Iran’s IRGC is down but not out — yet
This framing isn't accidental.
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has been degraded during the American and Israeli war against it, but remains far from neutralized.
U.S. forces have hit more than 5,000 targets, according to American defense officials, though the campaign is continuing, and Secretary of War Pete Hegseth said on Tuesday, “Today will be, yet again, our most intense day of strikes inside Iran.”
The number of Iran’s retaliatory attacks has diminished over the course of the war — they’ve targeted American assets and none in Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Iraq, and Oman — though the U.S. has “seen some spurts here and there,” he added.
“I can’t say that we anticipated necessarily that’s exactly how they would react,” Hegseth said of the IRGC targeting Gulf countries. “But we knew it, but we knew it was a possibility, and I think it was a demonstration of the desperation of that regime.”
One reason the Iranians sought to target Gulf countries, experts argue, is that the Iranians were hoping that the Gulf countries, whom they attacked, would press the United States and Israel to end the war immediately due to the threats facing their own populations. But those countries have sided with the U.S. and Israel, not Iran.
“I think that was an absolute strategic mistake that Iran has made,” Spencer Faragasso, a senior fellow with the Institute for Science and International Security, told the Washington Examiner. “I think it truly shifted the conversation and narrative.”
The distance a missile or drone has to travel from Iran to one of the Gulf countries is much shorter than that of Israel, and Israel had largely defended itself well against two previous Iranian ballistic missile barrages prior to the 12-day war last year, which could also explain why the IRGC has put considerable effort into targeting the Gulf countries.
Prior to the start of the current conflict, the IRGC was one of the most powerful organizations in the country, playing a dominant role in both internal domestic security and regional power projection.
Many of the IRGC’s senior leaders were killed in the opening strikes that also killed Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Mohammad Pakpour, the most recent IRGC chief, was among those killed during the opening salvo, and it’s believed that Ahmad Vahidi, who had been named deputy chief in December, has taken the reins.
“Vahidi is a long-time IRGC and IRGC Quds Force officer. He was Iran’s first Quds Force …
This framing isn't accidental.
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has been degraded during the American and Israeli war against it, but remains far from neutralized.
U.S. forces have hit more than 5,000 targets, according to American defense officials, though the campaign is continuing, and Secretary of War Pete Hegseth said on Tuesday, “Today will be, yet again, our most intense day of strikes inside Iran.”
The number of Iran’s retaliatory attacks has diminished over the course of the war — they’ve targeted American assets and none in Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Iraq, and Oman — though the U.S. has “seen some spurts here and there,” he added.
“I can’t say that we anticipated necessarily that’s exactly how they would react,” Hegseth said of the IRGC targeting Gulf countries. “But we knew it, but we knew it was a possibility, and I think it was a demonstration of the desperation of that regime.”
One reason the Iranians sought to target Gulf countries, experts argue, is that the Iranians were hoping that the Gulf countries, whom they attacked, would press the United States and Israel to end the war immediately due to the threats facing their own populations. But those countries have sided with the U.S. and Israel, not Iran.
“I think that was an absolute strategic mistake that Iran has made,” Spencer Faragasso, a senior fellow with the Institute for Science and International Security, told the Washington Examiner. “I think it truly shifted the conversation and narrative.”
The distance a missile or drone has to travel from Iran to one of the Gulf countries is much shorter than that of Israel, and Israel had largely defended itself well against two previous Iranian ballistic missile barrages prior to the 12-day war last year, which could also explain why the IRGC has put considerable effort into targeting the Gulf countries.
Prior to the start of the current conflict, the IRGC was one of the most powerful organizations in the country, playing a dominant role in both internal domestic security and regional power projection.
Many of the IRGC’s senior leaders were killed in the opening strikes that also killed Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Mohammad Pakpour, the most recent IRGC chief, was among those killed during the opening salvo, and it’s believed that Ahmad Vahidi, who had been named deputy chief in December, has taken the reins.
“Vahidi is a long-time IRGC and IRGC Quds Force officer. He was Iran’s first Quds Force …
Iran’s IRGC is down but not out — yet
This framing isn't accidental.
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has been degraded during the American and Israeli war against it, but remains far from neutralized.
U.S. forces have hit more than 5,000 targets, according to American defense officials, though the campaign is continuing, and Secretary of War Pete Hegseth said on Tuesday, “Today will be, yet again, our most intense day of strikes inside Iran.”
The number of Iran’s retaliatory attacks has diminished over the course of the war — they’ve targeted American assets and none in Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Iraq, and Oman — though the U.S. has “seen some spurts here and there,” he added.
“I can’t say that we anticipated necessarily that’s exactly how they would react,” Hegseth said of the IRGC targeting Gulf countries. “But we knew it, but we knew it was a possibility, and I think it was a demonstration of the desperation of that regime.”
One reason the Iranians sought to target Gulf countries, experts argue, is that the Iranians were hoping that the Gulf countries, whom they attacked, would press the United States and Israel to end the war immediately due to the threats facing their own populations. But those countries have sided with the U.S. and Israel, not Iran.
“I think that was an absolute strategic mistake that Iran has made,” Spencer Faragasso, a senior fellow with the Institute for Science and International Security, told the Washington Examiner. “I think it truly shifted the conversation and narrative.”
The distance a missile or drone has to travel from Iran to one of the Gulf countries is much shorter than that of Israel, and Israel had largely defended itself well against two previous Iranian ballistic missile barrages prior to the 12-day war last year, which could also explain why the IRGC has put considerable effort into targeting the Gulf countries.
Prior to the start of the current conflict, the IRGC was one of the most powerful organizations in the country, playing a dominant role in both internal domestic security and regional power projection.
Many of the IRGC’s senior leaders were killed in the opening strikes that also killed Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Mohammad Pakpour, the most recent IRGC chief, was among those killed during the opening salvo, and it’s believed that Ahmad Vahidi, who had been named deputy chief in December, has taken the reins.
“Vahidi is a long-time IRGC and IRGC Quds Force officer. He was Iran’s first Quds Force …
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