The Iranian state system is a truly unique creature, having maintained both twin heads of fierce personality-based theocracy and experienced institutionalized technocracy. In merging these two normally exclusive traits, it has created a chimeric contradiction, which has allowed it to command the monstrous tools of regional pan-Shiite militia and fervent warrior jihadists with the expertise, strategy and precision of Western-educated technocrats. Yet, balancing these two radically different systems has become increasingly difficult as Iran faces the twin spectres of War and Pestilence, and its technocratic-theocratic system has gradually shifted from cohesive machine to self-cannibalizing abomination. This essay shall examine both sides of the Iranian state, before examining why and how the balance between them has eroded.

Eternal Empire

Iran possesses remarkable geopolitical and socioeconomic long-term assets that have guaranteed it a seat at the high table of regional politics for at least the past millennium. In its heartland, it controls abundant fertile lands that have fostered substantial populations and population centres which rival and often exceed those of its Arab and Central Asian neighbours. With highly defensible terrain such as the Zagros mountains shielding its heartland, it has been largely protected from foreign invaders, be they Roman Caesars or Saddam Hussein (or even US invasion plans).

These are the traits that allowed the Achaemenids, Sassanian, Safavid and many more Iranian dynasties to dominate the region. They are also the traits that allowed the Persian-Iranian nation to persist under foreign dynasties such as the Mongol Ilkhanate and Hellenistic Sassanids, occasionally even converting them to conform with local political structures and cultures. Most importantly, they are traits that have allowed Iran to perpetuate and foster even more key geopolitical and socio-economic long-term assets such as a large, relatively well-educated population (by regional standards) of 81.16 million with a 85.54% literacy rate and a strong, professionalized bureaucracy with an emphasis on experience and academic credentials. This has been evident from the very top – Iran’s recent Presidential Cabinets often possess far more foreign PhDs and overall government experience than most Western countries such as France, Germany and Italy. These include Foreign Minister Javad Zarif, who earned his BA, 2 MAs and PhD in International Relations from San Francisco State University and the University of Denver and has been in the Foreign Ministry since 2001, as well as Presidential Chief of Staff Mahmoud Vaezi, who earned his BS and MS in Electrical Engineering from Sacramento State University and San Jose State University, a MA and PhD in International Relations from Iran and Poland respectively, and has experience in the Telecommunications and Foreign Ministries since 1980. 

This indicates a large degree of highly competent, secular and strategic institutional memory within the Iranian state, which likely contributed to Iran’s present substantially realist approach to strategy, seen in its structured, clearly signalled and largely transparent regular withdrawals from the Iran Nuclear Deal. In this withdrawal, deadlines to save the Iran nuclear deal were clearly set 60 days apart, with systematic, verifiable and reversible steps to withdraw from deal obligations when each deadline passed without demands met. While this process ultimately failed to save the deal, it still proved to be about the best approach Iran could take. This is because the consistent and structured signalling ultimately helped contain regional tensions from a potential nuclear escalatory disaster should signalling have failed and actors like Israel (compelled to launch preemptive strikes under the Begin Doctrine) over-perceived or under-perceived Iranian threat.

Revolutionary Invention

While modern Iran has inherited a vast and competent bureaucracy from its predecessors, it is important to note that the Islamic Republic of today has attempted an even more ambitious nation-state experiment from the early days of the Islamic Revolution. Distrustful of the old establishment technocracy that flourished under the Qajar and Pahlavi dynasties but unwilling to forgo the totality of expertise brought forth by this technocracy, it attempted to force additional theocratic layers on top of pre-existing secular institutions. On top of its civilian government, it constructed an empowered clergy led by the Supreme Leader with comprehensive executive powers. On top of its traditional conventional military, the Artesh, it installed the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC, or simply Revolutionary Guard) to take responsibility for regional expeditionary missions and signature capabilities (such as missions in Syria and Iraq and missile forces) and the Basij paramilitary to account for internal security.

In addition to transferring power from potentially unreliable institutions, this shift also unlocked several new capabilities for the Iranian state. Through setting emphasis on Shiite Jihad in its Islamic Revolution and specifically the IRGC, it became far more able to build webs of patronage and chains of command and control with Shiite militia and political forces across the Arab world who were often either forgotten or oppressed by their Sunni countrymen, such the Popular Mobilization Forces in Iraq and Hezbollah in Lebanon. The revolutionary message of the IRGC also soon proved capable of raising fervent warrior jihadists to defend Iran in times of urgent crisis, such as in the Iraq-Iran war. 

