The Death-of an Army: A Short
Analysis of the Imperial Iranian
Armed Forces
By Major General K. Perkins, CB, MBE, DFC
Director, Military Assistance Ofice, Millistry of Defence
The position of the armed forces in the events
leading to the Iranian revolution has received little
attention compared to other aspects of the c1666cle:
the absence of democracy, SAVAK, imperfections of
the Shah’s personal rule and the activities of his own
family. Yet, paradoxically, the armed forces on which
the Shah had lavished attention contributed directly
to his downfall. Their absorption of immense re-
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sources and reliance on foreign assistance provided
ammunition for the Shah’s opponents while their
demoralisation and desertion during the actual crisis
deprived him of the only power base available at that
time and signalled the end of the Pahlavi regime. The
situation in which the Iranian armed forces found
themselves needs to be properly understood if similar
occurrences, albeit on a smaller physical scale but
with equally .far-reaching political effects, are t o be
avoided in the future. The West was, after all, instru-
mental in creating the modern Iranian forces and has
similar commitments to other rdgimes which could be
equally at risk. Hence this examination of the Iranian
forces and their failure. But first, briefly, my creden-
tials.
I was fortunate enough, while commanding the
Sultan of Oman’s armed forces during the Dhofar
campaign, to have an Iranian brigade under command.
I say fortunate not only for the considerable assistance
with men and material but also for the military
interest resulting from intimate involvement with
what then seemed great potential. The brigade
rotated every three months and in all six different
brigades came under my command. I also had
dealings with the Iranian Navy and for a short while
had a frigate squadron and an assault ship under
my operational control, I saw less of the Air Force
but enough to judge their capability. My involvement
with these forces required me to make regular visits
to Iran and I became well acquainted with the Chief
of the Supreme Commander’s Staff, the Commanders
of the three Services and a number of other senior
officers. I also visited a number of training establish-
ments.
During the 1970s, the Iranian armed forces under-
went an unparalleled rate of expansion coupled with
the hurried introduction of the most modern weapons.
During the first half of the decade, the Air Force and
Navy each at least doubled in strength and acquired
a great deal of sophisticated equipment. In the same
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period, the Army was also re-equipped and, while its
strength was only marginally increased, it was un-
doubtedly affected by the diversion of resources to
the Gendarmerie, a paramilitary police force which
doubled in size. In the next five years, the Air Force
and Navy were again almost doubled while the Army
became some 80 per cent larger than it had been ten
years earlier in 1969. There is no doubt that the Shah
was fully alive to the immense problems entailed by
the programme of expansion but his overriding
considerations were national security and the develop-
ment of a modern and diversified economy while the
oil lasted. The creation of large’modern armed forces
would not only satisfy the first requirement but also
assist the second by absorbing unemployment and,
later, providing industry with technicians and skilled
labour. Western governments were keen to help
because they saw in the Shah a focus for regional
stability and a ready customer for armament indus-
tries, whose representatives thronged the Tehran
Hilton. As a result there were few, if any, restrictions
on the sale of weapons and expertise.
Other armed forces had undergone rapid expansion
yet survived the sort of political turmoil which removed
the Shah but none had been hurriedly created from
what in relation to the finished product was no more
than a cadre, and an old-fashioned one at that. It was
the simultaneous expansion and sophistication which
produced the fatal flaws.
Leadership in the Army reflected the somewhat
feudal relationship existing nationwide between land-
lords and management, on the one hand, and
peasants and workers on the other. In industry and in
the villages discipline was fierce and strikes were
forbidden by a government decree which no one
dared to challenge. Thus, the Army required blind
obedience and obtained this without undue difficulty.
However, sudden expansion had diluted the junior
leadership and resulted in a large number of young
and inexperienced conscript officers and NCOs whose
background was often much the same as their sub-
ordinates and who had but little experience to back
their authority. Although there was no longer enough
old-fashioned leadership to cope when the going
would get rough, there was no attempt to introduce
enlightened attitudes more suited to the new Army;
senior commanders were, I believe, aware of the
problem but, lacking the vigour and ideas to tackle
 it on any scale, applied palliatives in special cases.
