Senior Iranian commander says Tehran is prepared for war with Israel

The senior Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) Brigadier-General Amir Ali Hajizadeh claimed on Tuesday that Tehran is prepared for any potential war with Israel and other adversaries, Iranian state media Mehr News reported. 

Hajizadeh who heads the IRGC’s Aerospace Forces, boasted that Iran’s missile attacks on Israel in 2024 were the largest in military history. 

"The world's largest ballistic missile operation was carried out by the Islamic Republic of Iran, and this demonstrates our power to defend our people," the IRGC commander stated.

He claimed that the Iranian missile attacks on Israel were carried out due to the "misconception that Iran would not take direct action because it was avoiding war."

"When we fired the missiles, they started firing anti-ballistic missiles in a panic, and some of these missiles hit each other by mistake, indicating the collapse of their defense system," the Iranian general argued, claiming that 75% of the Iranian missiles hit their intended targets.

However, these Iranian claims have been rejected by Israel, the United States and other Western governments as Iranian propaganda. 

In April 2024, Iran fired some 300 missiles and drones against Israel. The Israeli military, the U.S. and other allies reported that they neutralized 99% of the incoming Iranian aerial projectiles.

On Oct. 1 last year, Iran launched some 180 ballistic missiles against the Jewish state. Israel and its allies eliminated most of the missiles, but some reportedly caused material damage.

A short time later on Oct. 26, Israel responded with a large aerial strike on Iran which reportedly destroyed much of Iran’s aerial defenses and missile production capabilities. 

The Iranian general argued that Tehran had expected this exchange of fire power between Iran and Israel. 

"We expected these clashes to be ping-pong matches, back and forth. We hadn't prepared ourselves for a conflict, but it was natural that if the enemy took action, we would also react," Hajizadeh said. 

The Iranian commander argued that the "Operation Al-Aqsa Flood," the official Hamas name for the Oct. 7, 2023 massacre, constituted "a failure by Israel that cannot be repaired, and everyone sees that this failure is irreparable."

Hajizadeh further argued that the Hamas Oct. 7 attack on Israel brought "global awareness, which was a great achievement for Palestine and a great defeat imposed on the Zionist regime that can never be compensated."

The events of Oct. 7 are widely considered the worst intelligence failure in modern Israeli history. However, after more than a year of war, Iran’s main terrorist proxies Hamas and Hezbollah have reportedly been severely degraded.

In addition, Iran’s own capabilities are degraded and its ally, the Syrian Assad regime, collapsed in December. Furthermore, the U.S. Trump administration backs Israel and has warned Tehran that it will not permit Iran to acquire a nuclear bomb. 

Hajizadeh concluded by dismissing Israeli and American warnings of potential military strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities. 

"The Americans and the Zionists are looking for concessions, and their threats are mostly psychological," the Iranian commander claimed. 

The Iranian regime openly calls for the destruction of the Jewish state. The ayatollahs simultaneously deny that they seek nuclear weapons, a claim that is dismissed by Israeli and Western intelligence agencies.

U.S. intelligence recently assessed that it was likely that the Jewish state would strike Iran’s nuclear sites within the next six months.