Iran’s Guard Goes On Offense, Promises Strategic Surprises
For 170 days Iran called everything it did defensive. This morning the Revolutionary Guard let the deadline expire and promised “powerful offensive operations.”
Iran’s Revolutionary Guard promised “powerful offensive operations” this morning. Any threat, the Guard said, “will be crushed with absolute resolve, employing a strategy of maximum deterrence and powerful offensive operations.”
That sentence is the change. For 170 days Iran’s commanders have described everything they did in this war as defence — retaliation, response, deterrence. The Guard’s political deputy went on state television on Sunday evening and moved the line. Iran’s actions stay defensive in nature and take an offensive form. “The enemy should know that it cannot catch us off guard,” he said. “Instead, it is the enemy that must anticipate strategic surprises.”
He credited Ahmad Vahidi, the general who took over the Guard this year. The Narativ named Vahidi as the man really running Iran on March 26, before he had the job. He runs it now on a permanent war footing, and the son of the supreme leader killed on the war’s first day is installing hardliners through the command.
