# DECODING: The IRGC, backbone of an Iranian regime under fire

> There is one simple thing to understand first if you want to grasp what has been unfolding in Iran since the start of July 2026: the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, or IRGC, is not an army like any other.

- Author: Maxime Marquette
- Publisher: MadMax (https://mad-max.co)
- Section: Analysis
- Published: 2026-07-20
- Canonical URL: https://mad-max.co/en/article/decoding-the-irgc-backbone-of-an-iranian-regime-under-fire

## Introduction: a guard that answers to no one but the supreme leader

### A force apart, outside the conventional military chain

There is one simple thing to understand first if you want to grasp what has been unfolding in **Iran** since the start of **July 2026**: the **Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps**, or **IRGC**, is not an army like any other. It does not answer to the **Ministry of Defense** in the conventional sense. It reports directly to the **supreme leader**, and its primary mission has never been to defend the country's borders but to protect the survival of the theocratic regime itself. This distinction, often overlooked in Western commentary, explains why the **American strikes** that hit roughly a hundred sites linked to the **IRGC** on the night of July 11 to 12, **2026**, were not simply a punitive military operation but a frontal attack on the very skeleton of power in **Tehran**.

Washington's strategic reasoning becomes clearer once you see this. Striking dozens of **IRGC** sites in a single night, after Iran's attack on commercial shipping in the **Strait of Hormuz**, is not simply answering a one-off provocation. It is targeting the organization that controls the **missiles**, oversees the **regional militias**, and has locked down, for decades, most of the levers of domestic coercion in the country. **CNN** noted that the **IRGC** represents Iran's elite forces, distinct from the regular army, tasked with overseeing **missile** capabilities and preserving the **Islamic revolution**, answering only to the **supreme leader**, according to a report published on July 9, 2026.

### An organization born to watch over the army itself

The **IRGC** was created in 1979 precisely because the new leaders of the **Islamic revolution** did not trust the imperial army inherited from the **Shah**. Since then, this parallel architecture has never stopped expanding: ground forces, aerospace, naval forces, the **Quds Force** for foreign operations, and a sprawling economic empire that, according to several estimates cited by Western analysts, weighs on a significant share of the country's **GDP**. This is not a symbolic praetorian guard. It is a state within the state, with its own parallel diplomacy and its own financial networks.

It is precisely this second face, financial and economic, that the most recent American sanctions are trying to dismantle. The **U.S. Treasury Department** confirmed it had targeted a network of exchange houses and companies linked to **Mojtaba Khamenei** and the **IRGC**, including Dubai-based financier **Ali Ansari**, accused of building an international real estate and commercial empire for the benefit of the regime's elites, according to an official statement dated July 10, 2026.

*What strikes me first is a truth too often forgotten by hasty commentators: you understand nothing about Iranian politics if you keep treating the **IRGC** as just another army. It is the skeleton of theocratic power, and hitting that skeleton means targeting the regime's capacity to survive, not merely its capacity to defend itself.*

## An organization forged in the Iran-Iraq war

### The baptism of fire that shaped its doctrine

The **Iran-Iraq war**, from 1980 to 1988, was the true crucible of the **IRGC**. Facing a regular army the new religious power considered politically suspect, it was the **IRGC** that carried the weight of the bloodiest offensives, including the human waves of young volunteers sent to the front. That founding experience instilled in the organization a culture of sacrifice and strategic endurance that continues to shape its **military doctrine** nearly four decades later, including in the way it absorbs today's **American strikes** without publicly ceding ground.

This culture of prolonged resistance largely explains why IRGC leaders keep projecting public **defiance**, even after weeks of repeated bombing of their infrastructure. They were trained, literally, to treat attrition as an acceptable variable of the regime's survival, not as a signal of imminent collapse.

