In 1942, H. Norman Schwarzkopf Sr., chief of the New Jersey State Police, was sent to Iran to help to remake the gendarmerie “in the mold of the New Jersey State Police.” Schwarzkopf, whose son would lead American forces in 1991’s Operation Desert Storm, was credited with remaking the gendarmerie into an effective counterinsurgency force that put down tribal rebellions in Kurdistan and Iranian Azerbaijan.