Thus far, Iran has kept its house in order through common anti-American struggle. Hard-boiled realist technocrats, even those with great sympathies for the United States, have accepted that the Iranian struggle to preserve national interests in spite of US and Israeli opposition requires unity, and have been willing acquiesce to theocratic command.

The Balance Breaks

However, in this relationship, cracks have nonetheless emerged. Technocrats concerned with realist indicators and objectives have been frustrated with competing objectives from the theocrats, a sentiment shared by theocrats suspicious of the lack of technocratic commitment to the Islamic Revolution.

This is perhaps most evident within the economy of Iran, where the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps control vast swathes of industry, estimated to comprise a third to the total Iranian economy. Initially constructed through contracts to rebuild infrastructure following the calamitous Iraq-Iran war, the Revolutionary Guard’s economic empire stretches across manufacturing, banking and shipping, as well as large portions of the black market (a feature that has actually allowed the IRGC to be strengthened by some US sanctions). Ultimately, this has produced many problems, as the IRGC possesses neither the training or interest for the kind of long-term economic planning that a state body in charge of so much industry typically needs, resulting in severe mismanagement and corruption issues which have long been a severe grievance of more traditional technocrats. These grievances escalated into particularly heated near-public spats in 2016 and 2017 and do not appear to have been resolved to any extent. Other smaller squabbles, such as those between IRGC Intelligence and the Ministry for Intelligence have also emerged as the Iranian state has slowly trudged towards more fragmentation. 

These differences were also particularly inflamed by recent developments around Iran’s COVID-19 response, wherein ideological and political objectives issued by the clergy and enforced by the IRGC frequently came into conflict with healthcare prerogatives from civilian technocrats. This could be seen when in the earlier stages of the crisis in February, the clergy (including a surrogate for Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei) vetoed requests from the Health Ministry to close Qom’s (a holy city heavily affected by the infection) religious landmarks, claiming that any restrictions would play into American narratives of Iranian collapse. These points of friction between technocratic and theocratic elements again appeared in March, when the clergy and the IRGC countermanded and withdrew permissions for French doctors sent by Doctors without Borders to operate (for reference, even paranoid North Korea granted permissions to Doctors without Borders), which had previously been granted by the Iranian Health Ministry, followed by a vicious media campaign of criticism against the Health Ministry for issuing the permissions in the first place.

With such significant failures and areas of actual inter-Ministry friction, the partnership between technocratic and theocratic factions has become ever more hollow, as cooperation has turned into competition and bureaucratic self-cannibalization. 

Foreign Failures

Yet, the greatest stress for Iran’s technocratic-theocratic balance could come from a lack of consistent success abroad. After all, theocratic factions predicated a large part of their strategic utility raison d’être on their ability to influence international dynamics through using the rhetoric of common Shiite struggle to win state and non-state allies. However, this has been proven to be by no means a set rule. In Syria, the Assad regime’s alliance with Iranian proxy Hezbollah has shown itself to have been an arrangement of material survival rather than sectarian affinity and Syria has been highly resistant towards any idea of reciprocating past Iranian aid as it slowly stabilizes and consolidates its final victories in the civil war. Assad has even shown interest in contesting Iranian influence in neighbouring Lebanon and Iraq, supporting more secular parties and forces against Iranian-backed Islamists. This has been in addition to attempts to forge new partnerships with Bahrain and the UAE (two of Iran’s sworn enemies). Even some of Iran’s most loyal proxies have shown themselves less reliable than previously thought – some of its treasured Iraqi Shiite allies such as religious leader Muqtada al-Sadr have begun splitting away, finding renewed narratives of Iraqi nationalism more attractive (and politically exploitable) than tired tales of pan-Shiite unity. As more supposed allies slowly show themselves less driven by religious narratives, the IRGC and the clergy appear increasingly irrelevant.

Death by a thousand Micro-pressures

While increasing infighting between these two titans of Iranian politics has definitely weakened its state apparatus, the coup de grace that finishes it off might come from more minor factions outside the Iranian state, normally politically insignificant in good times but ever more empowered in periods of stress. Significantly, it is faced with a substantial Green Movement – a nonviolent anti-regime movement with a broad support base across young, ambitious students, the bitter and disenfranchised poor, as well as women, activists and political organizers. While the Green Movement was previously violently crushed in 2009 following some protests, such measures have ultimately proven unable to stem the movement’s morale, resulting in more outbreaks of protests in 2019 and early 2020. It is likely that protests will continue once COVID-19 related social gathering fears have passed, particularly with regard to the government’s poor handling of the crisis.

