EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

• The US State Department has “long-standing concerns over Iran’s nuclear program, sponsorship of terrorism and human rights record.”
• Iran would likely use an adaptive hybrid threat consisting of regular, irregular, and criminal elements to defend its territorial assets and national interests.
• Iran’s military presents a threat that uses both high- and low-tech threat capabilities to challenge a potential technologically-superior adversary.
• Iran is geographically positioned on a major strategic chokepoint (Strait of Hormuz).
• Iran conducts well-organized and effective information warfare (INFOWAR) operations, sometimes in the form of military exercises that demonstrate the potential and intent to disrupt maritime operations in the Strait of Hormuz.
• Iran’s operatives continue to support groups such as Lebanese Hezbollah, Palestinian Hamas, Badr Group, and Iraqi militias.
• Iran continues to support Assad’s regime in Syria.
• “Iran’s destabilizing activities” are a continued “problem” for the US.
• The Iranian military consists of two elements: The Artesh composes the conventional military that resembles the pre-1979 force before the Islamic Revolution. The 1979 revolution created the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) that primarily protects the Islamic regime.
• The IRGC espouses an unconventional military doctrine.
• The IRGC has projected Iran’s agenda via terrorist operations in Azerbaijan, Georgia, India, and Thailand in 2012.