With the Iran-Iraq War dragging on and Iran being subject to an international arms embargo, the Iranian armed forces soon found the substantial war materials left behind in the Shah’s arsenals depleted. Prevented from importing spare parts, weapons and ammunition, Iran had to resort to what Revolutionary Guard Commander Mohsen Reza’i referred to as “innovation and creativity” to sustain the war effort, culminating in the creation of a substantial
indigenous arms industry aimed at providing self-sufficiency for the Iranian armed forces.204
To a greater degree than perhaps any Guard subunit, its weapons research and production apparatus demonstrate the Guard’s ability to combine highly educated technocrats and experts and scientific
The developing Iranian arms industry was controlled by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps through the IRGC Ministry from the Ministry’s inception in 1982, and Katzman asserts that:
202 Wehrey et al. (2009) p.xiv-xv (Summary).
203 Katzman (1993) p.42, 128. The IRGC Ministry was dissolved after the War as a new combined Defence Ministry was created, see Katzman (1993) p.102-4.
204 Chubin & Tripp (1988) p.48.
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techniques with virtually illiterate, religiously and ideologically motivated warriors under the same organizational umbrella.205
In its weapons research program the Revolutionary Guard cooperated closely with the more technically capable “Construction Jihad”, but also with the regular Iranian Army and personnel characterised as “industrialists and technocrats” by Guard Minister Mohsen
RafiqDust.206 Nevertheless the IRGC made sure that it itself remained the main benefactor of the arms industry, and more often than not kept most of its production for use by its own Revolutionary Guard forces.
In 1983 a Deputy Minister for Industries was established within the IRGC Ministry, responsible for the work of 13 industrial groups charged with research related to arms
production. This work included retro-fitting, reconditioning and repair of existing equipment, production of munitions, shells and light arms, work on anti-tank missiles, air defence (SAM) and surface-to-surface missiles (SSM), and research for future production of submarines, aircrafts and drones.207 By 1986-87 the Revolutionary Guard’s domestic military production facilities were directing 37 secret weapons development projects, concentrating on light propeller air craft for the IRGC Air Force and missile manufacturing capabilities with some Chinese and North Korean help. The Revolutionary Guard, together with the “Construction Jihad”, is said to have produced, among other things, their own amphibious armoured
personnel carriers, submarines, tugboats, tanks, hovercrafts and helicopters.208 By 1987 IRGC Minister RafiqDust claimed that Iran could produce 70-80 percent of its own ammunition, and Revolutionary Guard Commander Reza’i claimed self-sufficiency in bullets and mortar-shells, production of RPG-7s and other anti-tank missiles underway, and also that Iran would soon manufacture its own SAMs and SSMs. The Iranian Defence Minister further reported that Iran could produce 47 types of ammunition, as compared to only 7 types in 1979, and by the end of the War Iran claimed to have 240 weapons factories up and running.209
205 Katzman (1993) p.94.
Reports also suggest that the Iranian nuclear research program, subject to a heated international debate in later times, originated during the Iran-Iraq War. The program might have been started as early as 1986, when the Pakistani nuclear scientist Abdolqazem Khan visited central Iranian
206 Katzman (1993) p.94.
207 Chubin & Tripp (1988).p.129-30.
208 Katzman (1993) p.94-5.
209 Chubin & Tripp (1988) p.130, Wiig (2007) p.34-5.
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construction facilities, but first became evident in 1987 when an Iranian nuclear research centre was established by the IRGC in west Tehran.210 In sum, although some of the IRGC’s claims about its own achievements and capabilities were clearly overstated, the Iranian arms industry did develop significantly in the course of the Iran-Iraq War and played a very important part in the overall Iranian war effort, and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps was, and still continues to be, heavily involved in all of Iran’s major weapons research programs.
The burgeoning Iranian arms industry served multiple purposes for the emerging post-revolutionary regime. First of all it reduced Iran’s dependency on foreign arms, ammunition and war material, reducing the effect of the international arms embargo and allowing Iran to sustain its war effort. The weapons research programs also served to affirm the regime’s belief in self-reliance, seemingly proving that Iran could hold its own as an independent nation by relying on its own resources, and not least the domestic arms industry functioned as a cheaper substitute for expensive imports provided by “sanction busters” and the unstable military black market.211 With the expansion of the indigenous arms industry the IRGC Ministry was also able to centralise the allocation and acquisition of weapons, as in the first few years of the War each Guard had been responsible for providing his own weaponry, usually required by looting the Shah’s armouries or captured in battle from the Iraqi armed forces. The central allocation of arms was an important factor for the IRGC’s development into a national rather than a private or local force, as Katzman, quoting Max Weber, asserts that the transition from private to national control over the legitimate use of force in a society is a major indicator of nation-building.212
210 Wiig (2007) p.36.
The centralisation of the armed forces was thus at the same time an indicator of the consolidation of the Khomeinist revolutionary regime, contributing to the regime’s legitimacy as the supreme wielder of force. The IRGC’s
expansion into weapons production also served to increase its power by putting it in charge of the distribution of available arms, and as the Iranian weapons industry developed, the
Revolutionary Guard acquired extensive new capabilities within the fields of manufacturing, construction, technology and research. These new organisational capacities could later be put
211 Chubin & Tripp (1988) p.129.
212 Katzman (1993) p.101.
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to use also within the regular Iranian civilian economy, adding to the overall influence of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps within the post-revolutionary state.