Iran: The Basij abroad is the revolution’s third child

The Basij—a paramilitary force that developed alongside the Revolutionary Guards and against the backdrop of the Iran-Iraq War—continues to be a major symbol of the Islamic Republic. Stories of Basij members running across minefields with plastic keys to paradise dangling from their necks during the Iran-Iraq War symbolized Iran’s revolutionary fervor. Indeed, General Hossein Hamadani’s reference to the Basij as the Revolution’s third child—after presumably the Islamic Republic and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC)—attests to the continued importance of the Basij in Iranian society today.

The importance of Hamadani’s speech, however, lies in the acknowledgement that the Iranian regime is expanding the Basij model beyond Iran’s borders and into Lebanon, Syria, and Iraq. While Iranian diplomats may at times deny the level of Iranian involvement in other Middle Eastern countries—for example, claiming that young military-age Iranian males captured in Syria were religious pilgrims and not attached to the Iranian military—Hamadani’s acknowledgement of Basij involvement in Syria suggests that Iran is active in forming and utilizing ideological and religious paramilitaries and, indeed, the Basij can both form a model for sustained intervention and be a tool for Iran to export its revolution.