### From the battlefield to the country's political leadership

What sets the **IRGC** apart from other revolutionary guards around the world is its ability to convert military prestige into direct political power. Over the decades, former **IRGC** commanders have held key posts in government, in provincial administrations, and even within parliament. This porousness between the military hierarchy and the civilian hierarchy has let the **Corps** weave a web of influence that reaches far beyond the strict security domain.

It is this structural omnipresence that makes the current succession at the summit of power so sensitive. After the assassination of the former **supreme leader** during the **2026 war**, it was **Mojtaba Khamenei**, long described as the "power behind the robe," who was elected third **supreme leader** by the **Assembly of Experts**, confirming the **IRGC**'s decisive weight in forging consensus at the top of the state, according to a detailed biography published on Wikipedia.

*There is something chilling in this historical continuity: an organization born to watch over an army deemed too independent ended up, forty years later, producing the country's own new supreme leader. The **IRGC** did not just survive the Islamic revolution; it became its chief institutional heir.*

## Control of the missiles, the heart of deterrence power

### A ballistic arsenal kept out of the regular army's reach

Iran's **ballistic missile program**, one of the largest in the **Middle East**, sits directly under the authority of the **IRGC**, not the regular armed forces' **general staff**. That institutional choice is no accident: it guarantees that the country's strategic strike capability remains entirely in the hands of loyalists to the theocratic regime, safe from any temptation of a classic military coup. That architecture explains the speed and scale of Iranian **missile** fire on American bases in **Kuwait**, **Bahrain**, **Qatar**, and on the Jordanian base of **Al-Azraq** between July 9 and 10, 2026.

This centralization of ballistic power in the hands of the **IRGC** also means that every American strike targeting its production or storage sites is, in effect, an attack on the regime's most prized deterrent tool. It is no coincidence that the American strikes on the night of July 11 to 12 hit nearly 140 targets linked to the **IRGC**, according to several American outlets, immediately after Tehran's proclaimed closure of the **Strait of Hormuz**.

### The Strait of Hormuz, a lever of global economic pressure

The **IRGC** does not merely fire missiles: through its dedicated navy, it also holds the ability to disrupt one of the most critical energy chokepoints on the planet. About one-fifth of the world's oil passes through the **Strait of Hormuz**, and its proclaimed closure by the **IRGC** on July 12, 2026, following the attack on three commercial vessels, immediately spiked nervousness in international energy markets, even though **Brent** prices had previously fallen sharply during earlier phases of de-escalation, according to an analysis by the Foley & Lardner firm published in early July 2026.

Using a global shipping lane as geopolitical bargaining chip perfectly illustrates the logic of **asymmetric deterrence** the **IRGC** has developed for years: rather than trying to match conventional American military power, threaten global economic interests directly to force negotiations on its own terms.

*Shutting down a strategic strait to rattle oil markets is a formidably effective weapon, and it is exactly the kind of blackmail that should remind the West why it can never treat the **IRGC** as just another regional military actor. This is an actor that has learned to turn geography into a lever of global pressure.*

## The Quds Force and the export of the revolution

### An external arm that shaped the entire Middle East

Within the **IRGC** itself, the **Quds Force** occupies a distinct place: it is the one that patiently built the network of militias allied with **Tehran** across the region, from Lebanon's **Hezbollah** to Iraqi Shiite militias, to the support given to Yemen's **Houthis**. This proxy-influence strategy has let **Iran** project considerable regional power without necessarily committing its own conventional forces directly, limiting the domestic political risk of open, prolonged conflict.

This architecture of proxies also explains why the current conflict with the **United States** is never confined to Iranian territory alone. The Iranian strikes on American bases in **Kuwait** and **Bahrain**, documented in early July 2026, fit this same logic of dispersing fronts, aimed at multiplying pressure points on **Washington** rather than concentrating on a single, predictable response.

