‘The world will be amazed:’ Iran’s commanders prepare for further war

Majid Asgaripour/Wana News Agency/Reuters

Iran has signaled that it is preparing for another round of war with the United States and has issued public threats against Washington and its allies in an apparent bid to deter President Donald Trump from restarting the current conflict.

Over the past month, Iranian military commanders have intensified a series of public messages claiming that Iran has built large stockpiles of new weapons ready to be unleashed on targets beyond the region should the US resume hostilities that began in February.

Iranian officials have threatened to broaden their targets if the conflict resumes, floating options that include cutting undersea internet cables, striking AI data centers, and attacking regional oil and gas facilities.

“The world will be amazed,” Iran’s Revolutionary Guards spokesperson Hossein Mohebbi said late last month. “We have new targets that have not yet been attacked,” he added.

Nearly nine months after the US and Israel launched their war on Iran , the conflict has stagnated into a stalemate that has left everyone uncertain about Trump’s endgame and the world grappling with economic unrest. Both sides have claimed victory – Tehran pointing to its survival and Washington the damage inflicted on the Iranian regime. Meanwhile, the Trump administration continues testing new economic and military measures to force Iran into capitulation, which Tehran has stubbornly resisted.

“The war is not over,” Mohebbi said. “The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has prepared itself for a long-term war.”

While Iran’s commanders signal strength and readiness, ordinary Iranians, long burdened by conflict and economic uncertainty, are once again bracing for the on the ground realities of war.

“Every single day and every night, we’re waiting for the bombing to start again,” a 70-year-old Tehran resident told CNN last week. “I’ve charged all my power banks, stocked up on water, and got everything ready, because the attacks could start again at any moment, any day.”

A mother of two described to CNN the fear she lives with as she sends her children to school each morning, past streets where Revolutionary Guards are visible, and military bases remain active.

“I would like to know exactly what else the US is planning to bomb?” she said. “They couldn’t even take (the Iranian leadership) out. You couldn’t negotiate either. So, what’s the point of starting another war?”

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Iranians are “convinced” war is going to restart, another resident in Tehran told CNN.

“It’s all anyone can talk about…you just have it in the back of your head, is tonight the night? Is it tomorrow? I think it makes it worse that there areall this conversation about it, you can’t even take a break,” the resident told CNN.

The Iranians spoke to CNN on the condition of anonymity in order to speak freely about their fears of further war.

Over the last few weeks, White House advisers have held meetings to discuss various options for Iran. While Trump announced publicly that he would not take new actions before the midterm elections, several advisers told CNN privately they didn’t know whether that statement was definitive or could change before election day on November 3.

The US military has developed new strike plans that include potentially using the so-called “mother of all bombs” to target Iranian energy infrastructure and nuclear sites should Trump give the order to resume combat operations either before or after the midterm elections, according to multiple US officials familiar with the matter. The GBU-43/B Massive Ordnance Air Blast Bomb or MOAB is the largest non-nuclear bomb in the US arsenal and would mark a notable escalation.

“These are propaganda tools intended to intimidate the Iranian people,” Alireza Sheikh, an Iranian army commander said on Saturday. “The Iranian people are the father of all bombs.”

Iran has signaled a new, more offensive military doctrine that suggests it will not wait to be struck and could even launch pre-emptive strikes. Last week, Revolutionary Guards social media accounts reported that Iran conducted military exercises across the country, including launching 30 ballistic missiles in one go.

Farzin Nadimi, a senior fellow with The Washington Institute think tank focused on US foreign policy in the region, said if an emboldened Tehran decided to try its new long-range missiles against Europe in an attack, targets might include US forces based at airbases in England, or the logistic hub in Ramstein, Germany, the largest US military installation outside of the US.

“However, Iran would likely reserve that possibility to a very top level of escalation,” Nadimi said.

The US moved all of its long-range bombers stationed in the United Kingdom back to their American home bases earlier this month after an unspecified new threat, officials said. Days before the move, the British government arrested a number of individuals in connection with an alleged Iranian plot to target the UK airbase where the US bombers had been stationed.

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To increase their chances of hitting targets, Nadimi said Iran may potentially launch more sophisticated and coordinated swarms of AI-enabled drones fitted with cameras and datalinks that can communicate with each other, adjust flight paths and speed to evade jamming and air defenses.

“They haven’t demonstrated these capabilities yet, but they discussed developing such technologies in the past,” Nadimi said.

Iran may also seek to advance its cruise missile capabilities to include supersonic propulsion to better evade interception and try jamming military communication and surveillance satellites, he added.

