Iranian officials are threatening to escalate any conflict with the United States in the wake of the US attack, signaling they will reconsider the Islamic Republic’s principle of limiting retaliation to prevent a confrontation with Washington.
Major General Abdolrahim Mousavi, chief of staff of Iran’s armed forces, said this week that while Iran’s strategy “used to be to contain escalation”, “US behavior has forced us to change our approach”.
“If they make a mistake this time, we will cause huge losses, as our armed forces are determined to stand against the bullying power till the end,” he said.
A regime insider in Tehran told the FT that Iran has recalibrated its military doctrine towards the US, and has changed its strategy designed to impose concrete costs on US forces and assets if a conflict erupts.
He said Tehran was not seeking war and hoped talks between the US and Iran in Geneva on Thursday could pave the way for a new nuclear deal that would prevent a US attack, but that it would prefer to fight rather than surrender to US President Donald Trump.
“There will be no war games in response this time,” the insider said, referring to missile attacks on US targets in Iraq in 2020 and Qatar last year that were telegraphed to avoid full-scale war. “Iran will move to escalate tensions by targeting anything within reach, from US bases to the Strait of Hormuz and US warships.”
While the regime insider indicated that Iran might not proceed in the case of a “very limited attack”, Foreign Ministry spokesman Ismail Baghai said the Iranian response to any attack would be “brutal”. “There is no such thing as a limited attack,” he said.
Analysts outside Iran are skeptical about how much damage the Islamic Republic can inflict against the US military, which has amassed its largest force in the Middle East since the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
The military imbalance between Iran and its arch enemies was exposed when Israel and the US launched a series of serious strikes during the 12-day war on Iran last year. Iranian officials worry that American warplanes and long-range strikes could devastate their military and economic infrastructure within days.
Nonetheless, the insider argued that Iran’s ballistic missiles and drones could allow it to challenge its adversaries’ conventional superiority. Iran fired hundreds of shells against Israel during the June war, dozens of which passed through Israeli defenses. About 29 people were killed.
“Conventional forces have their vulnerabilities,” he said, pointing to US naval assets in the Gulf and regional bases hosting thousands of troops – which are much closer to Iran than Israel – which he said would become primary targets.
Lynette Nussbacher, a former senior intelligence adviser to the British Cabinet on the Middle East, said Iran’s threats to escalate tensions should be taken seriously.
“The Iranian national security establishment is dangerous, but they are not crazy,” he said. “They signal clearly, they understand their goals, they understand the goals of their opponents, and they want to work within that framework.”
He said that as well as deploying its ballistic missile arsenal, Iran could also attempt to block shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, a vital maritime trade route through which most of the world’s seaborne oil passes. Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said earlier this month they were temporarily closing parts of the strait in naval exercises.
Iran’s retaliation following the US bombing of its nuclear facilities during the June war, when Tehran fired a series of missiles at a US base in Qatar after it evacuated it, was calibrated to avoid further conflict, and Trump later claimed that Iran had warned him in advance.
The US President said, “Can you imagine? They were nice enough – this is Iran – to call me and tell me they would like to shoot me.” “I said, ‘Go ahead.’ And they fired 14 high-range, very fast missiles. “Every one of them was killed.”
But in his State of the Union address on Tuesday, Trump accused Iran of “terrible ambitions” and described Iran’s missiles as a threat to US bases. “They want to make a deal, but we haven’t heard those cryptic words, ‘We will never have nuclear weapons,'” he said.
Iranian leaders insist that their nuclear program is entirely for peaceful purposes, and any agreement should be limited to what is described as Iran’s right to enrich uranium under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
Tehran has also said it will not agree to separate US demands to restrict its ballistic missile program or curb its support for anti-Israel armed groups.
Iran’s previous measured approach against the US has been criticized domestically by regime loyalists, who argue it signals excessive caution – if not weakness – towards their enemies.
After the US killed Qassem Soleimani, the top military commander responsible for discreet foreign operations, in Baghdad in 2020, Iran fired missiles at a base of US forces in Iraq. It was the first attack on a US military base since the Vietnam War, causing structural damage but no casualties.
“This time Iran will put those considerations aside and respond to pay the price,” Hamzeh Safavi, the son of a senior military adviser to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, told the Entkhaab news website.
Safavi also claimed that Tehran would unveil more advanced military technologies in any coming war, and said that Iran would no longer differentiate between the US and Israel in its retaliation. “If Israel launches attacks, Iran will also attack the US. And if the US attacks, Iran will also target Israel.”
Cartography by Steven Bernard
