IRGC Spokesman: War Exposed Adversaries’ Miscalculations

12-Day War ‘Strategic Turning Point’ That Shifted Regional Power

Date: 21 November 2025 - 21:51

News ID: ۱۴۶۰۵۸

Says Iran’s Missile Power Has No Geographic Limits, Missiles Produced Around the Clock

TEHRAN -- The spokesman for the Islamic Revolutions Guards Corps (IRGC) said the recent 12‑day war demonstrated Iran’s missile capabilities and reshaped power dynamics in West Asia, adding Washington and its allies miscalculated Iran’s sources of strength and the nature of its military preparedness.
Speaking at the “Pioneers of Liberation” event on Thursday, IRGC spokesman Brigadier General Ali Muhammad Naini described the 12‑day imposed war as “the most complex war on a global scale.”
He said Iran’s adversaries misread both the country’s military structures and the role of its population in sustaining national power.
According to Naini, the adversaries’ operational plan hinged on a rapid strike aimed at Iran’s senior wartime command.
“The operational strategy of this war was to deliver a strong and swift blow to the head of Iran’s war command to take away its ability to fight in the moment,” he said.
He named four senior IRGC commanders—Major General Gholamali Rashid, Major General Muhammad Bagheri, Major General Hussein Salami and Major General Amir Ali Hajizadeh—as the intended targets of an incapacitation strategy.
“Their assessment was that when these four were targeted, the military domain would suffer paralysis and collapse and war would be dragged into Iran,” he said.
Naini said planners further believed that a collapsing defense structure would trigger public unrest. “They thought society would receive the message of revolt, completed by terrorist acts and the spillover of counter‑revolutionary elements across the borders,” he added.
The United States and its partners, however, failed to account for Iran’s non‑material sources of power, he said.
“The enemy could not estimate the components of our power,” he said. “They thought the Islamic Republic draws its strength solely from security and defense structures. They did not calculate the real power of the system, which is the people and which counts as soft power.”
Naini said these miscalculations stemmed from a materialistic view of power that overlooked the political and social dynamics shaping Iran’s resilience.
“The enemy became the victim of its own cognitive warfare. It believed the ‘weak Iran’ it had constructed and acted based on that belief,” he said.
He asserted that the war instead demonstrated Iran’s military credibility. “The world believed in a ‘strong Iran,’” he said. “It became clear that our missile power is real and deterrent, and the Americans understood that confronting Iran’s ballistic missiles is not an easy task.”
Calling the confrontation a “strategic turning point,” Naini said Iran effectively battled “all of NATO and CENTCOM.” He said the war shifted regional power equations and immobilized strategic centers of thought in Israel.
He described the 12‑day confrontation as a multidimensional test of Iran’s defensive deterrence, offensive capabilities and public endurance, as well as a stress test for the weaknesses of Iran’s adversaries.
Invoking the late General Qassem Soleimani’s view that “crises create opportunities,” Naini said Iran’s military and defense sectors expand their capabilities several-fold in each major conflict.
He cited analysts who, he said, now divide the history of modern warfare into periods “before the 12‑day war and after the 12‑day war,” calling it one of the most significant events in contemporary conflict.
Naini described the confrontation as a demonstration of Iran’s strategy for modern and hybrid warfare, emphasizing cyber operations, media influence and societal perception.
“The main battleground of new wars is the battleground of minds and wills, and the main tool is technology,” he said.
He reiterated Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei’s view that missile capability is “the ID card of the Iranian youth.”
He said Iran’s missile forces, drone operators and fast-attack naval commanders have an average age of 30 and represent a technologically skilled generation.
He credited the late General Hajizadeh not only with missile program advancements but with “human resource development,” saying young personnel undertook missions even when they believed the probability of their own martyrdom to be “50 to 70 percent.”
Naini said Iran’s missile production is ongoing and uninterrupted. “Our missiles are being produced around the clock. We have no pause and we constantly think about readiness,” he said,

adding that volunteer recruitment into IRGC aerospace and operational units increased after the war. “The places of the martyrs were filled quickly,” he said.
He repeated that Iran’s missile capability now extends beyond geography. “The trend of Iran’s missile power today has no width and length of geography and is endless,” he said.
He described the IRGC’s missile responses during the 12‑day war as incorporating tactical innovation and operational creativity. He said 22 subsequent waves of strikes—referred to as “True Promise 3”—targeted strategic sites and featured varied launch points, timings, payloads and missile types.
Naini said U.S. forces resorted to costly defensive measures. “The Americans had to use $4-million missiles in their air-defense systems to intercept Iranian attack drones that cost less than $10,000,” he said, adding that the United States ultimately intervened directly “to save the Zionist regime.”
He said Iran’s combined missile, cyber and electronic warfare operations generated confusion among adversary defenses. In some cases, he said, only one or two missiles were launched in a wave to avoid claims of saturation and to demonstrate precision, calling these strikes a “masterpiece of Iran’s missile capability.”
Naini said the war underscored that science and technology drive national power. He pointed to a “sacred unity” identified by the Iranian leader as central to victory.
He also outlined four pillars of Iran’s post-Iran-Iraq War defensive doctrine: defensive posture, self-reliance, asymmetry and public mobilization. He said Iran’s experience since the 1980s, combined with operations of the broader resistance axis and General Soleimani’s efforts, enabled Iran to respond to attacks within hours and rapidly restore operational capability.
“We assessed the enemy correctly, evaluated its scenarios and prepared counter-plans in sea, air and land,” he said. “The war room is always active.”
Naini said the 12-day war validated decades of Iranian preparations. “Negotiations or exercises did not change the enemy’s calculations,” he said. “But today we witnessed their defeat.”