ABSTRACT
This chapter examines nationalism in the Islamic Republic of Iran following Iraq's invasion in September 1980 and during the ensuing eight years of the Iran-Iraq War. It discusses how the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) portrays the war which it often refers to as the Imposed War or the Sacred Defense in terms of the Iranian nation and a conflict between nation-states. In the wake of the Iranian Revolution of 1979, the country's new leaders worked to reshape Iran's political identity. Overall, the analysis of the war contained in many Iranian sources, like the regime's policies and prosecution of the war, is very much grounded in the international system of nation-states and in the Islamic Republic as a member of that system. The combination of nationalist, religious and revolutionary rhetoric is common in the IRGC's descriptions of the conflict, and it reflects the strategies and tactics the Revolutionary Guard used to prosecute the war.
