Irainian Armed Forces Reliable?

Some interesting speculation about the reliability of the Iranian Armed Forces from bubblehead at The Stupid Shall Be Punished. This little aside was initiated by a look at Iranian minisubs (he has some neat pictures)

My experience with the Iranian military is fairly limited -- two deployments to the Gulf. Still, from what I've read, and from my discussions with "allied" officers at the Coalition Village at CENTCOM, I've come to the conclusion that, if the radicals in charge of Iran ever pick a fight with the U.S., we're likely to see fighting between the regular Iranian military and the Revolutionary Guard break out. The Revolutionary Guard are the ones who "believe hard" -- you really can't reason with them. The regular Iranian military, though, seems to be more level-headed, and knows that Allah won't be all that's needed to protect their country against infidel bombing. Like all professional warriors, they don't want to die for nothing. I have no data here -- it's just a feeling.

This is a continuation of a discussion that I participated in over the last few days.

Iran like many dictatorships may be a house of cards.