Iran bets on endurance, energy disruption to outlast US, Israel

Iran is wagering it can outlast the United States and Israel--not militarily, but by grinding the war into a brutal contest of endurance. Its strategy is stark: Unleash drones and missiles, cut vital energy routes and jolt global markets hard enough ​to force Washington to blink first, Reuters reported.

Despite the shock of the U.S.–Israeli strikes and the loss of key figures, the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC)--long the ultimate guardian of the Islamic Republic -- is firmly ‌in control, directing the battlefield, executing pre-planned contingencies and dictating strategy and targets in the war.

The IRGC also played the decisive role in elevating Mojtaba Khamenei as supreme leader after Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was killed in the opening U.S.–Israeli strikes.

“For them, they are waging an existential fight. This is an all-out war,” said Fawaz Gerges of the London School of Economics. “They believe their very survival is at stake. They're willing to bring the temple down on everyone’s heads.”Alex Vatanka, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute and expert on Iranian politics, added: “They're like a bleeding animal-- wounded, but therefore more dangerous than ever."

That all-out war mindset is behind Iran’s escalating strikes across the Gulf, targeting energy hubs from Qatar to Saudi Arabia to maximise economic disruption in a calculated attempt to drive up costs for its neighbours, Europe and the United States and test Washington’s political will.

U.S. President Donald Trump told Republican lawmakers on Monday the ⁠war would continue until Iran is "totally and decisively defeated" but predicted it would be over soon.

He added that once the United States is done with the military operation against Iran, Tehran will not have any weapons against the ​United States, Israel and U.S. allies for a long time.

Iranian insiders say this escalation was anticipated long before the war began 11 days ago. Iranian planners assumed confrontation with Washington and Israel was inevitable, and prepared a layered strategy coordinated ​across the Guards’ sprawling military networks and proxy forces.

Now, with little left to lose, Iran is executing that plan and turning the conflict into a grinding war of attrition aimed at exhausting its adversaries politically and economically.

The consequences are already visible at home.

Mojtaba's selection as supreme leader, insiders say, proves the Guards’ dominance as kingmakers. They say the balance of power has shifted. The supreme leader holds the title, but the future of the Islamic Republic, and the authority of the clerical establishment itself, now depends on whether the Guards can weather the storm unleashed by the U.S.-Israeli campaign.