Thus, discipline was enabled to stand the test of
operations in Dhofar where,, with only one brigade
in action, particular precautions could be taken. The
troops were well paid and logistically wanted for
nothing; their field surgical support, for example, was
as good as I have ever seen anywhere. The fact that
active service might overtax the lower level of com-
mand was acknowledged by the attachment of special
forces to each infantry company to undertake those
tasks which, although within the capability of pro-
perly led infantry, required particular initiative,
expertise, or special skills. It was difficult to probe the
thoughts of the average soldier, even through a liaison
officer who translated perfectly, as soldiers were
clearly not used to being addressed, other than
formally, by senior officers. Morale seemed adequate
although the bonds of leadership looked somewhat
fragile, judged by the apprehensive attitudes of
soldiers even when speaking with their own company
commanders in the informal environment of a slit
trench or gun pit..
I can make only a limited assessment of leadership
in the Navy as I saw only a single squadron and that,
being commanded by the Shah’s nephew, an out-
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standing officer, was no doubt not truly represen-
tative. However, leadership at all levels seemed more
healthy aff oat. Better training and experience gained
abroad (the Dartmouth connection was frequently
mentioned) no doubt accounted for much of this but
I felt the difference was due mainly to the higher
quality of officers and the confidence which existed
between them and their men. The fleet commander
was clearly far more alive to modern requirements
than his military colleagues, who were much older,
and when he later became commander of the Navy
his influence began to spread. Unfortunately when
the revolution arrived the upheaval was universal, but
within the Navy discipline did not crumble as in the
Army.
Of the three Services, the Air Force was most
vulnerable to the effects of expansion. It recruited
large numbers of men and in many cases educated
them in the process of their training. The technicians,
with a new found confidence, felt that their talents
were not fully recognised and were frustrated a t being
confined to technical duties when it seemed to them
that their education gave them the edge over many
of their superiors. The rapidly expanded Air Force
failed to provide proper leadership at the middle level
and many of its ranks, in particular its technicians,
joined the revolution.
Lessons to be learned
One lesson the West should Iearn from the Iranian
failure is that we cannot afford to ignore qualities of
leadership in those we assist or sponsor. However,
national characteristics and susceptibilities complicate
the issue and it is not simply a matter of an additional
subject in the training programme. It would not have
been consistent with the Iranian character for him
to accept that foreigners could play a part in teaching
him how to lead his own people and had any leader-
ship, bcyond the largely superficial parade ground and
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assault course variety, been included in the syllabus
it is unlikely that the Iranians would have absorbed
the instruction even if they had agreed to listen. In any
case such instruction, based on imported traditions
and characteristics, would have been of doubtful
value to an Army used only to indigenous methods.
A solution to the problem can be seen on the southern
shores of the Gulf where foreign assistance has
respected local attitudes. The forces there, although
ostensibly structured on a Western pattern, and often
with British officers in executive positions, have
successfully met modern requirements while following
Arab traditions, blending the best of both worlds.
Struggling under the strain of rapid expansion, the
armed forces were required to shoulder the additional
burden of modernisation and in the few years from the
late 1960s to the mid 1970s exchanged their World
War I1 equipment for a level of sophistication equal
to that of the United States. The effect in detail varied
between the three Services but for all the burden, in
the end, was too great.
The Army was modernised and equipped on a truly
lavish scale with equipment coming from both sides
of the Iron Curtain in such quantity and quality that
the Army became the best equipped in the world,
indeed, over-equipped. It acquired a comprehensive
inventory of modern weapons ranging through
complete families of small arms, anti-tank weapons
and mortars, to heavy artillery. It acquired as many
Chieftain tanks as the British Army. The scale and
variety of helicopter support was breath-taking; the
helicopter park at Isfahan was the largest in the world
and included all types from the heavy lift Chinook
downward. It is doubtful if any army, no matter how
well trained and experienced, could have coped with
such a comprehensive and concurrent re-equipment
even had it been merely moving from one generation
of weapons to the next and thus familiar in principle
with its new equipment. Not surprisingly the wide
scale issue in Iran of the most modern equipment,
in some cases jumping a generation, to troops who
could barely manage some existing weapons was more
than the system could bear. Despite a massive influx
of foreign instructors and technicians, equipment was
operated indifferently and poorly maintained, a
situation never fully revealed at the highest levels due
to moral reliance lower down on the Persian proverb,
“Better the lie that gladdens the heart than the truth
which saddens it”. The higher levels no doubt made
allowance for this, for they too indulged in similar
practice among themselves, but it is no way to conduct
staff work.
