Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) on Monday warned that any fresh escalation with the United States could see Tehran deploy new weapons, adopt new military tactics and target locations that have not previously been struck.IRGC spokesperson Hossein Mohebbi said Iran was prepared for a prolonged confrontation and that there would be “significant changes” in its defensive and counteroffensive operations if hostilities intensified.“Those changes include a shift in the geography of war, and a shift in weapons and military equipment,” he told local media. “We will bring new weapons with new capabilities into the battlefield, and the world will be astonished.”Mohebbi also warned that Iran’s targets would not necessarily be the same as those targeted during the earlier phase of the conflict.“Our targets are also no longer necessarily the same [as the] previous targets. We have new targets that have not yet been struck,” he said.In an interview with Al-Alam News Network, Mohebbi said the IRGC had prepared for a “long-term war” and would respond if the conflict entered another phase of heightened hostilities.“In our view, war is war; it has different stages, but war is war and the war is not over, the war continues, and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has prepared itself for a long-term war, and it was ready before, and now it is even more prepared for a long-term war,” he said.Mohebbi also claimed that the United States, Israel and their allies had failed to achieve their objectives in the conflict. He specifically pointed to the Strait of Hormuz, saying the US had failed to reopen the strategic waterway despite deploying its military capabilities to the region.“Despite America having the largest navy in the world and despite defining the reason for its presence in the region and the world as ensuring the security of energy flows and freedom of navigation, it became clear in this war that America, first of all, did not have the ability to reopen the Strait and could not,” he said.The remarks come amid continuing tensions in West Asia following the US-Israel attacks on Iran on February 28 and Iran’s subsequent retaliatory operations.
