Israeli Media: Iran Reorganizes Military and Security Hierarchy with '80s Generals

Haaretz reported evidence that Iran is rebuilding its ranks around a "veteran revolutionary security elite," according to the paper, combining professional expertise in conventional leadership, intelligence operations, asymmetric warfare, ideology enforcement, and internal repression.

The newspaper noted Iran is undergoing a restructuring of its military and security hierarchy at a time when it has suffered heavy human losses, yet this has not led to a comparable shift in its security doctrine.

In an article for the paper, Middle East and Iran analyst Erfan Fard highlighted recent transformations in Iran, emphasizing that the strategic impact of targeting leadership ultimately hinges on a more complex question: whether removing individuals leads to changes in the institutions and strategic logic that produced them.

Fard stated that changing leadership does not necessarily mean changing the system, and destroying a specific leadership level does not inevitably eliminate the institutional framework beneath it, as political systems reproduce themselves through institutions, ideologies, networks, incentives, and organizational memory.

Fard discussed recent military changes in Iran, arguing that Iranian appointments should not be viewed merely as individual career profiles, but as indicators of tasks the regime sees as most critical for its survival.

He emphasized that these recent appointments suggest Iran is currently focused on strengthening institutional cohesion; thus, the most vital institutions for ensuring survival amid external conflicts and domestic instability—namely the military command, intelligence agencies, the Revolutionary Guard, and Basij forces—are likely to gain greater political weight.

Names and Positions

Fard argued that appointing Ali Abdullahi as head of the Armed Forces General Staff reflects the importance of institutional memory; Abdullahi belongs to that revolutionary security generation that emerged alongside the founding of the Islamic Republic itself, beginning his professional career in security institutions established after the 1979 Revolution, and continuing within the newly formed Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

He considered the appointment of Kiomars Heidari as deputy head of the Armed Forces General Staff as another development: the narrowing of the conceptual gap between defending the nation and defending the regime. Heidari previously described the participation of ground forces in suppressing the November/December 2019 protests as a "source of pride," and later—using a tone conveying disdain—referred to protesters during the 2022 unrest.

The writer explained that the significance of these statements lies in the institutional position from which they were made; the Iranian regular army has long maintained an organizational identity distinct from the more ideologically explicit Revolutionary Guard. Thus, incorporating the task of maintaining internal regime stability into the professional identity of senior army leaders signals a broader evolution in the civil-military relationship in Iran.

From a political theory perspective, this development reflects a fundamental distinction between state security and regime security; the state represents a stable, enduring political and institutional system, while the regime refers to the specific structure of power governing that state. In established political systems, government survival is not synonymous with state survival.

From Fard’s viewpoint, this dynamic helps explain why Iran’s new leadership structure appears simultaneously oriented toward both external and internal challenges.

Appointing Ahmad Vahidi to lead the Iranian Revolutionary Guard reflects the external dimension; according to the author, highlighting Vahidi’s professional trajectory through intelligence work and the foreign operations unit, which later evolved into the Quds Force under the Revolutionary Guard, places his professional background at the core of Iran’s institutional history in intelligence, non-conventional warfare, and cross-border security operations.

Strategies and Conflicts

The writer clarified that the strategic importance of this experience extends beyond the individual commander; since the Iran-Iraq War, Tehran has developed methods to compensate for shortcomings in its conventional military capabilities by leveraging asymmetric capacities, according to him.

He argued that proxy networks and allies, ballistic missiles, unmanned systems, maritime pressure, intelligence operations, and unconventional warfare have enabled the Islamic Republic to threaten adversaries possessing conventional military superiority.

According to him, this strategic approach holds particular importance in confronting the United States and Israel; thus, appointing commanders whose professional paths were shaped by this security culture offers only limited evidence that targeted leadership removal has altered Tehran’s core perception of either country.

In his view, Hussein Taei’s return to lead the Basij forces reveals the domestic aspect of this strategy; Taei’s professional career included service in the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, the Intelligence Ministry, counter-espionage, and high-ranking positions within the Revolutionary Guard’s intelligence apparatus.