More seriously the problem of managing this new
equipment detracted seriously from basic training and
led incvitably to an attitude that sheer weight and
variety of equipment was the only practical solution
to all problems. This was nowhere more apparent
than during the Dhofar campaign, notwithstanding
special preliminary training for that particular
environment, where a vast quantity of ammunition
was expended as a substitute for other tactical ploys
although it could not possibly hope to achieve the
same objectives. Similar attitudes applied in the Air
Force which was equipped with the latest black boxes
and smart weapons. The latter became the standard
 counter to almost any threat and on a number of
occasions it was only after reconnaissance flights as a
passenger that middle-ranking. Air Force officers
could be persuaded otherwise. The air transport force
provided effective support but more through the use
of massive resources than maximum utilisation.
It seemed that of the three Services the Navy coped
best, but that judgment is based on experience of a
single frigate squadron which was almost certainly
well above their average. These ships were manned
entirely by Iranians, unlike other naval units in which,
I was told, there was considerable expatriate assistance
both afloat and ashore. The squadron with which I was
involved performed very effectively in an amphibious
operation with no prior rehearsals but there was,
again, a tendency to apply massive resources and I
recall, for example, over 1000 4.5 in. rounds being
expended during a battalion assault in addition to the
usual support from artillery, mortars and helicopter
gunships.
The immense resources and large numbers of
Western personnel involved in the equipment pro-
grammes were said, by critics of the Shah’s regime,
to be grossly inimical to Iranian interests. The Shah
was aware of the danger and constantly stressed the
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need for an ‘‘Iranian solution”, by which he mcant the
achievement of Western efficiency through Iranian
methods and culture, an ideal probably unobtainable
even in the most favourable circumstances. In the
conditions obtaining in the armed forces at that time,
with leadership already diluted, the result was the
worst of both worlds: Western methods frustrated by
the Persian proverb previously quoted. The critics,
who focused on what was called ?Vestern corruption,
could possibly have been neutralised had the armed
forces proved sufficiently confident and reliable to
complement the political flexibility which the Shah
Guard of Honour representing Iranian troops in action in Oman being inspected by HM Sultan Qaboos of Oman.
eventually introduced. However, the massive re-
equipment had undermined basic training to such an
extent that the forces were completely inflexible and
quite unsuited to internal security in a modern context.
For reasons already explained the Army relied solely
upon massive force, even firing tank main armaments
into rioting crowds. This only exacerbated the situ-
ation and as a result troops became demoralised,
junior leaders were unable to sustain discipline and
the Army virtually disintegrated.
The lesson the West must draw from this is clear:
we must resist the temptation to over-equip those
friendly regimes whose security is synonymous with
regional stability in various parts of the world. It will
not be easy. It is often difficult to convince a ruler that
he does not require particular weapons and that some-
thing less sophisticated would be adequate and
preferable. Persuasion and considerable tact will be
needed to overcome local desire to acquire only the
latest weapons and to guide rulers away from what is,
for the moment, technically too far beyond their
capabilities. Yet clients must be satisfied as otherwise,
when they turn elsewhere for equipment, Western
influence is diminished.
In conclusion, the West should have seen the
hazards ahead. Political opposition to so autocratic
a regime was inevitable but perhaps we thought it
containable by military power, at least until economic
development had defused the threat. What was not
recognised was that simultaneous expansion and
sopliistication rendered the military power impotent.
At best military power can only complement a
political process. At worst, as in Iran, it can become
an irritant by its mere presence and inflame a situation
by an over-heavy hand. In future where the West is
involved in military assistance our clients must be
better guided.
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