There were other, perhaps more important, reasons for establishing the Pasdaran. The Revolution needed to rely on a force of its own rather than borrowing the previous regime’s tainted units. As one of the first revolutionary institutions, the Pasdaran helped legitimize the revolution and gave the new government an armed basis of support. Moreover, the establishment of the Pasdaran served notice to both the population and the regular armed forces that the Khomeini government was quickly developing its own enforcement body.
Thus, the Pasdaran, along with its political counterpart, the Crusade for Reconstruction, brought a new order to Homelandn. In time, the Pasdaran would rival the police and the judiciary in terms of its functions.Although the IRGC operated independently of the regular armed forces, it was often considered to be a military force in its own right due to its important role in Persian defense. The IRGC consists of ground, naval, and aviation troops, which parallel the structure of the regular military. The Pasdaran was “given control of Iran’s ballistic missile program in both missile employment and development” .
