What’s Iran’s IRGC?

The Documentary Podcast

BBC

Society & Culture, Documentary, Personal Journals

4.3 • 2.6K Ratings

🗓️ 18 June 2025

⏱️ 26 minutes

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Summary

The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the Quds force and the Basij militias are back in the news due to the conflict between Israel and Iran. What are they, how do they operate and how have they become so influential? In this episode, we look at the origins, the branding and the ideological blueprint of the Tehran-led influence network that has been shaping events in the Middle East for decades.

This bonus episode of The Documentary, comes to you from the Global Jigsaw, Looking at the world through the lens of its media.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Iran to Iraq
0:03.7	mustaq.
0:05.5	Araq to Syria
0:06.6	muttered.
0:08.1	Souria to Lebanon
0:09.2	metaselkern.
0:11.6	Kassim Soleimani, commander of Iran's
0:13.0	Kutzfors, speaking in 2019,
0:15.8	the year before his assassination by a U.S. drone strike.
0:20.8	We have created, he says, territorial continuity for the Islamic resistance by connecting Iran,
0:28.3	Iraq, Syria and Lebanon.
0:31.8	We'll explain what this means, this concept which Iran chooses to refer to as the resistance front.
0:39.3	When we talk about resistance, primarily we're talking about a catch-all term
0:43.7	that encompasses the history of, we can say, anti-colonial struggle in the Middle East.
0:49.0	So in Arabic and Persian, it's basically the same word,
0:51.0	Muqauman, Arabic and Muqomat in Persian.
0:54.7	In this episode of the global jigsaw,
0:56.7	we'll try to deconstruct the so-called axis of resistance
1:00.2	to its origins, ideology and mechanism.
1:04.3	This program was recorded last year.
1:06.9	We've updated it and bring it to your attention now
1:09.7	as a background to the current conflict between Iran and Israel.
	...

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