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Mohammad Ali Jafari

Major General Mohammad Ali Jafari's 10-year tenure came to an end in 2016, but Khamenei renewed his mandate for another three years. Jafari began university a year before the revolution. After the revolution he volunteered to fight against the Iraqis and later joined the IRGC. While still in his 20s, he headed the Western unit at one point during the war (reportedly there were three units - Northwestern, Western, and Southern). According to press reports, Jafari was one of the 24 IRGC commanders who sent a letter to then President Khatami in 1999, threatening action if Khatami did not control the student demonstrations. According to a September 3, 2007 article in conservative Keyhan newspaper, Jafari was "active" in the US Embassy hostage-taking.

Jafari was said to be tough, a professional soldier, a war hero, a better organizer and fighter than Safavi. Jafari was seen as more moderate than Safavi and not political. Jafari, an architectural engineer by training, had long been involved in the IRGC's traditional construction projects, but was said to be opposed to IRGC's involvement in business, licit or otherwise.

Jafari began university a year before the revolution. After the revolution he volunteered to fight against the Iraqis and later joined the IRGC. While still in his 20s, he headed the Western unit at one point during the war (reportedly there were three units - Northwestern, Western, and Southern). Jafari also became the head of the Basij Islamist militia forces, and held certain theories about this institution. These theories ranged from very small matters such as whether the Basij should be a subdivision of the Revolutionary Guard's Ground Forces, concentrating all power to the Guard and thereby minimizing the independence that exists in each of the factions of the armed forces, to matters at the core of Guard's strategies and research.

In his first press conference after being appointed to the post, he emphasized the issue of an unconventional warfare and the experience of Iraq. His speech was prominently aimed at explaining the theory of "asymmetric defense". During the previous two years as Ali Larijani became the secretary general of the Supreme National Security Council, General Jafari had been in close collaboration with him on research and strategic matters such as defense, the army, Iraq, the nuclear dossier, etc.

Jafari's appointment assigned the fate of the Islamic Republic to someone with a hands-on record in combating internal dissent. Jafari had spent nearly 15 years (from 1991-92 to 2005) as commander of the IRGC land forces, and had been head of its new Strategic Center, which has focused on the US military. General Jafari said on 20 October 2007 that the "Guards' primary mission at this juncture is to fight the internal threats." This reflected a new direction for the IRGC handed down from Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei, and honed at the IRGC's Strategic Research Center, created in 2005, with Jafari at its head. Jafari's appointment suggested to some that Tehran took talk of possible US military action against Iran very seriously.

Jafari spoke to the press on 03 September 2007 and said the IRGC's role is to "expand" the deterrence capability against "the enemies of Iran and the revolution" without an exclusively military role. He said the IRGC will "hasten" to help other institutions in Iran "where necessary". Jafari added that Iran's "environmental conditions" have changed, and the IRGC needs to be flexible in facing new threats to Iran. The new commander assured reporters that the IRGC is better prepared than in the past to face these threats, and with the necessary intelligence on "enemies" and a considerable ballistic capability. He urged "the enemies" to leave the Middle East region and choose instead an "interaction" with Islamic states.

The chief of Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) said 20 January 2015 that the elite forces will continue to help the anti-Israeli axis of resistance in the Middle East region until full obliteration of the Zionist regime. “The IRGC…will continue and deepen its support for the Muslim combatants and fighters in the region until full removal of this very epitome of evil from the geopolitics of the region,” Major General Mohammad Ali Jafari said in a statement.

The statement came two days after the killing of an IRGC general in an Israeli airstrike on the occupied Golan Heights in Syria that also killed six members of the Lebanese resistance movement, Hezbollah. Jafari said the assassination of Brigadier General Mohammad Ali Allahdadi showed that "we should not distance ourselves from jihad."

On 21 April 2019 Ayatollah Ali Khamenei appointed a new chief commander for the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps, the IRGC. Jafari was appointed as the commander of its soft war (power) headquarters which was established in 2016 as a “cultural” entity within the Guards Corps. After nearly 12 years at the head of Iran’s most influential military force, Mohammad Ali Jafari will head the Hazrat Baqiatollah al-Azam Cultural and Social Headquarters. Khamenei thanked Jafari for his service to the IRGC and “introducing the Islamic revolution,” stating that in his new position he will play a role in the “second step of the revolution.”