The IRGC (Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corp) is the most important part of the military. It’s supposed to guard the revolution: put down any internal revolts or coups. But it’s also the primary arm involved in places like Syria and Lebanon.
Among the information coming out after the fall of Assad one of the most interesting bits was on internal tensions inside the IRGC. It seems that the younger members are far more radical than the older guys currently in charge of the Republic. Khameini changed recruiting to invite only and upped indoctrination to 50% of training time, and, well, it worked. The younger members are true believers. They wanted to go into Syria and save it. They want more military action against Israel and find the missile strikes inadequate and pathetic.
Iranian leadership is renowned as cautious and conservative. They move slowly and think everything thru and risk little.
But the people who keep them in power aren’t like that: they’re happy to smash heads because they are true believers.
To make things worse, Khameini is 85. He has to arrange for a transition. And if he picks someone the youngsters won’t follow, Iran’s regime will be in great danger.
I’d say that the great problem with Iran during this last year and a half has been that it has been too cautious. Caution has served Iran well, but there are times for caution and there are times when for swift and decisive action. Iran has fumbled the war. They proved their missiles forces can break through Israel’s defenses, but have barely used them. They could have taken out Israeli air defenses and airfields directly if they were willing to be involved and not just operate thru proxies. Once they did so, Hezbollah’s strikes would have been much more effective.
The youngs were chomping to go fight and so were many of the Iran supported Iraqi militias, but they didn’t allow that. Khameini has repeatedly refused to get a nuclear deterrent, and Iran needs one. All along they have let Israel, the US and Turkey hold in the initiative and choose when and where the fighting would occur, only reacting, not forcing their tempo on the enemy. The result has been the massive weakening of Hamas and Hezbollah and the loss of Syria.
The youngs are right, and the olds are wrong. Iran needs to fight because just sitting their letting its proxies be taken out makes it look weak and untrustworthy and has degraded its actual strategic situation.
The best thing for Iran would be for the generational change to happen sooner, not later. Iran has enemies and it needs to fight, because those enemies are re-shaping the Middle East to massively reduce its power.