Aziz Nasirzadeh (Persian: عزیز نصیرزاده; born 1965) is an Iranian military officer and the Minister of Defense since August 2024. He was Deputy of Chief of Staff for the Armed Forces of the Islamic Republic of Iran from September 2021 to 2024, and the commander of the Iranian Air Force from August 2018 to September 2021.^[1] He previously served as Chief of Staff of the Iranian Air Force. A veteran of the Iran-Iraq War, he is also a certified F-14 pilot. When the war ended in 1988, he graduated as an F-14 pilot where he never had the chance or the opportunity to see any combat.^[2]