The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) was founded as an ideological custodian of Iran’s 1979 revolution. Charged with defending the Islamic Republic against internal and external threats, the corps has gained an outsized role in executing Iran’s foreign policy and wields control over vast segments of the economy. The IRGC’s ties to nonstate armed groups in the region, such as Hezbollah in Lebanon, help Iran compensate for its relatively weak conventional military forces. Answering the supreme leader directly, the corps is also influential in domestic politics, and many senior officials have passed through its ranks.
The IRGC was included on the “Foreign Terrorist Organizations” list of the United States in 2019. It was one of the sanctions imposed by then-President Donald Trump as part of his “maximum pressure” strategy after he pulled the United States out of the Iran nuclear deal, which restricted Iran's nuclear activities in return for sanctions relief.