Iranian commanders are preparing for what they regard as an inevitable resumption in hostilities, while also attempting to deter Washington by highlighting the costs of an attack, Ali Vaez, deputy program director for the Middle East and North Africa at International Crisis Group told CNN.

“Tehran wants to make clear that the next round will be fought on a much wider battlefield, with fewer restraints and potentially more lethal consequences,” Vaez said. “But the danger is that what Iran intends as deterrence could be interpreted in Washington as provocation, making the very war Tehran hopes to avert more likely.”

When the US and Israel launched the war on Iran in February, they killed the Islamic Republic’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei along with Iranian military commanders, top officials, and civilians, including schoolchildren. Iran’s retaliation focused mostly on its Arab neighbors, which it accuses of colluding with Washington.

Iran effectively blocked the Strait of Hormuz, the only maritime waterway used by neighboring nations to export oil, before striking civilian infrastructure across Arab cities. Dubai, a major tourist destination, was targeted, water plants in Kuwait were hit, and attacks on data centers disrupted banking services in several countries across the region.

Iran fired more than 2,500 missiles and drones on the United Arab Emirates alone, more than any other country, including Israel. Abu Dhabi intercepted nearly all of the projectiles, according to figures by the UAE’s defense ministry.

Last week, the head of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, Mohsen Rezaei, warned that Iran will target US assets in the region, including within the UAE, in retaliation for any fresh attacks

“If another war breaks out, numerous undersea cables, data centers, AI facilities and other infrastructure across the region could be destroyed,” Rezaei said.

A senior UAE official told journalists on Thursday that his country is better prepared should fighting resume.

“We don’t want war,” Ali Al-Nuaimi, chairman of the Defense, Interior and Foreign Affairs Committee of the UAE’s Federal National Council said. “But if a war starts today, we are ready to deal with any threat that comes our way better than we were on February 28.”

“Whatever is needed to protect our national security, sovereignty and people, we will do it.”

马吉德·阿斯加里普尔/瓦纳通讯社/路透社

伊朗已发出信号，表示正在准备与美国进行新一轮战争，并公开威胁华盛顿及其盟友，显然是为了阻止唐纳德·特朗普总统重启当前的冲突。

过去一个月，伊朗军方指挥官加大了公开声明的力度，声称伊朗已经储备了大量新型武器，一旦美国恢复2月份开始的敌对行动，这些武器将随时准备用于攻击该地区以外的目标。

伊朗官员威胁称，如果冲突再次爆发，他们将扩大攻击目标，提出的选项包括切断海底互联网电缆、袭击人工智能数据中心以及攻击地区石油和天然气设施。

伊朗革命卫队发言人侯赛因·穆赫比上月底表示：“世界将会感到震惊。”他还补充说：“我们还有一些尚未遭到攻击的新目标。”

美国和以色列对伊朗发动战争近九个月后，冲突陷入僵局，令所有人对特朗普的最终目标感到迷茫，世界也因此陷入经济动荡。双方都宣称取得了胜利——德黑兰强调自身得以幸存，而华盛顿则强调对伊朗政权造成的打击。与此同时，特朗普政府继续尝试新的经济和军事措施，试图迫使伊朗屈服，但德黑兰一直顽强抵抗。

“战争还没有结束，”莫赫比说。“伊斯兰革命卫队已经为长期战争做好了准备。”

尽管伊朗指挥官们展现出实力和战备状态，但长期饱受冲突和经济不确定性之苦的普通伊朗民众，再次为战争的残酷现实做好准备。

“我们每天每夜都在等待轰炸再次开始，”一位70岁的德黑兰居民上周告诉CNN。“我把所有充电宝都充满电了，储备了足够的水，做好了一切准备，因为袭击随时都可能再次发生。”

一位有两个孩子的母亲向 CNN 描述了她每天早上送孩子上学时所感受到的恐惧，她每天早上都会经过能看到革命卫队和仍然活跃的军事基地的街道。

“我想知道美国究竟还计划轰炸什么？”她说道，“他们连伊朗领导层都搞不定，谈判也谈不拢。那么，发动另一场战争的意义何在？”

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另一位德黑兰居民告诉 CNN，伊朗人“确信”战争将会重新开始。

