{"id":587185,"date":"2026-08-17T07:20:08","date_gmt":"2026-08-17T07:20:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/587185\/"},"modified":"2026-08-17T07:20:08","modified_gmt":"2026-08-17T07:20:08","slug":"iran-distrusted-mou-believed-israel-us-would-use-time-to-prepare-for-war","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/587185\/","title":{"rendered":"Iran distrusted MoU, believed Israel, US would use time to prepare for war"},"content":{"rendered":"

Iran viewed the development of a memorandum of understanding<\/a> with the United States as an attempt by Israel and the US to buy time for a larger attack, and used the opportunity to prepare for a larger fight themselves, The Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday, citing Iranian and Arab officials.<\/p>\n

According to the\u00a0WSJ,\u00a0Arab intelligence officials picked up evidence of Iranian leaders planning potential attacks on enemy territory, broadening the scope of the war and raising the cost for the US.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is also a widespread view in Iran that the main war has not yet begun,\u201d Mohammad Hassan Sangtarash, a Tehran-based defense analyst close to the Iranian government, told the WSJ. \u201cWhat we have seen so far is increasingly interpreted through the lens of \u2018salami-slicing\u2019 tactics – limited, incremental escalation designed to weaken capabilities before a larger confrontation.\u201d<\/p>\n

Part of the preparations Iran made included sending advisors to Iraq, Yemen, and Lebanon to discuss plans for Iran’s proxy militias.<\/p>\n

Officials familiar with Arab intelligence findings said that the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) sent commanders to assist Yemen’s Houthi<\/a> terrorist group, supervising the deployment of missiles and other weapons targeting the Red Sea, as well as giving the group lists of targets and general advice and guidance.<\/p>\n

The IRGC also threatened Gulf states that it would target their energy facilities if the US targeted Iran’s, including sending lists of specific targets.<\/p>\n

Other options the IRGC <\/a>has planned include options such as sabotaging internet cables, raising political unrest in countries with high Shia populations, and ground operations in Kuwait.<\/p>\n

Alan Eyre, a former senior US diplomat and nuclear negotiator with Iran, said that Iran’s baseline is war, adding that \u201cIran will remain on a wartime footing, preparing for a subsequent attack.\u201d<\/p>\n

One example the\u00a0WSJ cites\u00a0is the recent appointment of\u00a0Ahmad Vahidi as<\/a>\u00a0the new Revolutionary Guard Commander in Chief.<\/p>\n

According to Saeid Golkar, an expert on Iran\u2019s security services at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, Vahidi’s appointment “is consistent with a leadership preparing the security establishment for a period of sustained confrontation rather than a return to normal peacetime politics.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Iran viewed the development of a memorandum of understanding with the United States as an attempt by Israel…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":452756,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,2895,8954,87,6605,53065,21453,88,1486,43,40,38,41,39,1032,2893],"class_list":["post-587185","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-houthi","tag-houthis","tag-iran","tag-iraq","tag-irgc","tag-islamic-revolutionary-guard-corps","tag-lebanon","tag-memorandum-of-understanding","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-united-states","tag-yemen"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/587185","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=587185"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/587185\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/452756"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=587185"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=587185"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=587185"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}