### A doctrine of calibrated retaliation, not total war

What stands out in the **IRGC**'s military conduct since the start of the 2026 escalation is the persistence of a logic of **calibrated retaliation** rather than uncontrolled escalation. The missile strikes on regional bases, documented and publicly claimed, seem designed to demonstrate real nuisance capability without triggering the total collapse of the still-fragile negotiating framework between **Tehran** and **Washington**.

This calibrated approach does not, however, eliminate the risk of miscalculation. Every missile salvo, even one claimed as measured, carries a real risk of spiraling out of control, particularly when civilian installations or energy infrastructure sit near the military targets struck, as has been reported repeatedly around the **Bushehr** power plant.

*Let's name things plainly: this is not restraint out of virtue, it is cold calculation. The **IRGC** strikes hard enough to show it has not caved, but not so hard that it permanently shuts the door on a de-escalation that would let it, once again, survive a crisis that should have cost it far more.*

## The Revolutionary Guard's economic empire

### From ports to telecommunications, a hand on the real economy

Beyond the strict military domain, the **IRGC** controls a considerable economic empire, spanning port infrastructure to **telecommunications**, through entire swaths of the construction sector. This diffuse economic presence lets the **Corps** fund part of its operations without relying solely on the official state budget, while securing direct influence over strategic sectors of the national economy.

This economic grip also explains why **Western sanctions** targeting the **IRGC** have progressively widened in recent years to increasingly complex financial networks, involving shell companies registered in jurisdictions as varied as **Hong Kong**, the **United Arab Emirates**, or **Saint Kitts and Nevis**, as confirmed by the latest **U.S. Treasury** designations targeting the network linked to **Mojtaba Khamenei**, according to Iran Focus on July 11, 2026.

### Wealth piling up while the population grows poorer

The contrast is stark: while the **IRGC** and the elites tied to it accumulate real estate portfolios abroad, the Iranian population keeps enduring chronic **inflation**, a devalued national currency, and limited access to foreign exchange, compounded by decades of **international sanctions**. This economic fracture feeds real popular resentment, documented by several waves of protests violently repressed over the past decade.

It is that same fracture **Washington** is explicitly trying to exploit by targeting the personal assets of figures linked to the **IRGC** rather than the Iranian economy as a whole. The **U.S. Treasury Secretary** stated this goal outright, saying he wants to preserve these seized assets "for the Iranian people," according to the New York Post on July 10, 2026.

*There is a particular obscenity in these real estate portfolios piling up in **Dubai**, **London**, or **Cyprus** while ordinary Iranian families can no longer afford to buy meat. This economic fracture is not a bookkeeping detail; it is one of the deepest fault lines in the regime, and it deserves to be documented with the same rigor as the missile strikes.*

## The nuclear program, the Corps' private domain

### Pickaxe Mountain and Parchin, construction sites that never stop

The country's most sensitive nuclear facilities, notably the underground site at **Pickaxe Mountain** and the **Parchin** complex, remain tightly bound to the **IRGC**'s sphere of influence, which handles their physical security. Recent satellite images, analyzed by the **Institute for Science and International Security**, revealed ongoing reconstruction activity at both sites in June and July 2026, in apparent violation of the protocol set out by the **memorandum of understanding** signed with **Washington** on June 17, according to Mint on July 11, 2026.

This reconstruction, documented independently of any official Iranian statement, illustrates a constant of the regime's behavior for decades: signing de-escalation commitments while quietly continuing the most sensitive activities out of sight, even at the risk of fresh sanctions or fresh strikes once the truth surfaces on satellite images.

### Access denied to international inspectors

The regime has also drastically restricted the **International Atomic Energy Agency**'s access to sites damaged by the American and Israeli strikes of 2025 and 2026, citing domestic legislation that bans any inspection of bombed facilities. The spokesman for the **Iranian parliament** explicitly confirmed this ban, stating that "access to sites that have been bombed and damaged is not permitted under any circumstances," according to The Eastern Herald on July 2, 2026.