“大家都在谈论这件事……你脑子里一直想着，今晚会是那天晚上吗？还是明天？我觉得大家这么讨论这件事让情况变得更糟，你甚至都无法休息一下，”这位居民告诉 CNN。

为了畅所欲言地表达对进一步战争的担忧，这些伊朗人在匿名的情况下接受了 CNN 的采访。

过去几周，白宫顾问们举行了多次会议，讨论对伊朗的各种应对方案。尽管特朗普公开宣布在中期选举前不会采取新的行动，但几位顾问私下告诉CNN，他们并不确定这一声明是否最终定论，或者在11月3日大选日之前是否有可能改变立场。

据多位知情美国官员透露，如果特朗普在中期选举前后下令恢复军事行动，美军已制定新的打击计划，其中包括可能使用所谓的“炸弹之母”——GBU-43/B巨型空爆炸弹（MOAB）——来打击伊朗的能源基础设施和核设施。MOAB是美国武库中最大的非核炸弹，一旦动用，将标志着军事行动的显著升级。

伊朗陆军指挥官阿里雷扎·谢赫周六表示：“这些都是旨在恐吓伊朗人民的宣传工具。伊朗人民是所有炸弹的缔造者。”

伊朗已发出信号，表明其军事战略将更加激进，不再坐等攻击，甚至可能发动先发制人的打击。上周，伊朗革命卫队的社交媒体账号报道称，伊朗在全国范围内举行了军事演习，其中包括一次性发射30枚弹道导弹。

华盛顿研究所高级研究员法尔津·纳迪米专注于研究美国在该地区的外交政策，他表示，如果胆子大的德黑兰决定用其新型远程导弹袭击欧洲，目标可能包括驻扎在英国空军基地的美军，或者位于德国拉姆施泰因的后勤中心，这是美国在海外最大的军事设施。

“然而，伊朗可能会将这种可能性保留到局势高度升级的层面，”纳迪米说。

据官员称，本月初，美国因受到不明新威胁，将所有驻扎在英国的远程轰炸机撤回了美国本土基地。就在撤机前几天，英国政府逮捕了一些与伊朗涉嫌策划袭击驻扎着美国轰炸机的英国空军基地有关的人员。

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纳迪米表示，为了增加击中目标的几率，伊朗可能会发射更复杂、更协调的人工智能无人机群，这些无人机配备摄像头和数据链，可以相互通信，调整飞行路线和速度以躲避干扰和防空系统。

“他们尚未展示这些能力，但他们过去曾讨论过开发此类技术，”纳迪米说。

他还补充说，伊朗也可能寻求提升其巡航导弹能力，包括超音速推进，以更好地躲避拦截，并尝试干扰军事通信和监视卫星。

国际危机组织中东和北非项目副主任阿里·瓦埃兹告诉美国有线电视新闻网，伊朗指挥官正在为他们认为不可避免的敌对行动恢复做准备，同时还试图通过强调袭击的代价来阻止华盛顿。

“德黑兰希望明确表示，下一轮冲突将在更广阔的战场上展开，限制更少，后果也可能更加惨重，”瓦埃兹说。“但危险在于，伊朗意图的威慑可能会被华盛顿解读为挑衅，从而使德黑兰原本希望避免的战争更有可能爆发。”

今年2月，美国和以色列对伊朗发动战争，杀害了伊朗伊斯兰共和国最高领袖阿里·哈梅内伊以及伊朗军事指挥官、高级官员和平民，其中包括学童。伊朗的报复行动主要针对其阿拉伯邻国，伊朗指责这些邻国与华盛顿勾结。

伊朗有效地封锁了霍尔木兹海峡——邻国出口石油的唯一海上通道——之后袭击了阿拉伯城市的民用基础设施。迪拜作为主要旅游目的地遭到袭击，科威特的水厂也遭到破坏，对数据中心的攻击导致该地区多个国家的银行服务中断。

伊朗仅向阿联酋就发射了超过2500枚导弹和无人机，比包括以色列在内的任何其他国家都多。据阿联酋国防部统计，阿布扎比拦截了几乎所有这些飞行物。

上周，伊朗最高国家安全委员会主席穆赫辛·雷扎伊警告称，伊朗将对美国在该地区的资产，包括阿联酋境内的资产，进行报复，以应对任何新的袭击。

“如果再次爆发战争，该地区的众多海底电缆、数据中心、人工智能设施和其他基础设施可能会被摧毁，”雷扎伊说。

一位阿联酋高级官员周四告诉记者，如果战斗再次爆发，阿联酋已做好更充分的准备。

阿联酋联邦国民议会国防、内政和外交事务委员会主席阿里·努艾米表示：“我们不希望发生战争。但如果今天战争爆发，我们已经做好准备，比2月28日时更好地应对任何威胁。”

“为了保护国家安全、主权和人民，我们将不惜一切代价。”