The European Union’s planned designation of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist organization has put a long-noted Iranian power broker back into focus: a force that operates alongside Iran’s regular armed forces, manages key military capabilities, and reaches far beyond Iran’s borders.
An Associated Press report said the Guard has grown into a powerful force within Iran’s theocracy, “answering only to its supreme leader,” and overseeing Iran’s ballistic missile arsenal while launching attacks overseas. The Guard was in the spotlight as EU officials moved to declare it a terrorist organization over its part in the “bloody crackdown on nationwide protests in Iran earlier this month.”
The Revolutionary Guard’s current influence traces to its origins after Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution. According to the AP, the force rose out of the revolution as a means to protect the Shiite cleric-overseen government and later became enshrined in Iran’s constitution. It also operated parallel to Iran’s regular armed forces, with its prominence and power expanding during Iran’s long and ruinous war with Iraq in the 1980s.
After the war, the AP said the Guard faced a potential push for disbandment, but Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei granted it powers to expand into private enterprise. That shift, the AP reported, helped the Guard build a broader footprint inside Iran—running a major construction company called Khatam al-Anbia and operating other firms that the AP said build roads, provide telecommunications networks and have offered services including laser eye surgery.
Overseas operations are a central part of the Guard’s identity, particularly through its expeditionary Quds Force. The AP report said the Quds Force has been key in creating what Iran describes as its “Axis of Resistance” against Israel and the United States, backing Syria’s former President Bashar Assad, Lebanon’s Hezbollah, Yemen’s Houthi rebels and other regional groups. The AP also reported that U.S. officials say the Guard taught Iraqi militants how to manufacture and use especially deadly roadside bombs against U.S. troops in Iraq after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion.
The AP report said the Guard’s intelligence work is also tied to detention and prosecutions, including cases involving dual nationals and people with Western ties that were handled in closed hearings on espionage charges. Western nations, according to the AP, described Iran as using such prisoners as bargaining chips in negotiations, including those tied to Iran’s nuclear program.
In Iran, the AP report tied the state’s ability to control unrest to the Basij, described as the Guard’s all-volunteer arm. Videos from protests that began Dec. 28, the AP said, show Basij members holding long guns, batons and pellet guns, while the AP reported that Basij forces have been seen beating protesters and chasing them through streets. The AP also said a well-known Basij commander appeared on state television to warn parents to keep their children at home and called for members to assemble to put down the demonstrations.
The Guard’s foreign role faces added pressure in the context of the Israel-Hamas war that began after the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel. The AP reported that Israel has targeted multiple Iran-backed groups as it continued fighting Hamas in Gaza, including decimating Hezbollah and repeatedly targeting the Houthis in Yemen. In Syria, the AP said the fall of Assad’s government in December 2024 took away a key ally for Tehran and for the Guard’s regional network, while the AP also described Israel and Iran as having exchanged missile fire overseen by the Guard.
The AP report also described a recent escalation of Israeli strikes linked to the Guard, saying that in June Israel launched a massive airstrike campaign targeting Iran. It reported that the first day of those strikes killed top generals in the Guard, contributing to disarray, and that Israeli attacks destroyed ballistic missile sites and launchers as well as air defense systems manned by Guard forces.
While EU action focuses on the Guard’s role in Iran’s recent protest crackdown, the AP’s overview also highlights how the Guard’s structure links internal security functions to military capabilities and regional deployments. That combination—military oversight, intelligence activities, and an embedded presence in Iranian society—has helped make the Guard a pivotal institution as Iran confronts both domestic unrest and intensified conflict across the Middle East.