This is not a conspiracy theory but part of Iran’s real military strategy known as the Mosaic Defense Doctrine, which has been discussed by international sources such as Al Jazeera, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, The New York Times, The Guardian, The Wall Street Journal, and Wikipedia.
The story begins in 2003, when the United States destroyed the centralized military system of Saddam Hussein in Iraq within just three weeks. This event gave Iran’s military planners a harsh lesson: if a country’s entire military structure depends on a single central headquarters, one major strike can paralyze the whole state.
After that, Mohammad Ali Jafari spent several years at the Strategic Studies Center of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) developing a military system that could not be destroyed with a single attack.
In September 2007, when he became the commander of the IRGC, he began restructuring the entire military framework.
Iran was divided into 31 provincial military commands.
Each province effectively became an independent defensive unit.
Each command was given:
Its own headquarters
Its own command-and-control system
Missile and drone capabilities
Fast attack boat units
Basij militia forces
Weapons depots
Emergency classified orders
This system was designed so that even if the central leadership were eliminated, the defensive system would continue operating.
Defense experts call this strategy the Mosaic Defense Strategy, or a decentralized defense system.
The legal foundation for this system also comes from Constitution of Iran.
According to Article 110, the Supreme Commander of the armed forces is the Supreme Leader of Iran.
Authority over appointing or dismissing military leaders and issuing major military orders lies with this position. The president, parliament, Guardian Council, or the judiciary do not have the authority to directly command the military.
Because of this structure, Iran’s defense system is designed so that even if access to the central command is lost, local commanders can continue defending their regions using their own resources.
According to defense analysts, the goal of this model is not necessarily to win a war outright. The real objective is to make Iran impossible to defeat completely.
In other words, even if the central command were destroyed, the system itself would continue functioning.
That is why many experts compare Iran’s model to a machine that, once it starts running, becomes extremely difficult to stop.