This deliberate opacity feeds Western suspicions about the persistence of a **nuclear weapons program**, despite repeated denials from **Tehran**. It also confirms the **IRGC**'s central role in managing this strategic file, since it is its own security apparatus that keeps these sites physically closed to international inspectors.

*A regime that forbids access to its own bombed sites has nothing to teach anyone about transparency, and it would be naive to believe this opacity stems from simple administrative caution. This is a deliberate strategy of concealment, and the **IRGC** is its most faithful guardian.*

## Domestic repression, the founding mission never abandoned

### The Basij, the armed arm of social surveillance

It must never be forgotten that the **IRGC**'s founding mission remains, above any regional geopolitical consideration, preserving the regime's domestic control. The **Basij** militia, organically attached to the **Corps**, continues to play a central role in social surveillance, suppressing protests, and enforcing the moral codes imposed by the religious authorities, including during the most acute periods of international tension.

According to revelations published by **Iran International** in 2023, leaked internal **IRGC** documents confirmed that **Mojtaba Khamenei**, even before rising to **supreme leader**, already exercised effective control over the **Basij** and decisive influence over appointments within the **Intelligence Protection Organization**, according to the biography published on Wikipedia.

### A foreign war that never suspends domestic repression

What sets the **IRGC** apart from a conventional army is its ability to wage a foreign war and domestic repression simultaneously, never easing one for the other. Even at the height of missile exchanges with American forces in July 2026, nothing suggests any loosening of social control over the Iranian population, particularly over women and the religious minorities most closely watched by the security apparatus.

This repressive continuity, documented by multiple human rights organizations over recent years, is a reminder that the **IRGC** does not merely defend territorial borders: it defends a social and religious order imposed by force, and that mission knows no truce, even during open war with a foreign power.

*We talk a great deal about missiles and sanctions, almost never enough about this continuous domestic repression that never stops, even under the bombs. The **IRGC** wages two wars in parallel, one against the foreign enemy and one against its own people, and the second may be the most revealing of its true nature.*

## A hierarchy that survived the 2026 decapitation

### The supreme leader's assassination did not shake the institution

One of the most revealing facts about the **IRGC**'s institutional resilience remains its ability to absorb, without apparent collapse, the assassination of the former **supreme leader** during the **2026 war**. According to Wikipedia, **Mojtaba Khamenei** himself was wounded in the airstrike that killed his father, his wife, and other family members, before being elected unanimously by the **Assembly of Experts** to succeed him.

This transfer of supreme power, in a context of open war and despite conflicting reports about the new leader's health, demonstrates the solidity of the internal succession mechanisms the **IRGC** has patiently built over decades. A less institutionalized regime probably would not have survived a shock of this magnitude without a visible fracture at the top.

### State funerals as a display of continuity

The state funeral held in **Mashhad** for the assassinated former **supreme leader** also served, beyond the displayed mourning, as a public demonstration of institutional continuity. According to **Reuters**, these funerals temporarily suspended indirect negotiations between **Washington** and **Tehran**, with **Trump** stating that neither side would attack during this period of several days, in an article dated July 6, 2026.

This simple fact, a tacit truce respected during a funeral, shows just how much religious and political ceremony still carries real organizing force within the Iranian system, even in the middle of a war. The **IRGC**, historic guardian of this revolutionary ceremony, draws obvious symbolic benefit from it, reinforcing its legitimacy at the very moment its authority might seem most fragile.

*I cannot help but see a chilling form of political efficiency here: even the violent death of the supreme leader gets reclaimed, staged, turned into an argument for continuity rather than proof of vulnerability. It is a bitter lesson about the adaptive capacity of this kind of authoritarian regime.*

## The priority target of the July 2026 American strikes

### A hundred and forty sites in a single night

The night of July 11 to 12, 2026, marks a significant escalation in the American targeting of the **IRGC**. According to the **New York Post**, American forces struck 140 sites, including **missile** and **drone** installations, naval assets, munitions depots, communication systems, and surveillance sites, bringing the total number of targets struck in **Iran** since hostilities resumed on July 6 to more than 300.

