LEILA FADEL, HOST:
Hours after the U.S. and Israel launched their war against Iran, an Israeli airstrike killed Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. The Islamic Republic has carried on without him, largely because of its Revolutionary Guard Corps. NPR's Arezou Rezvani is traveling with me here in Iraq and filed this report.
AREZOU REZVANI, BYLINE: When President Trump declared war on Iran, he took a moment to directly address one group in particular.
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PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: To the members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard, the armed forces and all of the police, I say tonight that you must lay down your weapons and have complete immunity or, in the alternative, face certain death.
REZVANI: There's still no sign that members of the guard will heed that call. They've launched retaliatory strikes, hitting military bases, embassies and hotels across the region, even though the U.S. and Israel have wiped out many of the Guard's military installations and assets.
ALI ALFONEH: I am not at all surprised to see the degree of resilience that this organization has shown.
REZVANI: Ali Alfoneh is a senior fellow at the Arab Gulf Institute in Washington. He's one of the foremost scholars of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, or the IRGC. He believes the U.S. and Israel miscalculated the group's strength and didn't fully appreciate its structure. It's highly decentralized. Every province has its own IRGC chief. That's enabled the group to keep up the fight even as the U.S. and Israel have picked off leaders.
ALFONEH: And this is why the assassination of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei did not lead to collapse of the regime. This regime is built to last. It has endured war, it has endured assassinations and it is brutal. It does not hesitate massacring the domestic opposition when it feels that its existence - it has risk.
REZVANI: The IRGC is estimated to have roughly 150,000 members. It's mostly comprised of lower-middle-class Iranians. The rank-and-file are paid somewhere around $300 a month, which is pretty good given Iran's crumbling economy. The organization and its leadership have amassed great wealth over the years. It controls several key economic sectors, from oil to construction to energy and telecommunications.
ALFONEH: It has become this business conglomerate outcompeting the private sector and hoarding a great wealth, which many Iranians find the prime example of corruption in the Islamic Republic.
REZVANI: Ahmad Vahidi is now the head of the Revolutionary Guard. His predecessor was killed in the same Israeli airstrike that took out Supreme Leader Khamenei. The previous chief was also assassinated by Israel in last June's 12-day war against Iran. Even though it's endured, the organization is more vulnerable than ever now that the U.S. is striking more than just its leaders, says Iran specialist Afshon Ostovar.
AFSHON OSTOVAR: They really have no air defense anymore. And what that means is that the United States and Israel can basically have planes and drones hovering over Iran as much as they want to drop bombs and drop strikes. So this makes it very difficult for Iran to conduct the type of war that they'd like to conduct.
REZVANI: Despite being badly battered on the military front, analysts still don't expect the Revolutionary Guard to put down their arms and surrender. They believe the group is actually committed to the opposite strategy. Here again is Ali Alfoneh.
ALFONEH: So what I see is the Revolutionary Guard's attempt at prolonging the war, at making the war a regional war and making it an expensive war for the United States by trying to impact the price of oil in the global markets. These are the only means that the Revolutionary Guard can engage in meaningful negotiations with President Trump, not by disarming itself and capitulating.
REZVANI: To that point, the Revolutionary Guard released a video this week. Guard spokesman Ebrahim Zolfaghari dangled a threat.
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EBRAHIM ZOLFAGHARI: (Non-English language spoken).
REZVANI: "If the Americans can afford the price of oil to soar at $200 per barrel," he says, "let them keep playing these games."
Arezou Rezvani, NPR News, Erbil in the Kurdistan region of Iraq. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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