The 2003 invasion of Iraq by the U.S., U.K. and their “coalition of the willing” has significantly shaped the world we live in today – especially as regards geopolitics. Arguably, the no single regime benefited more from the aftermath of the Iraq war than the Islamic Republic of Iran. The invasion left in its wake a massive regional power vacuum that was swiftly, ably, and ruthlessly exploited by the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (Sepah Pasdaran), stretching from the southwestern banks of the Tigris river to the eastern shores of the Mediterranean. Through its elite branch, the Qods Force, the IRGC not only cultivated formidable networks of patronage and mercenaries among Shi’a communities in the region, but also set about centralizing economic and political power inside Iran. In short, the Iraq war was the single biggest catalyst for the development of a security-military-industrial complex inside Iran under the auspices of the IRGC. Although the rise of IRGC is a much discussed topic in foreign policy and think tank circles, it is both curious and revealing that it is hardly considered as a direct consequence of the Anglo-American invasion of Iraq. This paper recounts the rise of the security state in Iran through a direct examination of the imprint of the Iraq war on the regional and domestic dialectics of power that have fundamentally transformed the Islamic Republic. These transformations, the paper argues, shed glaring lights on the regime’s crises of legitimacy today.