This deliberate intensification of targeting confirms that **Washington** now considers the **IRGC**, not Iran's regular army, the central adversary in this confrontation. It is an implicit but glaring acknowledgment of the **Corps**'s institutional centrality in the architecture of Iranian power, well beyond its purely military function.

### An escalation triggered by an attack on maritime shipping

These massive strikes are directly linked to the **IRGC**'s attack on the container ship **M/V GFS Galaxy**, as well as the proclaimed closure of the **Strait of Hormuz**. Secretary of War **Pete Hegseth** summed up the American logic of retaliation bluntly, saying publicly that "Iran made a bad choice," before the retaliatory strikes began at 7:15 p.m. Washington time on the direct order of President **Trump**, according to the New York Post on July 12, 2026.

This sequence of events perfectly illustrates the repetitive pattern of this war over recent months: a maritime provocation from the **IRGC**, followed by a massive American response, followed in turn by fresh Iranian retaliation on regional bases, in a cycle that seems structurally incapable of leading to lasting de-escalation as long as the **IRGC**'s power architecture remains intact in **Tehran**.

*A hundred and forty targets in a single night is no longer a symbolic punitive strike; it is a strategic message of brutal clarity: the **United States** chose to hit the regime's institutional skeleton, not just its visible military muscle. It needed to be said clearly, without minimizing or exaggerating the scope of that choice.*

## The IRGC's regional allies put to the test

### China and Russia, cautious but committed partners

The **IRGC** does not operate in complete strategic autarky. Its ties with **China**, which remains a major outlet for Iranian oil despite sanctions, and with **Russia**, an increasingly open industrial and military partner since the invasion of **Ukraine**, form an economic and diplomatic safety net that **Tehran** keeps mobilizing in the middle of a crisis. This **Iran-China-Russia** triangle, joined by **North Korea** in a shared effort to bypass Western sanctions, today forms one of the most concerning axes for the stability of the international order.

This convergence between authoritarian regimes is no coincidence. It reflects a shared strategy of resistance against an international order dominated by Western democracies, in which the **IRGC** plays an advanced regional role, alongside a **North Korea** supplying recognized ballistic know-how and a **Russia** that in turn needs Iranian drones for its own war effort against **Ukraine**.

### Doubts about the reliability of these alliances in a crisis

Still, this displayed solidarity between authoritarian regimes has, to date, done nothing to stop American strikes from intensifying against the **IRGC**, nor has it stopped the closure of the **Strait of Hormuz** from shaking Tehran's strategic credibility with its own partners. **Rosatom**, Russia's nuclear agency, suspended the return of its employees to the site of new units under construction in **Iran**, a sign that even **Moscow** is carefully weighing the risk level before fully re-engaging its resources on Iranian soil.

This Russian caution, documented by several Western sources following the nuclear file, reveals the real limits of the solidarity displayed between these regimes once the danger becomes concrete and immediate. The **IRGC** can count on diplomatic partners, but it clearly cannot count on direct, unconditional military support from **Russia** or **China** in the event of a major escalation on its own soil.

*It must be said without indulgence: **China**, **Russia**, **North Korea**, and **Iran** form a real axis of nuisance for the West, but that axis remains fundamentally transactional. No one in **Moscow** or **Beijing** is going to risk their own stability to save the **IRGC** from strategic collapse on its own territory.*

## What the Israeli warning about a plot against Trump reveals

### Information that must be handled with the caution it demands

According to **CNN**, **Israel** shared intelligence with the **United States** about an alleged Iranian plot to assassinate President **Trump**, information corroborated in substance by the **Wall Street Journal**, which described a "fresh plot" devised by **Tehran**, in articles published July 9, 2026. This kind of intelligence, by nature difficult to independently verify at this stage, must be reported with the methodological caution any unconfirmed intelligence file demands, absent material proof made public.

