Iranian hard-line leaders are strengthening military control, expanding missile and drone production and preparing allied militias for a broader confrontation with the United States as a 60-day negotiating period ends without a permanent agreement.
By yourNEWS Media Newsroom
Iran’s hard-line leadership is preparing for the possibility of a significantly broader war with the United States, using the two months since a June agreement with President Donald Trump to strengthen military command, replenish weapons and expand Iran’s ability to escalate fighting across the Middle East, according to Iranian and Arab officials.
Sources who spoke with The Wall Street Journal said influential figures in Tehran increasingly view the recent diplomatic pause not as the beginning of a lasting settlement, but as an opportunity to prepare for another round of conflict.
Iranian hard-liners reportedly suspected that the June memorandum of understanding could be an effort by Washington and Israel to temporarily ease pressure on Tehran while creating time to prepare for future military action.
That belief has shaped Iran’s response.
Rather than reducing military readiness, Tehran has moved to strengthen the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ authority over the country’s conventional armed forces, place experienced hard-line officials in critical security positions, increase domestic counterintelligence operations and accelerate production of missiles and drones.
Iran has also tightened its control over the Strait of Hormuz while simultaneously seeking to expand pressure into the Red Sea.
Arab intelligence officials have detected communications between Tehran and Iran-aligned militias in Yemen and Iraq that suggest preparations for a wider conflict intended to raise the military and economic costs imposed on Washington, according to the Journal.
“There is also a widespread view in Iran that the main war has not yet begun,” a Tehran-based defense analyst close to the Iranian government told the outlet.
“What we have seen so far is increasingly interpreted through the lens of ‘salami-slicing’ tactics — limited, incremental escalation designed to weaken capabilities before a larger confrontation.”
The preparations reportedly extend beyond defending Iranian territory.
Iranian officials and military leaders are increasingly discussing the possibility of offensive operations conducted on enemy territory, reflecting a shift toward a more aggressive wartime posture as diplomatic efforts remain stalled.
Those developments come as the temporary negotiating framework between Washington and Tehran reaches a critical point.
The United States and Iran on Monday reached the end of the 60-day negotiating period established under the June memorandum without securing a permanent agreement.
The temporary arrangement had been intended to help reopen the Strait of Hormuz and create a pathway toward negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program.
Instead, renewed fighting and disagreements over control of the strategic waterway disrupted the talks.
Trump has continued to identify preventing Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon as a central objective of his administration while restoring economic pressure against Tehran.
Iran, meanwhile, has retained significant leverage through the Strait of Hormuz, one of the world’s most important maritime energy corridors.
Commercial shipping through the waterway remains sharply below levels recorded before the war, giving Tehran another means of applying pressure beyond conventional battlefield operations.
The expanding influence of the Revolutionary Guard could further complicate any future diplomatic agreement.
The Institute for the Study of War has assessed that the IRGC faction now exerting major influence over Iranian decision-making is unlikely to accept an agreement that substantially reduces Tehran’s control over the Strait of Hormuz.
The Revolutionary Guard’s growing authority over the regular military therefore has implications extending beyond battlefield command. It could also narrow the range of compromises Iranian leaders are willing to consider in future negotiations with Washington.
Iran is simultaneously working to recover from damage inflicted during previous U.S. and Israeli strikes.
Israeli officials cited by the Journal said Tehran has been rebuilding damaged infrastructure and restoring access to missile installations more rapidly than anticipated.
That recovery effort, combined with accelerated missile and drone production, suggests Iranian leaders are preparing their forces to sustain another major round of fighting rather than assuming the current diplomatic impasse will eventually produce a settlement.
The calculations inside Tehran increasingly appear to be based on the expectation that another confrontation is likely.
Alan Eyre, a former senior U.S. diplomat and Iran nuclear negotiator, told the Journal that Iran’s current posture reflects a government planning around continued conflict rather than peace.
“The baseline is war,” Eyre said.
“Iran will remain on a wartime footing, preparing for a subsequent attack,” Eyre said.
That assessment corresponds with the reported steps underway inside Iran: consolidating military command under the Revolutionary Guard, increasing weapons production, strengthening counterintelligence, rebuilding missile infrastructure and coordinating more closely with allied armed groups beyond Iran’s borders.
The result is an increasingly unstable environment as Washington and Tehran move beyond the 60-day negotiating period without resolving the disputes that produced the current conflict.
Trump continues to press for an agreement preventing Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons, while Tehran is seeking to preserve strategic leverage through Hormuz and rebuilding forces damaged by U.S. and Israeli attacks.
For Iranian hard-liners, however, the period of diplomacy appears to have doubled as preparation time.
Their reported actions indicate that influential leaders in Tehran are not treating the June agreement as the foundation of a lasting peace, but as an interval in a confrontation they increasingly believe has yet to reach its most consequential stage.
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