Mick Hartley

Full text:

The Iranian regime suffered an unprecedented blow in the early hours of June 13. Key figures in its military leadership, including in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, have been reported killed. Iranian state media has confirmed that several key IRGC members, such as IRGC head Hossein Salami were killed. The fact that these men went to sleep on June 12 without any concern about what might happen is an illustration of how arrogance drove Iran’s regime to this moment.

Just a day before he was killed, Salami had claimed that any Israeli attack would be met by an unprecedented response. He claimed Iran was ready for “any war.” Salami’s entire career as head of the IRGC was filled with these kinds of boasts. Back in February 2019, before he was appointed the head of the IRGC, he had warned that Iran could defeat Israel. “We warn them [Zionists] that if a new war breaks out, it will result in their termination,” Brig. Gen. Hossein Salami, the second-in-command of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, said at the time. He said Israel should not “play with fire” and claimed Israel would be destroyed. Iran has constantly claimed that Israel will be destroyed and the US will be driven from the region if there is a war.

However, Iran walked into this conflict slumbering. This didn’t come out of the blue though. Iran backed the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7. It supported Hamas before the attack and in the days after. It coordinated with proxies in Yemen, Lebanon and Iraq to attack Israel and set in motion a multi-front war. It believed Israel would collapse under the weight of these blows.

Salami was a key architect of the Iranian regime’s arrogance. This arrogance was a theme in the regime’s increasingly bold moves in the region. It became more involved in Iraq. It intervened in the Syrian civil war. It increased the power of Hezbollah. It used Hezbollah to hijack Lebanon’s politics and bankrupt Lebanon. After 2015 it also backed the Houthis and gave them missiles and drones to attack Saudi Arabia. It also moved the Shahed 136 type of drone to Yemen back in 2019. Then it provided the same drones to Russia to attack Ukraine.

The arrogance grew. It attacked Saudi Arabia directly in 2019. It attacked ships in the Gulf of Oman using mines and then kamikaze drones. Iran encouraged proxies to attack US soldiers in Iraq in 2019 and 2020. It also targeted the Kurdistan region in Iraq using missiles. It even used ballistic missiles to target armed groups in Syria and Pakistan. Iran’s regime felt it was on a roll from 2015 to 2023 when the October 7 attack happened. It believed its own rhetoric.

Iran’s arrogance was on display not only in this warmongering in the region. Salami was a key figure in its rhetoric. He said in 2019 that Iran could destroy Israel. He made the same claim in 2021. Yet Salami did not take any safeguards apparently in terms of his own protection in Iran. He felt that Israel would not dare attack Iran. He assumed that he and his commanders were safe. The IRGC had been involved in wars across the region, sending forces to Iraq, Syria and other countries. They had felt they could inflame wars but they didn’t believe it would to Tehran’s own doorstep. Even after the Israeli strikes in 2024, which followed Iran’s attacks on Israel, the IRGC felt secure. It saw the talks with the Trump administration and assumed all was fine. It even likely saw the tensions grow on June 11 and 12 with reports of US State Department personnel preparing to evacuate Iraq and other countries. However, Salami and his commanders felt nothing would happen. After years of threatening Israel, they felt that they would never pay a price.

Iran often accused Israel and the US of being “arrogant powers.” In 2020 Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani described the US as "the wicked hands of the global arrogance, with the usurper Zionist regime as the mercenary.” Despite the regime’s claims that others were arrogant, it was Iran’s arrogance at assuming it could terrorize the entire Middle East and spread proxy wars across the region and not face any pushback. It must have noted that fall of the Assad regime in December 2024 and wondered if it had miscalculated. However, it didn’t seem to heed the lesson.