This caution does not preclude noting how consistent this information is with the **IRGC**'s operational profile, whose **Quds Force** has historically been linked, according to Western intelligence services, to several assassination attempts targeting regime critics abroad over the past decade. But consistency with a known profile is never, on its own, definitive proof.

### A threat that, if confirmed, would directly implicate the Corps

If this threat were confirmed by additional material evidence, it would almost necessarily implicate, given the **IRGC**'s monopoly over the regime's most sensitive foreign operations, the direct responsibility of the **Corps** or its **Quds Force** in its planning. This hypothesis remains, at this stage, a scenario documented by intelligence sources, not a fact materially established before a court or an independent commission of inquiry.

Rigorous journalistic treatment of this file therefore requires reporting the existence of this warning, its Israeli origin, and its transmission to American authorities, without turning a piece of intelligence into absolute certainty. That demanding but necessary line must guide any serious coverage of this development.

*I refuse to turn unconfirmed intelligence into spectacular certainty, even when it concerns a threat as grave as an assassination plot against an American president. Factual rigor is never more important than when the political stakes are this red-hot.*

## Trump's stance toward the IRGC apparatus

### A necessary evil for the West against the Iranian threat

On the geopolitical level, the firmness **Donald Trump** has shown toward the **IRGC** fits, without excessive indulgence, a logic that can be called a necessary evil for long-term Western security. Facing a regime that has repeatedly demonstrated its regional nuisance capacity through its missiles, its proxies, and a nuclear program not fully dismantled, the direct confrontation posture adopted by the **Trump** administration at least has the merit of strategic clarity, against a decade of diplomatic hedging that failed to stop **Iran** from continuing to develop its most dangerous capabilities.

This firmness has translated concretely into intensified **financial sanctions** and repeated strikes directly targeting **IRGC** infrastructure, a strategy that, without guaranteeing definitive success, at least has the merit of refusing the fiction of a possible normalization with a regime that keeps funding regional militias and threatening global freedom of navigation.

### Rhetoric that calls for critical scrutiny on the domestic front

It would nonetheless be dishonest not to note that this same international firmness comes, on the terrain of **American domestic politics**, with statements that call for rigorous factual examination rather than unconditional endorsement. **Trump**'s remarks referencing instructions for massive bombing "if anything happened to him" deserve to be reported as they are, without validation or amplification, as one presidential statement among others in a context of exceptional tension, not as an officially formalized military doctrine.

This distinction between the geopolitical register, where the hard line against the **IRGC** appears largely justified by documented facts, and the register of **American domestic politics**, where every presidential statement must be subject to the same critical scrutiny as any other public remark, is a basic journalistic requirement this file does not allow us to bypass.

*One can judge **Trump**'s firmness toward the **IRGC** as largely justified by the facts, while still refusing to turn every one of his most spectacular statements into gospel truth. The two requirements are not contradictory; they are simply the price of honest journalism.*

## The IRGC's weight in the future regional equation

### An adversary that will not disappear with a ceasefire

Whatever the immediate fate of negotiations between **Washington** and **Tehran**, one structural reality remains: the **IRGC** will not disappear with the signing of a new **ceasefire**, however solemn. Its institutional, economic, and ideological roots in the Iranian state apparatus are too deep to be dismantled by a single round of sanctions or a bombing campaign, even one as intense as July 2026's.

This reality demands that Western strategists adopt a long-term vision that goes beyond immediate crisis management. Durably weakening the **IRGC** requires a patient combination of targeted military pressure, financial strangulation of its international networks, and quiet support for internal Iranian dissent dynamics, rather than a bet on sudden collapse that, to date, has never materialized despite decades of cumulative Western pressure.