Taei’s appointment carries significant institutional weight, as Basij forces operate at the intersection of military organization, ideological mobilization, social penetration, surveillance activities, and internal security.

The presence of Basij forces in universities, workplaces, neighborhoods, and public institutions across Iranian society grants them a role fundamentally different from that of conventional reserve forces; they provide the regime with deep organizational roots within the social fabric.

During periods of stability, this infrastructure supports ideological mobilization and social control, while during times of unrest, it can supply intelligence, human resources, surveillance capabilities, and tools of coercion and force.

The appointment of someone with intelligence experience to lead such an organization indicates that domestic instability occupies a central place in the current regime’s assessment of risks and threats.

Thus, the emerging leadership structure can be understood as a dual-purpose security architecture: externally, Tehran needs institutions capable of deterring the United States and Israel or imposing heavy costs upon them, despite the declining effectiveness of some elements of its conventional forces and top-level command structure.

Internally, it requires organizations capable of monitoring, tracking, fragmenting, and suppressing political movements before they become existential threats. Although these tasks differ institutionally, they are increasingly converging under the regime’s security vision.

Traditional Military Dictatorship?

Fard stressed in his article that this does not mean Iran has become a traditional military dictatorship; religious institutions, civilian bureaucracies, economic networks, the regular armed forces, and political factions remain intact and operational.

He noted a paradox: Iran demonstrates institutional flexibility in replacing senior leaders, as leadership targeting has not automatically led to organizational collapse, but rather to filling vacancies and rebuilding leadership relationships.

He pointed out that this serves as a crucial warning to defense planners in the United States and Israel against equating the success of "decapitation" operations (targeting top leadership) with achieving strategic defeat of the adversary.

From his perspective, the identity of replacements reveals a potential structural weakness; nearly five decades after the revolution, Tehran still heavily relies on an aging "revolutionary-security" generation when seeking individuals with sufficient experience, ideological reliability, institutional ties, and political trustworthiness.

While the regime appears capable of renewing its leadership, it seems to draw these leaders from a relatively narrow political and professional base; thus, institutional continuity may simultaneously serve as a source of resilience and a sign of stagnation.

For the United States and Israel, the key takeaway is the need to move beyond evaluating Iranian military decline based solely on combat casualties. While the number of killed commanders, destroyed missile launch platforms, damaged facilities, and disabled units are operationally important, strategic assessment must also consider institutional reconstruction.

The author posed several questions: "Can the regime restore leadership relationships? Can it maintain intelligence networks? Can it rebuild proxy and partner capabilities? Can it preserve its internal coercive capacity? And most importantly, will the strategic doctrine guiding these institutions remain intact after the departure of those who executed it previously?"

As Fard sees it, the answer to the final question is currently "yes"; although individuals have changed, the security apparatus continues to produce leaders shaped by the same general institutional environment. The hostility toward the United States and Israel remains deeply embedded in the strategic culture of the institutions from which these leaders emerge, while the regime’s internal security agencies continue to treat political instability as a potential existential threat.

Operating on Two Fronts

The author warns against viewing the emerging Iranian regime as proof of successful regime change or evidence of failure of military pressure; it represents a more complex reality—a repressive security system adapting to attrition while simultaneously striving to preserve its core strategic logic.

Fard stated that Tehran is working to rebuild a leadership structure capable of operating on two fronts: an external front involving deterrence, asymmetric confrontation, and strategic competition, and an internal front involving surveillance, ideological control, and coercion.

The most important lesson transcends Iran’s borders; while decapitation operations may weaken an adversary, the strategic impact depends on the ability of institutions under the targeted leadership to regenerate themselves. Although eliminating leaders may create tactical and operational opportunities, changing the political and security system that continuously produces leadership alternatives represents a completely different and fundamentally distinct challenge.

The author concludes that for the United States and Israel, the implication demands serious and realistic reflection, noting that the next phase of competition with Tehran will not be determined solely by the extent of destruction to Iran’s military infrastructure, but rather by whether Iran still possesses the institutional capacity to renew, adapt, and continue imposing heavy costs abroad, while simultaneously maintaining its political grip at home.