Kasra Aarabi is director of Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) research at United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI). He specializes in Iranian military and security affairs and Shi’a extremism. Previously, he was the Iran Program lead at the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change and served as an advisor on Iran to the executive chairman, former British prime minister Sir Tony Blair. Kasra is a native Persian (Farsi) speaker and is undertaking a PhD at the University of St Andrews, where his research focuses on the IRGC. Follow him on X @KasraAarabi. Saeid Golkar is a senior fellow at the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change. He is also an assistant professor in the Department of Political Science and Public Service at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. His research focuses on international and comparative politics of authoritarian regimes, with an emphasis on the Middle East and North Africa. Golkar is an authority on the Basij militia and the IRGC, and his first book, 'Captive Society: The Basij Militia and Social Control in Post-revolutionary Iran' (Columbia University Press, 2015), was awarded the Washington Institute’s silver medal prize.