Kharratian has often argued that Iran must preserve what he sees as its strategic leverage in any confrontation or negotiation with Washington, including its military and nuclear capabilities, control over pressure points such as the Strait of Hormuz, the impact of oil prices and political divisions inside the United States.
His latest remarks have triggered debate across Iranian media and social networks.
Some experts interviewed by Iran International said any restructuring of the IRGC would likely amount to little more than a rebranding exercise, preserving the Guards’ power while trying to shed some of their political and economic baggage.
Others see the debate as a sign that Iran’s leadership understands the country cannot emerge from the recent war unchanged.
Proposal predates the war
The discussion is not entirely new. Shortly before the outbreak of the recent war, the moderate daily Jomhouri-e Eslami proposed merging the IRGC into the regular army, arguing that Iran’s security and economic conditions required a review of the country’s military structure.
The newspaper said such a move could create a more coherent defense system. But its argument went beyond military organization.
The article also criticized the IRGC’s growing reach outside the battlefield, including its role in the economy, politics, media and parts of diplomacy.
It said that expansion had not produced greater national power or strategic cohesion, but had instead given the IRGC the image of a controversial, factional and multifaceted institution.
Domestically, the newspaper argued, the Guards had become a source of political dispute.
Abroad, it said, their expanded role had given Iran’s adversaries a pretext for pressure, sanctions and costly decisions against Iran’s national interests.
Hardline backlash
Jomhouri-e Eslami’s proposal drew an immediate backlash from conservative media.
The hardline newspaper Kayhan described the idea as “a project to eliminate the IRGC,” comparing it to what it called US and Israeli efforts to dismantle Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Forces.
It dismissed the proposal as “not an expert discussion,” but rather a continuation of foreign projects aimed at weakening what it called the Islamic Republic’s defensive arm.
Abdollah Ganji, the former managing director of the IRGC-affiliated newspaper Javan, also denounced Jomhouri-e Eslami on X, calling it “a polluted mouthpiece.”
He wrote that raising such an idea while the country faced the threat of war was, “even if it is not evidence of enemy infiltration, evidence of catastrophically flawed understanding.”
Arguments for restructuring
Not all commentary rejected the idea. The website Eghtesad 24 argued that, given the IRGC’s designation as a terrorist organization by the United States and the European Union, some analysts viewed a merger with the regular army as a possible way to reduce legal and diplomatic pressure on Iran.
The outlet wrote that “merging the army and the IRGC could, from the perspective of reducing legal and international pressure, be worthy of consideration,” adding that such a move could reduce some of the diplomatic costs created by those designations.
It also referred to an earlier claim by IRGC commander Hassan Kazemi that the United States had demanded the dissolution of the IRGC and its integration into the regular army.
Social media reflects sharp divisions
The issue has circulated on Iranian social media for months, where hardline users have recently accused senior officials involved in negotiations, including Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf and members of President Masoud Pezeshkian’s administration, of trying to sideline revolutionary forces and even plotting a coup.
One X user wrote: “The final stage of the coup is dissolving the IRGC and merging the armed forces.”
Another said: “You’ll take the dream of dissolving the IRGC to your grave.”
A third argued that Kharratian’s remark alone was enough to show that “the coup plotters signed Iran’s destruction and partition long ago,” adding that dissolving the IRGC would mean disarming the Islamic Revolution and stripping it of legitimacy.
Others voiced a different concern. They argued that if a merger ever took place, it would not produce a more conventional national army, but would instead amount to the regular army being absorbed into the IRGC, turning the unified force into an ideological military organization.
A recurring debate
The idea of dissolving the IRGC or merging it with the regular army dates back to the early years of the Islamic Republic under Ruhollah Khomeini.
No merger took place. But in 1989, Iran merged the Ministry of Defense and the Ministry of the IRGC as part of an administrative, budgetary and logistical restructuring, while leaving the two forces institutionally separate.
The General Staff of the Armed Forces was also established to coordinate strategy, assign responsibilities and oversee the military.
Later that year, Iran’s new supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, emphasized that both the IRGC and the regular army should be preserved, and that neither should be sacrificed for the other.
Months later, he sought to settle the debate by defining the IRGC’s primary mission as defending the Islamic Revolution and the Islamic Republic, while assigning the regular army responsibility for defending Iran’s borders.
