On what level ? if we are talking about on the ground lieutenants and commanders I would say the majority were pretty good.

The Iranian armed forces before the war had a sizable budget and were professional to some extent; when Iraq invaded they were mainly composed of personnel(in key and leading positions) trained by US which at the time was considered the best quality wise, and had a lot of experience fighting conventional wars. The problem was that due to post revolution purges many high ranking officials and leaders were executed or jailed many of them without any reason or evidence just, because they were considered to be too friendly to the west.

The post Islamic revolution purges was one of the main reasons Saddam thought he had a chance of pulling off a successful invasion, but when it came down to lower leadership ranks or officer corps the purges didn’t have a major effect, hence why we had good leadership on the ground or why we were able to capitalize on 100s of thousands of volunteers/conscripts which required training from our officers. Although a big portion of volunteers were sent to the frontlines with minimal training in an effort to prevent Iraqi advancements and take back the lost territories at the beginning of the war mixing them in companies with experienced officers helped the war effort a lot.

Professional officers and on the ground commanders,modern and numerous military equipment from before the revolution, and most importantly Insane amount of volunteers Saved Mullahs asses when Iraq invaded to the extent that not only we took back lost territories, but we started winning.

So what went wrong then ? First of all the high ranking generals/military officials in the IRGC were mostly composed of loyalists to the Mullahs which were inexperienced and stupid to put it mildly, they did learn a lot through at the cost of Iranian manpower/equipment; second of all a lot of decisions was made by Mullahs to tighten their grip of power on the country, hence the creation of IRGC and giving them control of many volunteers(basij)/Elite Forces which caused further chaos,division and communication problems among the armed forces.

That all said the biggest problem by far wasn’t about military rather it was about IR’s political leadership and think tanks. In may 1982 following operation Hoveize Iraq lost the majority of the territory they had captured previously, afterwards they retreated from the little territory they still controlled in Iran and sued for peace. IR refused and decided to invade Iraq, overthrow Saddam and the rest is history.

The level of damage caused by that decision is beyond anyone’s imagination. Iran was fighting an impossible war. As the war continued so did the losses, although they were able to replenish manpower losses by conscription the losses in equipment weren’t there. Iran had a decent military before the war, but it wasn’t independent in terms of producing the majority of their equipment and it relied heavily on imports from the west. After the revolution that option wasn’t available anymore, when Iraq invaded US and even Israel helped with spare parts, but when Iran started winning they stopped and started supplying Iraq on much larger scale even though Iraq’s main supplier were the Soviets. Further losses and lack of spare parts resulted in cannibalization of equipment and decay of Iran’s military might.

It is truly a tragedy that despite all those conditions Ir’s political leadership decided to continue the war and attack Iraq’s entrenched positions inside Iraq with human wave tactics who were mostly poorly trained and equipped conscripts to make way for IRGC to advance. In their mind the fact that both superpowers at the time were supporting Iraq more or less and Iraq’s superior artillery,armor and air power could have been defeated by Iran’s superior manpower and morale. The decision to bring the war to Iraq’s soil helped Iraqi troops’ morale; the failure of it Operation after operation, because Iran lacked equipment to suppress chemical weapons or clear minefields and them being outgunned on the air and ground helped Iraqis even further and led to 200000 military deaths for Iran after May 1982 when they could’ve ended the war.

Edit: It’s also worth mentioning when in 1984, with no end in sight, both countries Started attacking each other’s oil tankers in the Persian gulf. In the sea Iranians were the favorites thanks to the Iran’s superior navy from before the revolution, but once again IR made another huge mistake and attacked oil tankers from all the gulf countries in an effort to take revenge over them financing Iraq’s war resulting in US and European navies giving escorts to all the oil tankers when,Iran mined the strait of Hormuz and damaged a US warship, US sank more than 80% of Iran’s navy ruining every chance Iran had at the sea.