IRGC targeting bases to push US out of region before renewed Israel war, expert tells 'Post'

The IRGC’s decision to target American bases, assets and allies, barring Israel, is part of a strategy to see the US knocked out of the region before any renewed war with Israel, military historian and analyst Tom Cooper told The Jerusalem Post on Wednesday.

Iran launched retaliatory strikes on US-linked sites in Jordan, Kuwait, and Bahrain overnight from Tuesday to Wednesday, following the US’s renewal of strikes against IRGC targets in Iran on Tuesday.

By focusing its attacks on Hormuz and regional neighbors, Cooper claimed the IRGC could focus on “knocking out one opponent – the USA – out of this war” while “preserving the IRGC’s firepower for whenever Israel attacks Iran again.”

Attacking the Gulf states and preventing the free-flowing transit of oil, gas, and fertilizer exports creates both indirect and direct pressure on Iran’s neighbors through rising insurance costs and shipping risks.

This pressure, Cooper offered, is Tehran’s attempt to give its neighboring states “the option of reconsidering their stance – while not expecting them to do so.”

IRGC preparing for conflict for decades

From the IRGC’s perspective, he explained, an attack on Israel would result in a larger two-front war, risking serious damage to its infrastructure in western Iran and Tehran.

Should Israel carry out these theoretical attacks, though, while painful for Tehran, “simply can’t hurt it enough” to make such an action a deciding move in the war, he continued.

The IRGC has spent decades preparing for the conflict, and its underground missile cities have meant that the IRGC could still sustain itself under a more prolonged attack from Israel and the US, even if such an event would be inconvenient, he reasoned.

“This approach aligns with the IRGC’s doctrine of asymmetric deterrence: it is precisely the kind of war for which they have been preparing for at least 20 years,” he said.

“It is a war inflicting such high costs on the US and its allies that it forces a political recalibration – but, at the same time, it manages the escalation ladder.”

Cooper added that Tehran also only needed to wait out the clock on US President Donald Trump’s patience, supplies, and/or presidency.

Claiming Trump had been promised a quick success, Cooper asserted that Israel’s declining popularity in the US would naturally be accompanied by a reluctance for American involvement in its wars, “regardless of how powerful AIPAC remains.”

Netanyahu spending American political capital 

A poll published by Pew Research last month found that 42% of the American public viewed the Israeli people negatively and 62% viewed the Israeli government unfavorably.

The American public’s attitudes toward both the Israeli people and the Israeli government have turned more negative in the past few years, the poll found, especially among those aged below 30.

On the Israeli side, Cooper said that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was likely trying to “spend” American military support while he has it.

Though the White House and the Pentagon denied claims of munitions shortages last month, Cooper claimed that Iran was successfully forcing the US to “exhaust” its strategic stocks of cruise missiles and interceptors, which reduces the US capability to attack in a larger, more coordinated way.

“It is also shaming both the US and Israel, and their allies, simply because no matter how much they ‘bomb’ Iran, they can’t hit the IRGC’s capability to retaliate,” he said. “...It (the IRGC) is well on the way to knocking out the US presence in the Middle East…”

Cooper said that it was ultimately the “arrogance and incompetence of the US-Israeli leadership, at a political and a military level, of the last years, if not decades,” that had led to what he viewed as a major failure.