How Powerful is Iran’s Revolutionary Guard?
The Inquiry
BBC
4.6 • 1.7K Ratings
🗓️ 2 November 2017
⏱️ 24 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The growth and reach of a group labelled a ‘terror force’ by President Trump. On 13 October President Trump announced new sanctions against Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corp for supporting terrorism. But what is the Revolutionary Guard and what is its role in Iran and the Middle East?
The group started as an army to protect the values of the Iranian revolution of 1979, but their role in fighting a long and brutal war with Iraq strengthened their military clout considerably. Today their forces work beyond their borders and have played a key role in the fight against so-called Islamic State. But they are no longer just an army, they run construction projects, run most of the telecommunications industry and even have a news agency. So how powerful is the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps?
Presenter: Ruth Alexander Producers: Phoebe Keane and Jo Casserly
(Photo: Iran's elite Revolutionary Guard special forces participating in military manoeuvers. Credit: Getty Images)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to the inquiry on the BBC World Service with me Ruth Alexander. |
| 0:10.0 | Each week we bring you four Alexander. |
| 0:13.3 | Each week we bring you four expert witnesses answering one pressing question from the news. |
| 0:19.3 | And this week, thanks to listener Anne Buchanan for asking us to think about why President Trump is Thanks to listen to |
| 0:23.3 | and be canon for asking us to think about why President Trump |
| 0:24.8 | is so determined that Iran is dangerous. |
| 0:28.5 | This radical regime has spread death, destruction, and chaos all around the globe. |
| 0:35.0 | The United States has announced its imposing new sanctions on Iran, |
| 0:40.0 | starting with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard call, Iran's security and military |
| 0:46.1 | organization or as President Trump sees it. |
| 0:49.8 | The Iranian Supreme Leaders, corrupt personal terror force and militia. |
| 0:57.0 | The sanctions aim to deliver a financial blow to the Revolutionary Guard |
| 1:01.0 | and send a strong message to Iran. |
| 1:04.0 | We will do what we must to keep America safe. |
| 1:10.0 | In this program we're exploring what the Revolutionary Guard is, how it came into being, |
| 1:16.0 | and what it does today. |
| 1:20.0 | Because we want to know how powerful is Iran's revolutionary guard. Part 1, a people's army. |
| 1:37.0 | In that plane, all night I was awake. |
| 1:41.0 | In that plane, all night I was awake the flight was at 12 o'clock midnight and |
| 1:48.0 | reached Tehran 9 o'clock in the morning That flight was named as victory flight. |
| 1:57.0 | On the 1st of February 1979, Ayatala-Hormini, an Iranian national hero who'd been living in exile abroad, returned to Iran to |
| 2:06.7 | claim leadership of the country. |
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