### What the West must refuse to downplay

Underestimating the **IRGC**'s institutional resilience would be as serious a strategic error as overestimating its immediate vulnerability to strikes. The organization's recent history, from the **Iran-Iraq war** to **Mojtaba Khamenei**'s successful succession after his father's assassination, demonstrates an institutional adaptability that deserves to be taken seriously by anyone hoping to see this regime collapse quickly under external military pressure alone.

It is this demanding, sometimes uncomfortable, clarity that must guide Western analysis of the Iranian file in the months ahead, rather than the comforting illusion of a fast and definitive victory over an institution that has survived forty-seven years of accumulated crises, wars, and sanctions.

*I do not believe in quick victories over an institution as deeply entrenched as the **IRGC**, and I think it needs to be said, even if it displeases those hoping for a spectacular collapse of the Iranian regime in the coming weeks. Clarity is worth more than poorly calibrated hope.*

## What the Hormuz crisis reveals about the nature of the regime

### A power that prefers maritime blackmail to open negotiation

The sequence of events in July 2026 around the **Strait of Hormuz** reveals a structural constant in the **IRGC**'s behavior: a preference for the show of force over transparent negotiation. By attacking commercial vessels flying the flags of the **Marshall Islands**, **Saudi Arabia**, and **Liberia**, then proclaiming the closure of a global shipping lane, the **IRGC** deliberately chose to internationalize a dispute that could, in theory, have stayed confined to a strict bilateral framework with **Washington**.

This strategic choice confirms a reading already documented by numerous Western analysts: the **IRGC** treats global economic interests as a legitimate bargaining lever, even at the cost of placing the burden of its tensions with the **United States** on shipowners, sailors, and third-country economies that have no direct stake in this bilateral conflict.

### A strategy that isolates Iran further on the international stage

This hijacking of global commercial shipping carries a cumulative diplomatic cost for **Tehran**, beyond the military and financial losses directly tied to American strikes. Every new attack on civilian vessels reinforces, among Iran's Asian and European trade partners, the image of a regime willing to sacrifice global economic stability to preserve its own leverage against **Washington**.

This dynamic of progressive isolation, documented by continuous coverage of the crisis since early July 2026, paradoxically illustrates a form of strategic fragility in the **IRGC**: an actor militarily strong enough to disrupt a global shipping lane, but diplomatically isolated enough that it cannot turn that leverage into a lasting political victory.

*Taking a global shipping lane hostage to gain leverage in a bilateral standoff is a show of force that costs everyone dearly except, apparently, the regime orchestrating it. This economic hostage-taking must be named for what it is, rather than treated as a simple technical point of friction between two powers.*

## Conclusion: understanding the IRGC to understand Iran

### An indispensable key for reading the rest of the conflict

At the end of this decoding, one conclusion stands out with a clarity that goes beyond the purely military frame: you cannot understand Iran's trajectory since 1979, nor the current crisis engulfing the **Strait of Hormuz** and several regional American bases, without placing the **IRGC** at the center of the analysis. It is not just another army; it is the institutional, economic, and ideological backbone of a regime that has survived wars, targeted assassinations, and accumulated sanctions for nearly half a century.

The American strikes of July 2026, the sanctions targeting **Mojtaba Khamenei**'s financial network, and the Israeli warning about a possible plot against **Trump** are all fragments of the same reality: a confrontation that consciously targets the very skeleton of Iranian power, not merely its visible military manifestations.

### Vigilance that must remain factual, not ideological

This Western vigilance toward the **IRGC**, fully justified by decades of documented conduct, must nonetheless never turn into crude simplification that would ignore the real complexity of this institution. Understanding the **IRGC** means documenting both its domestic repressive brutality, its role in regional destabilization, and its remarkable institutional resilience, without ever giving in to the temptation of an easy shortcut.

It is this requirement for factual nuance, applied to a subject this emotionally charged, that must continue to guide any serious coverage of this crisis in the weeks and months ahead, as the fate of the **Strait of Hormuz**, the nuclear negotiations, and regional stability continues to be decided, in large part, by the decisions made by this uniquely singular organization.