In addition, Kurdish nationalism might prove a pivotal role in accelerating and worsening any symptoms of Iranian state collapse. While more enfranchised than their brethren across the Near East, Iranian Kurds have still maintained nationalistic sentiments. These have been particularly incensed in recent times as many have been inspired by the significant, if rather fleeting, successes of Iraqi and Syrian Kurdish forces in establishing autonomous self-governing regions with strong security forces capable of fighting off ISIS invasion. Whether it be through Kurdish uprising or through overaggressive Iranian preemptive action, Iranian Kurdistan could prove to be a security hotspot likely to explode once the Iranian state starts showing weakness.

Policy Implications

If one is to recognize this Technocratic-Theocratic split as a key feature and weakness of the Iranian state, a whole new menu of approaches and strategies towards dealing with Iran becomes clear. Any attempt to weaken Iran would be wise to sow the seeds of animosity between technocratic and theocratic factions, such as through taking complex and nuanced sanctions and aid strategies which benefit certain factions whilst punishing others. Through sparking cycles of distrust and increasing interdepartmental friction (such as forcing the IRGC to launder foreign funds through the Artesh), power dynamics can be sent into flux and the stage can be set for, if not an outright palace coup, then interdepartmental power struggle or even a web of many interpersonal feuds and resultant micro-inefficiencies. 

Even if the regime could successfully survive an internal struggle and purge out its technocrats, this could in itself be a substantial boost in Iranian containment strategies. Without its strong technocratic bureaucratic core, the Iranian state would be left only with the layers of theocracy previously plastered above and would be far more structurally brittle and vulnerable to domestic and foreign pressures.  For instance, without strong institutions with institutional memories and cultures built by faceless techno-bureaucrats, Iran would likely become far more reliant on key charismatic figures, such as its ageing Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and the late IRGC commander Qassem Soleimani, who proved how easily the US could assassinate key Iranian personnel if it really committed itself to such a mission. It would also lack clear signalling and strategic processes void of religious and ideological distraction and bluster, and hence would be far less effective. Perhaps most importantly, it would lack long-term planning skills critical for economic and health planning.

It could certainly be a more dangerous and unpredictable foe in the short term but ultimately would shrink in power and prime itself for Soviet-style collapse in the long term.

Conclusion

Iran possesses a remarkable and unique political system with exquisite capabilities. In dealing with such a state, it pays to engage in critical study of its special weaknesses and flaws and formulate strategy based on such concerted study. Such an approach would be far more effective than conventional blunt instruments like overarching sanctions and maximum pressure campaigns which tend to unify feuding factions rather than accelerate fragmentation.

