President Donald Trump on Wednesday declined to rule out destroying Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), drawing a parallel with his administration’s campaign against the ISIS terrorist group during his first term as the United States expanded military operations against Iran and intensified pressure on Tehran over the Strait of Hormuz.
Trump made the remark when asked by FOX Business correspondent Edward Lawrence in a July 15 interview whether his hard-line rhetoric toward Tehran meant that he could seek to eliminate the IRGC in the same way he defeated ISIS.
“You came to the conclusion that you couldn’t negotiate with the IRGC,” Lawrence said. “Does that mean that you might wipe them out like you did ISIS?”
“Yeah, it does,” Trump said. “We’ll see what’s happening.”
Trump’s comments marked his strongest suggestion yet that Washington could target the Revolutionary Guards as an institution rather than limit its operations to missile batteries, air defenses, and naval assets. The IRGC, which answers directly to Iran’s supreme leader, oversees much of the country’s missile program and controls powerful military, intelligence, and economic networks.
The United States designated the IRGC a foreign terrorist organization during Trump’s first term, an unprecedented step against an official branch of another country’s armed forces.
Trump’s refusal to rule out targeting the IRGC came as his administration intensified pressure on the organization beyond the battlefield.
The U.S. Treasury Department on July 15 imposed fresh sanctions targeting what it described as a global procurement network supplying weapons and logistical support to the IRGC following Iran’s attacks on commercial shipping in the Strait of Hormuz.
According to the Treasury, the network relied on aviation companies, transport firms, financial intermediaries, and travel coordinators to conceal the IRGC’s role in overseas procurement operations.
US Expands Strikes Against Iran
American strikes reached deeper into Iran early Thursday, with Iranian state media reporting attacks in areas around Tehran for the first time in the latest round of fighting.Iranian outlets also reported strikes in the provinces of Semnan, Hamedan, Hormozgan, Khuzestan, Lorestan, Markazi, and Sistan and Baluchistan, indicating a widening target set.
According to U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM), American forces completed a second wave of strikes late July 15 after launching attacks earlier in the day against Greater Tunb Island, a strategically important position near the Strait of Hormuz, the key maritime shipping lane that Iran has been choking off.
CENTCOM said U.S. forces struck command centers, air-defense systems, missile and drone capabilities, and coastal surveillance facilities “to further degrade Iran’s ability to threaten innocent mariners crewing commercial vessels transiting the Strait of Hormuz.”
The military said precision munitions were also used against targets in Bandar Abbas, Iran’s principal naval hub on the Persian Gulf.
The latest operations followed a morning assault that lasted roughly 90 minutes and targeted Iranian defense and missile positions on Greater Tunb Island.
Greater Tunb is considered a strategic point in the Strait of Hormuz and forms part of a network of islands that includes Abu Musa, Lesser Tunb, Qeshm, Larak, Hormuz, and Sirri. According to Israeli security officials who spoke to Epoch Magazine Israel, this network constitutes Iran’s “defensive arc” around Hormuz.
Separately, the U.S. military said it disabled a Curacao-flagged oil tanker heading toward Kharg Island, Iran’s main oil-export terminal, after the vessel allegedly ignored repeated warnings and attempted to breach a renewed American naval blockade.
According to CENTCOM, a U.S. aircraft fired Hellfire missiles into the ship’s smokestack, leaving the vessel unable to continue its voyage.
The United States reimposed the blockade after Iranian attacks on commercial shipping earlier this month reignited hostilities and effectively collapsed a memorandum of understanding signed by Washington and Tehran in June.
Iran Threatens Retaliation
Iran responded before dawn Thursday with missile and drone attacks targeting Bahrain, Jordan, and Kuwait, countries that host U.S. military facilities. Authorities in those countries acknowledged the attacks but reported no immediate casualties.In remarks published Thursday by Tasnim News Agency, which is closely aligned with the IRGC, Col. Ebrahim Zolfaghari, spokesman for Iran’s Khatam al-Anbiya Central Headquarters, warned that any U.S. attacks on Iranian infrastructure would trigger a sweeping response across the region.
“Under no circumstances and in no way will we allow America, as a foreign and extra-regional country, to interfere in the Strait of Hormuz,” Zolfaghari said. “This is Iran’s inviolable red line.”
He added that if Trump follows through on threats to strike Iranian bridges and power plants, “all infrastructure in the region” would be “smashed under the steel blows” of Iran’s armed forces.
Trump has warned that the United States could soon expand its target list to include energy infrastructure and transportation networks.
Despite the warning, Trump has continued to insist that diplomacy remains possible.
“They don’t like what we’re doing, and they do want to settle,” he said on July 15 during remarks at the U.S. Army War College in Pennsylvania. “We’ll find out whether or not we settle with them, or we just finish it off.”
Iranian citizen who had been charged with espionage.
