{"id":342140,"date":"2026-02-02T17:44:10","date_gmt":"2026-02-02T16:44:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ncr-iran.org\/en\/?p=342140"},"modified":"2026-02-02T17:44:10","modified_gmt":"2026-02-02T16:44:10","slug":"iran-the-state-is-irgc-staffed-from-top-to-bottom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ncr-iran.org\/en\/news\/terrorism-a-fundamentalism\/iran-the-state-is-irgc-staffed-from-top-to-bottom\/","title":{"rendered":"Iran: The State Is IRGC-Staffed from Top to Bottom"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Iranian
Iranian regime\u2019s president Masoud Pezeshkian and lawmakers pose in their IRGC uniforms inside parliament, signaling loyalty to the ruling system, April 9, 2019<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Three-minute read<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The latest designation of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terrorist organization is not simply a move against one armed institution.<\/p>\n

It is a belated acknowledgment that, in many of the Iranian state\u2019s most important rooms, the people making decisions are not distant from the Guard. They are products of it, alumni of it, and in some cases senior figures of it.<\/p>\n

If policy makers want to understand what is newly actionable here, they should begin with the roster of power, not the rhetoric.<\/p>\n

The secretary of the Supreme National Security Council is Ali Larijani<\/a>, is a former IRGC commander. The same security council leadership role was previously held by Ali Akbar Ahmadian<\/a>, a senior IRGC officer. The speaker of parliament is Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf<\/a>, a former IRGC commander. In the cabinet, the foreign minister Abbas Araghchi<\/a> enlisted in the IRGC during the Iran\u2013Iraq War. The interior minister Eskandar Momeni is another figure who emerged from the IRGC\u2019s security ecosystem.<\/p>\n

On Sunday, 1 February, 2026, the entire chamber of Iran\u2019s Parliament (Majles) appeared in IRGC uniforms and chanted slogans against Europe and the United States\u2014a display that underscored a basic reality about power in Iran: more than 51% of the parliament\u2019s members are former IRGC commanders, meaning the institution is no longer merely influenced by the Guard, but is structurally staffed by figures shaped inside its command-and-security ecosystem.<\/p>\n

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Blacklist IRGC as a terrorist group and evict it from the entire region#FreeIran<\/a> pic.twitter.com\/AH4mjd61is<\/a><\/p>\n

— Maryam Rajavi (@Maryam_Rajavi) July 1, 2017<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n