*I end this decoding convinced of one thing: ignoring the **IRGC**'s central role condemns you to misreading every next development in this crisis. This institution must be named for what it is, without indulgence or caricature, if we truly want to understand where **Iran** is headed.*

**By Maxime Marquette, columnist**

## Columnist's transparency note

### Editorial stance

I am not a journalist but a **columnist and analyst**. My expertise lies in observing and analysing the geopolitical, economic and strategic dynamics that shape our world. My work is to take political strategies apart, to understand global economic movements, to put the decisions of international actors in context and to offer analytical perspectives on the changes that are redefining our societies.

I do not claim the cold objectivity of traditional journalism, which stops at reporting facts. **I claim analytical clarity**, rigorous interpretation and a deep understanding of the complex issues that concern us all. My role is to give meaning to the facts, to place them in their historical and strategic context, and to offer a critical reading of events.

### Method and sources

This text keeps the basic distinction between **verified facts and interpretive analysis**. The rule never changes: a factual claim is published only when a verifiable source supports it, and the sources this article actually used are listed under **Sources**, never here.

**Primary source families** used by the publication, when the story has them: official statements from governments and international institutions, public statements by political leaders, reports from intergovernmental organisations, dispatches from recognised international news agencies.

**Secondary source families**: specialised publications, internationally recognised news media, analyses from established research institutions, reports from industry organisations.

When an article cites statistical, economic or geopolitical data, it comes from the institutions that produce it (intergovernmental organisations, central banks, national statistics offices), and the exact institution is named under **Sources**.

### Nature of the analysis

The analyses, interpretations and perspectives in the analytical sections of this article are a **critical, contextual synthesis** based on the information available, the trends observed and the expert comments cited in the sources consulted.

My role is to interpret these facts, to set them in the context of today's geopolitical and economic dynamics, and to give them a coherent meaning within the larger story of the changes shaping our time. These analyses reflect expertise built through continuous observation of international affairs and an understanding of the strategic mechanisms that drive global actors.

This article describes a documented state of affairs on its publication date, not a prediction: later developments may shift its outlook. No update is promised in advance; when an article is corrected or completed, the change is dated in the text.

## Sources

### Primary sources

- [Sanctions targeting Mojtaba Khamenei's financial network — U.S. State Department, July 10, 2026](https://www.state.gov/releases/office-of-the-spokesperson/2026/07/u-s-squeezes-irans-regime-financiers-and-shadow-banking-networks/)

- [Statement on strikes against Iran — U.S. Central Command, July 8, 2026](https://www.centcom.mil/MEDIA/PUBLIC-RELEASES/Article/4538814/us-forces-complete-another-round-of-strikes-against-iran/)

- [Israeli intelligence on an Iranian plot targeting Trump — CNN, July 9, 2026](https://www.cnn.com/2026/07/09/politics/trump-assassination-plot-iran-israel)

### Secondary sources

- [American strikes after the closure of the Strait of Hormuz — New York Post, July 12, 2026](https://nypost.com/2026/07/11/world-news/us-unloads-military-might-on-iran-after-tehran-closes-strait-of-hormuz-now-they-pay/)

- [Financial network linked to Mojtaba Khamenei sanctioned — Iran Focus, July 11, 2026](https://iranfocus.com/economy/58293-u-s-treasury-targets-khamenei-linked-financial-network/)

- [Biography and succession of Mojtaba Khamenei — Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mojtaba_Khamenei)

- [Nuclear work in violation of the memorandum — Foundation for Defense of Democracies, July 8, 2026](https://www.fdd.org/analysis/2026/07/08/iran-continues-work-at-key-nuclear-site-violating-u-s-iran-agreement/)

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Source: Maxime Marquette, MadMax. When citing, name the author and link https://mad-max.co/en/article/decoding-the-irgc-backbone-of-an-iranian-regime-under-fire