Ex-IRGC Chief Cmdr.: Iran Proved It Can Take On Both US, Israel At The Same Time

Major General Mohsen Rezaei, who took on the IRGC’s commandership following the victory of the country’s Islamic Revolution in 1979, made the remarks during a televised interview on Tuesday.

The successful reprisal, he said, harked back to the famous words, “I am the one who can challenge you” that was once uttered by Lieutenant General Qassem Soleimani, the former commander of the Corps’ Quds Force.

“This was truly proven” throughout the Iranian counterstrikes, said Rezaei, who is also on the Expediency Discernment Council that advises Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei.

On June 13, the Israeli regime launched a series of airstrikes against the Islamic Republic, backed by unprecedented American military and intelligence support.

Iran’s Armed Forces responded swiftly, first with comprehensive defensive maneuvers, and then by unleashing a rapid and relentless counteroffensive.

Codenamed Operation True Promise III, the reprisal struck with devastating precision deep inside the occupied Palestinian territories, targeting vital nuclear, military, and industrial sites.

Hundreds of ballistic missiles, many supersonic and equipped with multiple warheads, rained down alongside swarms of armed drones, pounding key centers, including the city of Tel Aviv, the regime’s economic core, occupied Haifa, its most critical deep-water port, and Be’er Sheva, the nerve center of the Zionist entity’s technological advancement.

Under intense pressure from the unyielding retaliation, the regime scrambled to seek a ceasefire just 12 days later, despite having had deployed the entire array of its own missile systems and also enlisted some of America’s most advanced missile platforms.

Among other things, the aftermath of the strikes left the Bat Yam city, along the occupied Palestinian territories’ Mediterranean coastline, ravaged, resembling the Gaza Strip’s war-torn landscape, according to Israeli media outlets.

In addition, the Iranian forces targeted al-Udeid -- the US’s most crucial regional airbase that is located in Qatar -- with ballistic missiles in retaliation for American attacks on Iranian nuclear facilities near the end of the Israeli-imposed war.

‘No country dares strike US interests like Iran did’

Rezaei underlined that “no country dares carry out such strike,” referring to the counteroffensive targeting al-Udeid.

“Not even such a country as China makes so bold as to carry out such a strike.”

The official, meanwhile, dismissed American officials’ claims that only one of the Iranian projectiles had hit the facility, citing Qatari sources as reporting between five to six blasts at the site.

‘Iran on the ascent to the pinnacle’

The overall performance, he said, amounted to “a show of strength,” besides leading to “a rise in Iran’s stature in the region."

"In a sense, we have begun the ascent towards the pinnacle. But the important thing is not to stop, even though Israel and the US are trying hard to hold us back."

The retaliation further proved to many regional states that the Islamic Republic was “dependable.”

On US, Israel’s frustrations

Rezaei, additionally, enumerated the multiple instances of failure that had been experienced by the US and the Israeli regime during their combined aggression.

He noted how the duo had spent an entire year planning out their design for the aggression, and had even practiced carrying it out in such places as Greece and the Mediterranean Sea.

They, however, abjectly failed in their most important objective that had featured harming the Islamic Republic’s Leader or the members of its Supreme National Security Council, the former commander said.

Washington and Tel Aviv also stopped short of their subsequent goals, namely creating chaos in the country, having counterrevolutionary elements enter the capital Tehran, and bringing about the country’s disintegration.

In addition, the two parties had planned, to no avail though, to conduct extensive bombings against the Islamic Republic’s entire military infrastructures, similar to what happened in Syria following Takfiri terrorists’ Israeli-backed escalation last year.

Rezaei identified the last objective that the regime and Washington had failed to realize as bringing the Islamic Republic’s airspace under their control.

The official further noted how the war’s $20-billion price tag for the regime and the depletion of American interceptor missile arsenals that the United States had spent no less than two years to manufacture at astronomical costs, as other instances of the duo’s failures.

The adversaries, however, are unwilling to confess to their frustrations, he said, while noting, "All of Israel’s defeats equate to our victories, including the costs the regime has borne, the collapse of its security, and its failure to achieve its objectives."