Report: How Iran used the ceasefire to prepare for the renewal of the war
A report in The New York Times states that the IRGC has focused on a plan to slowly accumulate costs, intended to erode American willingness to continue attacks. IRGC commanders have been integrated directly into Hezbollah's leadership council.
According to a report published today (Saturday) by The New York Times, the relative quiet in the Middle East served as a critical window for Iran to build a phased and comprehensive plan designed to respond to the resumption of military attacks by the USA. Two senior officials in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) familiar with the planning details described to the American newspaper the moves that were concocted and their goal: to make the war as expensive as possible for President Donald Trump.
According to the report, the circle of targets in the Middle East has grown. Iran and its network of loyal militias will attempt to strike at US allies in the region, shake global markets, and create pressure that will force Washington to stop the campaign against the Islamic Republic. It is a strategy of slow cost accumulation, intended to erode American willingness to continue the attacks.
Mehdi Mohammadi, a senior advisor to the head of the Iranian negotiating team, hinted at the existence of the plan on social media:
"The rules of engagement are changing and being rewritten, and it is Iran that is creating the new conditions and arenas of the war."
He added that fronts are multiplying from different directions in the region, coordinated among themselves but operating independently.
According to the same two officials, senior commanders in the Quds Force, the external arm of the IRGC responsible for cultivating militias, held remote conference calls with commanders from Hezbollah, the Houthis, and armed Shiite organizations in Iraq. Such talks, held in parallel from several capitals, are the way Iran tries to maintain control without being directly identified with every missile launched.
Quds Force commanders and advisors also operated on the ground in close cooperation with the militias themselves. One of the most prominent efforts is directed at Lebanon. Hezbollah's ranks have weakened dramatically following the war with Israel, and the IRGC is trying to fill the void. At the same time, the force's personnel also serve in Iraq at bases operated by Shiite militias.
The more significant step, at least in terms of the internal balance of power in Beirut, is the integration of IRGC commanders directly into Hezbollah's leadership council. This information is confirmed by both sources in the Lebanese government and analysts who monitor the organization. This move goes beyond normal patronage relations between a state and a militia and points to much deeper Iranian involvement in the decision-making of the Shiite organization. Lebanese officials said they were surprised to discover that Iranian commanders had lived for long periods in buildings that Israel later attacked, not in neighborhoods traditionally considered Hezbollah strongholds, but far from them.
