{"id":257142,"date":"2026-08-20T05:19:10","date_gmt":"2026-08-20T05:19:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/257142\/"},"modified":"2026-08-20T05:19:10","modified_gmt":"2026-08-20T05:19:10","slug":"iran-goes-on-the-offensive-as-diplomacy-with-us-stalls","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/257142\/","title":{"rendered":"Iran goes on the offensive as diplomacy with US stalls"},"content":{"rendered":"<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">Six months into its war with the United States, Iran\u2019s military has begun signalling a shift from retaliation to offence, which analysts say could reflect Tehran\u2019s belief it holds leverage to advance its demands and break the stalemate.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">Since US-Israeli strikes launched the war on February 28, Tehran has largely portrayed its strikes against the US, Israel and Gulf countries as revenge for attacks on the Islamic Republic.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">Now, Iranian officials are openly talking about giving offensive operations a greater priority while keeping control over the strategic Strait of Hormuz, a key source of leverage against Washington that has disrupted a vital global energy route and driven up energy prices.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"A vessel in the Strait of Hormuz near the beach of Bandar Abbas, Iran, in June. Photo: Reuters\" data-qa=\"BaseImage-handleRenderImage-StyledImage\" class=\"e1gf69pb2 css-6ikqhs e445x7d0\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/a2e65177-bce2-4ae4-a8fd-7a948e3ef428_d999bccb.jpg\" title=\"A vessel in the Strait of Hormuz near the beach of Bandar Abbas, Iran, in June. Photo: Reuters\"\/>A vessel in the Strait of Hormuz near the beach of Bandar Abbas, Iran, in June. Photo: Reuters<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">Iran\u2019s Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei outlined that approach in a reshuffle of top military commanders earlier this month, calling for \u201cstrengthening maximum deterrence and preparing to conduct large-scale offensive operations against the enemy\u201d.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">Last week, a deputy commander of Iran\u2019s Revolutionary Guards indicated that Tehran was revising its military doctrine to give \u201coffensive operations\u201d strategic priority.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">Analyst Sina Toossi of the Centre for International Policy believed the shift to offensive operations does not mean Tehran was \u201cadopting a doctrine of preventive war\u201d.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">Rather, he said, Tehran appears to have concluded that \u201cif confrontation becomes unavoidable, Iran should escalate earlier and more forcefully rather than wait for the United States or Israel to define the terms of the conflict\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Six months into its war with the United States, Iran\u2019s military has begun signalling a shift from retaliation&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":257143,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[4],"tags":[70962,89,20721,70965,38,70964,34,1093,654,5346,2289,1000,188,70963,101,69],"class_list":["post-257142","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tehran","tag-ahmad-zeidabadi","tag-ayatollah-ali-khamenei","tag-bab-al-mandab-strait","tag-centre-for-international-policy","tag-donald-trump","tag-hossein-kanani-moghadam","tag-iran","tag-j-d-vance","tag-jordan","tag-mohammad-bagher-ghalibaf","tag-mojtaba-khamenei","tag-red-sea","tag-revolutionary-guards","tag-sina-toossi","tag-strait-of-hormuz","tag-tehran"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@iran\/117126153667673936","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/257142","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=257142"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/257142\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/257143"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=257142"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=257142"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=257142"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}