The head of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Hossein Salami vowed on Friday to avenge the assassination of prominent nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh.
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Also Read: Israeli Military Told to Prepare for Possible US Strike on Iran Ahead of Trump Exit – Report
Tensions with Iran under the Trump administration came to a head after the US withdrew from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) in 2018 and began to reimpose sanctions previously lifted under the nuclear deal.
Relations worsened even further after US strikes in January killed Quds Force commander Maj. Gen. Qasem Soleimani.
Citing senior Israeli officials, Axios reported Wednesday that service members of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) were recently instructed to prepare for a potential US strike on Iran before US President Donald Trump is expected to leave office in January.
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Also Read: IRGC planning to carry out trans-regional missions
IRGC Navy Commander Rear Admiral Ali Reza Tangsiri said the body plans to carry out trans-regional missions in the future.
Making the remarks in Bushehr, in south Iran, he underlined that IRGC’s readiness for protecting the maritime borders of Iran is permanent.
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Also Read: Iranian press review: Biden has reformists feeling good about 2021 elections
In the wake of Joe Biden’s victory in the US presidential elections, reformists in Tehran have reportedly regrouped, seeking a win in Iran’s own presidential elections in 2021.
This marks a pushback on the country’s powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) campaign to bring a military commander into the presidential office.
Before the US elections, Iranian reformists and moderate politicians were subdued by hardline lawmakers and IRGC commanders who advocated the idea of handing presidential power to military commanders in order to tackle Washington’s “maximum pressure campaign” against the Islamic Republic.
However, Biden’s victory in Washington has brought hope to the camp of reformists in Tehran. Biden
Jalal Mirzaei, an Iranian reformist politician and a former legislator, said in an interview with the ILNA news agency that the strategy of conservatives to have a military president in Iran “was a dream which has gone with the wind,” after President Donald Trump’s electoral defeat.
Ali Motahari, an outspoken reformist politician who was banned by the Guardian Council from running for the February parliamentary elections, told the Shargh daily that with Democrats in the White House, Iran’s economic situation would improve, and subsequently, reformists would have a greater chance to win next year’s elections.
“With a better economic situation, common people would have more hope that their votes can make a meaningful change in their life and they would show up on the election day and cast their votes,” Motahari was quoted by the Shargh as saying.
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Also Read: Top general: Enemy ‘frustrated’ over the inability to use ‘military option’ against Iran
The enemy has become “frustrated” due to its failure to physically harm the Islamic Republic of Iran and therefore it does not have the “military option” on the table, says Chief of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps Hossein Salami.
“However, in line with its enmity toward the establishment, the enemy has targeted the people’s religion, culture, livelihood, and health,” Major General Salami said on Wednesday.
He made the remarks on the anniversary of Basij Day, which falls on November 25.
The general said Basij members are not afraid of any enemy.
“We are standing till the end, and the end of this resistance is the complete decline of the enemy,” Salami said.
In similar remarks in September, the IRGC commander said a military war against Iran is “basically abandoned”.
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Also Read: Questions Raised About Rationale for Iran’s Terrorism Tactics in Europe
When it comes to confronting the Iranian regime, without a doubt Israel has been fortunate in the past four years. The Trump administration’s Iranian policy has been in alignment with Israel’s objectives.
The maximum pressure policy served Israel’s interests as it significantly weakened the theocratic establishment of Iran on several fronts.
From the outset, the Israeli leaders were opposed to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), commonly known as the Iran nuclear deal, and lobbied against it, partly due to the fact that it provided the ruling clerics of Iran with extra revenue.
The main beneficiaries of the nuclear agreement were not the ordinary Iranian people, but the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), the Quds Force, the Office of the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the regime’s loyalists and proxies and militia groups across the Middle East.
Israel believed that the nuclear deal would empower and embolden its rivals, Hezbollah, Hamas, and the Syrian regime.
In addition, the nuclear deal paved the way for lifting sanctions against Tehran. As sanctions against Iran were lifted during the Obama administration, it quickly became clear that those actions gave Iran global legitimacy in the eyes of the international community.
This newfound legitimacy and the lifting of sanctions generated billions of dollars in revenue for Iran’s military institutions — the IRGC and Iran’s militia and terror groups.
As Israel suspected, Tehran used that influx of revenues to expand its influence throughout the region, including in Syria, Iraq, Yemen, and Lebanon.
And the expansion campaign proved to be immensely successful.
The balance of power was in Iran’s favor until the current administration assumed office. One of the first things that the Trump administration did was to pull the US out of the nuclear deal.
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Also Read: US Power Eroding in Face-Off with Iranian Resistance: IRGC Chief
The commander of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps highlighted the US’ shrinking sphere of influence, depleting power, and successive defeats in confrontation with the Islamic Republic’s resistance for more than forty years.
In a meeting of the IRGC commander in Tehran on Sunday, Major General Hossein Salami said the US government is not known as a superpower anymore, as it is “aging” and its power has been depleted.
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Also Read: Iran’ commander of Quds Force visits Baghdad
In his second visit since assuming power, the commander of the Quds Force, Esmail Qaani, visited Baghdad last Wednesday.
A source said, “During his visit to Iraq, the Iranian commander met the Prime Minister Mustafa Al-Kadhimi and leaders of the pro-Iranian armed factions,” adding, “the parties agreed to restart a truce with the American side while Baghdad is working hard to end the American presence in its land.”
The source emphasized that as a result of this visit, 500 American soldiers had been withdrawn from Iraq.
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Also Read: Iran has a new warship packed with drones and missiles
Iran unveiled a new ship over the weekend called the Shahid Roudaki. It is part of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and was given a spotlight at Bandar Abbas port near the strategic Straits of Hormuz on Thursday.
The ship is so interesting to Iran watchers that the United States Naval Institute ran a story about it.
On its surface, this is just a transport ship, but Iran has crowded its deck with all sorts of weapons to show off what it can do. According to aerial photos and description, the ship has been packed with multiple launch rocket systems (MLRS) that are mounted on fast boats.
There is also an advanced 3rd Khordad air defense system and helicopters, as well as drones and anti-ship missiles. It’s a floating armory, or a floating “bazaar” as one report noted.
The Bell 412 helicopter appears to be one of those old American helicopters that Iran has because it once had a bell helicopter Textron factory under the Shah.
The 3rd Khordad system is more recent. It was used to down a $200 million American Global Hawk drone in June 2019.
The six Ababil drones, noted in the photo, are part of Iran’s expanding drone arsenal. Iran used drones and cruise missiles to attack Saudi Arabia in September 2019.
Iran has also sent drones to Syria and used them to threaten Israel and provided them to Hezbollah.
According to H. I Sutton, who wrote the USNI news piece, the ship has four Qader anti-ship missiles, the Iranian version of the Chinese C-802.
The ship is 492 feet long and 72 feet wide. It also has a 23 mm anti-aircraft guns. “It seems unlikely that these systems would be arrayed like this in normal operations.
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Also Read: Is Iran Slowly Moving Towards Building an Aircraft Carrier?