Further Reading

Abdo, Geneive. “Iran’s Battle Over Khamenei’s Successor Is Just Getting Started.” The National Interest. The Center for the National Interest, February 4, 2019. https://nationalinterest.org/feature/irans-battle-over-khameneis-successor-just-getting-started-43252
Alam, Kamal. “The Syrians Don’t and Won’t Toe the Iranian Line: Explaining a Most Curious Alliance.” War on the Rocks, April 24, 2019. https://warontherocks.com/2019/04/the-syrians-dont-and-wont-toe-the-iranian-line-explaining-a-most-curious-alliance/
Alemzadeh, Maryam. “Ordinary Brother, Exceptional General.” Foreign Affairs. Foreign Affairs Magazine, January 15, 2020. https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/iran/2020-01-15/ordinary-brother-exceptional-general
Alfoneh, Ali. “Eternal Rivals? The Artesh and the IRGC.” Middle East Institute, November 15, 2011. https://www.mei.edu/publications/eternal-rivals-artesh-and-irgc
Axe, David. “Wrong: Why Iran Won’t Get High-Tech New Destroyer Anytime Soon.” The National Interest. The Center for the National Interest, March 12, 2020. https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/wrong-why-iran-wont-get-high-tech-new-destroyer-anytime-soon-132327
Behravesh, Maysam. “The Ayatollah’s Den of Espionage.” Foreign Affairs. Foreign Affairs Magazine, November 12, 2019. https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/iran/2019-11-12/ayatollahs-den-espionage
Benjamin, Daniel, and Steven Simon. “America’s Great Satan.” Foreign Affairs. Foreign Affairs Magazine, 2019. https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/middle-east/2019-10-15/americas-great-satan
Berman, Ilan. “How The Revolutionary Guards Could Reshape Iran.” The National Interest. The Center for the National Interest, February 24, 2020. https://nationalinterest.org/blog/middle-east-watch/how-revolutionary-guards-could-reshape-iran-126592
Brodsky, Jason. “Iran Prepares for Political Upheaval Amid a Coronavirus Scare.” The National Interest. The Center for the National Interest, March 13, 2020. https://nationalinterest.org/blog/middle-east-watch/iran-prepares-political-upheaval-amid-coronavirus-scare-133162
Cordesman, Anthony H. “Iran and the Changing Military Balance in the Gulf – Net Assessment Indicators.” Center for Strategic and International Studies, March 26, 2020. https://www.csis.org/analysis/iran-and-changing-military-balance-gulf-net-assessment-indicators
Cordesman, Anthony H. “The Gulf and Iran’s Capabilities for Asymmetric Warfare.” Center for Strategic and International Studies, January 13, 2020. https://www.csis.org/analysis/gulf-and-irans-capabilities-asymmetric-warfare
Golkar, Saeid. “Knuckling Down Under Maximum Pressure: Iran’s Basij in Transition.” War on the Rocks, July 10, 2019. https://warontherocks.com/2019/07/knuckling-down-under-maximum-pressure-irans-basij-in-transition/
Golkar, Saeid. “Knuckling Down Under Maximum Pressure: Iran’s Basij in Transition.” War on the Rocks, July 10, 2019. https://warontherocks.com/2019/07/knuckling-down-under-maximum-pressure-irans-basij-in-transition/
Kadivar, Mohammad Ali, Saber Khani, and Abolfazl Sotoudeh. “Iran’s Protests Are Not Just About Gas Prices.” Foreign Affairs. Foreign Affairs Magazine, December 4, 2019. https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/iran/2019-12-04/irans-protests-are-not-just-about-gas-prices
Memarian, Omid. “Iran’s Green Movement Never Went Away.” Foreign Affairs. Foreign Affairs Magazine, June 14, 2019. https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/iran/2019-06-14/irans-green-movement-never-went-away
Nasr, Vali. “Iran Among the Ruins.” Foreign Affairs. Foreign Affairs Magazine, 2019. https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/middle-east/2018-02-13/iran-among-ruins
Ostovar, Afshon, and Ariane M. Tabatabai. “Iran, the Unitary State.” Foreign Affairs. Foreign Affairs Magazine, October 18, 2019. https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/middle-east/2019-10-18/iran-unitary-state
Rome, Henry. “Iran Is Doing Just Fine.” Foreign Affairs. Foreign Affairs Magazine, November 5, 2019. https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/iran/2019-11-05/iran-doing-just-fine
Rome, Henry. “Why Iran Waits.” Foreign Affairs. Foreign Affairs Magazine, January 10, 2019. https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/iran/2019-01-10/why-iran-waits
Salehi-Isfahani, Djavad. “The Coronavirus Is Iran’s Perfect Storm.” Foreign Affairs. Foreign Affairs Magazine, March 18, 2020. https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/iran/2020-03-18/coronavirus-irans-perfect-storm
Schramm, Madison, and Ariane M. Tabatabai. “Why Regime Change in Iran Wouldn’t Work.” Foreign Affairs. Foreign Affairs Magazine, July 20, 2017. https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/persian-gulf/2017-07-20/why-regime-change-iran-wouldnt-work
Tabatabai, Ariane M. “Iran and the Kurds.” Foreign Affairs. Foreign Affairs Magazine, September 26, 2017. https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/iran/2017-09-26/iran-and-kurds
Vatanka, Alex, Sanam Vakil, and Hossein Rassam. “How Deep Is Iran’s State?” Foreign Affairs. Foreign Affairs Magazine, 2017. https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/iran/2017-06-13/how-deep-irans-state
Vatanka, Alex. “Iraq’s Shiites Test Iran.” Foreign Affairs. Foreign Affairs Magazine, August 14, 2017. https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/iran/2017-08-14/iraqs-shiites-test-iran
Vatanka, Alex. “Why Iran’s Protesters Are So Angry With Rouhani.” Foreign Affairs. Foreign Affairs Magazine, January 8, 2018. https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/iran/2018-01-08/why-irans-protesters-are-so-angry-rouhani
Von Rennenkampff, Marik. “The Reaganesque Approach to Iran? Embrace the Moderates.” War on the Rocks, June 6, 2019. https://warontherocks.com/2019/06/the-reaganesque-approach-to-iran-embrace-the-moderates/