was now prepared to take pre-emptive military action against it enemies and not just retaliate after being attacked.
For decades the Islamic Republic has consistently said it would never attack first but would respond to any attack with great strength and implacable verve, utterly destroying its enemies.
All that changed Tuesday. Brig. Gen. Mohammad Hejazi, a Pasdar officer who is the Number Two officer in the Iranian military as the deputy commander of the Joint Staff of the Iranian armed forces, told the Fars news agency:
“Our strategy now is that, if we feel our enemies want to endanger Iran’s national interests, and want to decide to do that, we will act without waiting for their actions.”
It was a monumental change in policy—so monumental that it was odd it should be announced by a military officer, rather than the civilian leadership, and odder still that the Number Two officer should announce it.
Some analysts said the relatively low level of the official announcing such an immense change in policy suggested there really was no change in policy, just a new rhetorical flourish intended to frighten Iran’s enemies and perhaps lead them to back off the new level of pressure that has been unveiled with stiff new sanctions in the last two months.
American analysts generally said any Iranian attack on US forces would lead directly to a general war, not just to an air raid on Iranian nuclear sites. “The Japanese learned that in 1941 and Al-Qaeda learned that in 2001,” one said. “And I have no doubt that the Iranian leadership fully understands that. Hejazi’s comment is just hot air, not a real policy pronouncement. But remarks like this show the Iranian leadership is floundering.”
Others, however, cautioned that the Islamic Republic might be getting desperate. “The West has gone too far and pushed Tehran into a corner where the leadership may feel it is being left with nothing but a black-and-white choice between surrendering and attacking,” said another. “And it won’t surrender.”
But others responded that, if Iran had really decided it had no choice but to risk war, it would not announce it in advance.
A week ago, a senior US intelligence officer told Congress that American intelligence analysts believe Iran will respond violently if attacked, but believe it highly unlikely that the country would ever initiate a conflict with the United States.
Hejazi did not name the “enemies” he was threatening. The Islamic Republic generally means Israel and the United States by that category with NATO or the European Union tacked on.
The only major targets Iran can hit are American. It can reach Israel only by firing missiles with non-nuclear warheads and limited accuracy. Iraq in 1991 fired 39 missiles at Israel and killed one person. Without a nuclear warhead, the missile threat is not taken seriously. Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak publicly dismissed it last month.
The big target for Iran would be the US Navy in the Persian Gulf and Indian Ocean. The Navy normally has about two dozen ships operating there. It now has more with two aircraft carrier groups assigned there.
Naval analysts have long said the Islamic Republic has been arming and practicing to bag a few US warships in any conflict. That would be difficult if the Iranian Navy was responding to a raid on nuclear sites when the US warships would all be in a wartime readiness mode. It would be easier if the Iranian Navy launched a pre-emptive attack and struck when the US Navy was in peacetime mode.