.
This is especially true since the Guard is not a fully homogeneous unit, as they are riven by factional rivalries, personal conflicts and differences over their role. But, according to one source, they are "more united than ever when Iran is under attack."
