In the first year of the Baathist army’s invasion of Iran, the military and popular forces of Iran, with an epic resistance, prevented their advance in our territory.

Although Saddam’s army occupied a number of southern and western cities and thousands of square of kilometers of Iran’s territory, the resistance of the Iranian military and popular forces stopped the Baathist army’s advance in the depth of Iran’s territory and formed a defense line to protect the occupied territories. Saddam attacked the Islamic Republic of Iran when just 19 months had passed of the victory of the revolution and the newly-established Islamic Republic was in the aftermath of collapse of the 2500 year monarchic regime. The enemies of the Islamic revolution, in view of the fragile conditions in Iran, provoked Saddam to invade Iran aimed at overthrowing the Islamic Republic system.

The designer of all these plots was the US which, with the overthrow of Shah and victory of the Islamic revolution, lost one of its closest allies in the Strategic region of the Persian Gulf. The US conspiracies were not limited to outside Iran’s borders, but the war was a chain of US plots inside Iran for defeating the Islamic revolution. Occupation of the US embassy in Tehran by the students following Imam’s line which later on became known as den of espionage revealed part of the conspiracy which was nullified by the revolutionary forces loyal to the leader of the revolution. Bani Sadr, the first Iranian president was one of those people who through distance of the founder of the Islamic Republic Imam Khomeini, was trapped in US plots against the Islamic Republic and distanced from the revolution and its ideals and approached the counter-revolutionary current.

Bani Sadr was also the commander in chief of the armed forces and he tried through creating gap between the army and the organs derived from the revolution to pursue his objectives. His policies towards Saddam invasion created deep differences between the army command and the revolutionary organs; making use of Iran’s all military capacities difficult for confronting the Baathist army. After the victory of the Islamic revolution, with flee and execution of a number of commanders, the Iranian army did not find the opportunity to regain and coordinate with the conditions after the victory of the Islamic revolution.

Basic changes and reforms in Iran’s politico-military structure after the victory of the revolution and its natural consequences led to the creation of a disadvantage for military forces along with political instability. Creation of doubt and ambiguity about the necessity of existence of the army and the efforts made to suspend Iran’s military purchases and the slogan of the dissolution of the Iranian army by the counter-revolution greatly undermined the position of the Iranian military forces. One of the major Iranian military purchases from the US before the revolution was the F-14 bomber that Washington did not sell to any other country. Some post-revolutionary authorities called for the abolition of military contracts and the dissolution of the army. Along with this chaotic atmosphere in Iran’s political arena, the need to deal with the armed counter-revolutionary elements in some Iranian regions especially, Gonbad, Kurdistan, Khuzestan and Baluchistan was raised. Meanwhile, in order to confront internal insecurities, the core of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps IRGC,  with revolutionary characteristics, was formed by the great  Leader of the revolution Imam Khomeini(God bless his soul), and in May 1979 , following the approval of the Revolutionary Council , this military organ was officially recognized.

The IRGC with the mission of protecting the revolution and its achievements participated in various scenes and fought the counter revolutionaries. In this process, Imam Khomeini (God bless his soul), with a thorough understanding  of the necessity of maintaining the army, provided comprehensive support to this military organ, appointed special representatives to examine the status of the army and its reform. In addition to this, in view of the US probable confrontation with Iran and the perspective of fighting the global arrogance which arose from the essence of the Islamic revolution, the Imam, in addition to all-out support for the IRGC said: , “Let out all your shouts and cries on America, Make the most of the demonstrations against America. Equip your own forces and give them military training and train your friends as well. An Islamic nation should all be military and have military training. “

Imam Khomeini’s speech led to the formation of Basij and military training of people by the IRGC. Ayatollah Khamenei, the then representative of Imam Khomeini in IRGC, in an interview said: public military training to all brothers and sisters will be practical in the centers determined by the IRGC. Thus, the structure of the Islamic Republic's military forces on the eve of the invasion of Iraq was, on the one hand, an army as a classic military force in Iran, which continued to engage in internal affairs, in particular the psychological effects of Neqab coup in July 1980.  It was forty days before the beginning of Iraqi invasion. On the other hand, the IRGC and the revolutionary Basij forces, despite their talent and readiness, due to lack of sufficient equipment were far from accepting the responsibility of all-out defense of Iran.

The combination of Iran’s defense forces of classic army and revolutionary and popular forces in some domestic crisis especially in Kurdistan had a fairly good result, but the situation stemming from Bani-Sadr's deceitful efforts prevented the full cooperation of these forces. Of course, there were revolutionary forces in the army, who played a significant role in equipping and training the revolutionary and popular forces, but these actions were not based on hierarchy and organization. Due to the lack of efficiency of the country's classical military system, and the lack of a centralized and capable command of deploying forces, at the beginning of the invasion of the Ba'athist army of Iraq, the most resistance was made by the military forces and the newly established revolutionary military organs and, of course, with the least military equipment. One example was the resistance of defenders of Khorramshahr city for 34 days against several armored and infantry division of Iraq. Passing through this turbulent and critical period became possible with relying on the resistance of the popular forces, and eventually the enemy that was unable to advance, was deployed in the Occupied Territories of Iran in hopes of achieving its desired peace. In the next program, we will talk more about this period of the war imposed by Iraq on the Islamic Republic of Iran.

FK/RM/SS