Top IRGC Adviser Says Iran Is Prepared to Drag Out War With U.S. and Claims Tehran Is Producing Missiles Faster Than It Fires Them
Iran is prepared to turn its war with the United States into a prolonged conflict that could outlast the Trump administration, according to one of the most senior advisers to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, who used a rare interview with Western media to declare Tehran victorious, defend restrictions on commercial shipping through the Strait of Hormuz and warn that Iran believes it can sustain missile production for years.
Brig. Gen. Mohammad Reza Naqdi, a senior adviser to the commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, made the sweeping claims during an extraordinary interview with PBS NewsHour special correspondent Reza Sayah in Tehran. The IRGC rarely grants extended interviews to Western news organizations, making Naqdi’s willingness to sit down with an American broadcaster significant on its own. But what he said was considerably more consequential.
Five months into the conflict, Naqdi portrayed Iran not as a government desperately searching for an exit but as a military power increasingly comfortable with a prolonged confrontation. He claimed Iran has learned how to fight the United States directly, argued that American forces have proven weaker than Iranian planners anticipated and suggested Tehran could deliberately stretch the war into a conflict of attrition.
His central message was unmistakable: Iran believes time may be on its side.
The White House responded with a warning of its own, telling PBS that Iran would be wise to accept a deal, “otherwise they know what will happen.” The exchange offered an unusually direct glimpse into the competing calculations now driving one of the world’s most dangerous conflicts, Washington attempting to pressure Tehran into an agreement while a senior Iranian military figure publicly argues that Iran can afford to wait.
Iran Says It Has Already Won
Naqdi’s most striking declaration was that Iran considers itself victorious. He argued that Washington entered the conflict without achieving the political objectives Tehran believes the United States sought, including destabilizing or toppling Iran’s leadership and fragmenting the country. From Naqdi’s perspective, survival itself has become a measure of victory. Iran’s government remains intact. Its military continues operating. Its missile and drone forces remain capable of striking targets, and the country retains leverage over the Strait of Hormuz, one of the most economically consequential maritime chokepoints on Earth.
Naqdi also claimed that five months of direct confrontation have given Iranian forces something they previously lacked: extensive experience fighting the United States itself. He said Iran now understands American capabilities better and claimed U.S. military forces have proven weaker than Iranian planners previously believed. Those assertions are impossible to independently verify simply because an IRGC commander says them. Iran has strong propaganda incentives to exaggerate its battlefield performance and minimize its losses, just as governments throughout history have attempted to shape public perceptions during wartime. But the comments are important because they reveal how at least one senior figure close to the IRGC leadership wants the conflict understood inside Iran and abroad. Tehran does not want to appear exhausted. It wants Washington to believe it is becoming more comfortable with the war.
Iran Is Openly Talking About Outlasting Trump
Perhaps the most strategically significant part of Naqdi’s interview was his discussion of time. Rather than describing a rapid path toward peace, Naqdi suggested Iran could prolong the conflict and potentially outlast the current U.S. administration. That represents classic attritional warfare. A militarily weaker power does not necessarily have to defeat a stronger opponent conventionally. It can instead attempt to make the conflict so expensive, politically difficult and prolonged that the stronger adversary eventually decides the costs exceed the benefits.
Iran has employed variations of that strategy throughout the Middle East for decades, relying on asymmetric warfare, regional partners, drones, missiles and political pressure rather than attempting to match the United States aircraft for aircraft or ship for ship. Naqdi’s comments suggest Tehran may increasingly view the calendar itself as a weapon. If Iranian leaders believe they can maintain enough military capability to continue fighting while imposing economic, military and political costs on Washington, they may calculate that they do not need to win quickly. They simply need not lose.
That calculation would be particularly dangerous for the United States because a prolonged conflict creates opportunities for escalation far beyond Iran itself, from attacks on American bases to disruption of international shipping, pressure on global energy markets and widening confrontation involving U.S. allies.
Naqdi Defends Iran’s Actions in the Strait of Hormuz
The Strait of Hormuz remains one of Tehran’s most powerful pieces of geopolitical leverage. When questioned by PBS about Iranian attacks involving nonmilitary and commercial vessels attempting to navigate the waterway, Naqdi defended Iran’s position by arguing that wartime conditions allow Tehran to restrict or inspect traffic it believes could be supporting its enemies. His argument was essentially that Iran has the right to control wartime access through waters under its jurisdiction when it suspects ships are transporting supplies benefiting opposing forces.
That position is deeply disputed internationally, particularly where civilian and neutral commercial shipping is concerned. Attacks on merchant vessels can raise serious questions under international humanitarian and maritime law, and Tehran cannot unilaterally transform every commercial ship into a lawful military target simply by asserting that it may somehow benefit an adversary. But Naqdi’s willingness to publicly defend Iran’s maritime campaign demonstrates just how central the Strait has become to Tehran’s strategy. Iran cannot economically overpower the United States.
It can, however, threaten a shipping corridor through which a substantial portion of the world’s petroleum supply moves. That gives Tehran leverage far beyond its conventional military strength. A missile fired at a warship creates a military problem. A sustained threat to commercial traffic through Hormuz can create a global economic problem. That distinction is fundamental to Iran’s strategy.
Iran Claims It Is Building Missiles Faster Than It Fires Them
Naqdi also made a potentially significant claim about Iran’s missile stockpile. According to the IRGC adviser, Iran is currently manufacturing more missiles each day than it launches, meaning Tehran believes its overall ability to sustain missile operations is not being depleted by the war. Naqdi went further, saying Iran could maintain production even if the conflict lasted for years. The claim cannot be independently confirmed from the interview and should be treated as a statement by a senior Iranian military official rather than an established measurement of Iran’s stockpile. But if even substantially true, it would have major implications.
One of the fundamental assumptions in any sustained missile conflict is that inventories eventually become a limiting factor. Precision weapons are expensive, manufacturing requires specialized components, production facilities can be attacked and supply chains can be disrupted. If Iran can genuinely manufacture ballistic missiles and drones at or above the rate it is expending them, Washington would have difficulty simply waiting for Tehran to exhaust its arsenal. The United States and its allies would instead need to target production capacity, disrupt supply chains or impose enough military pressure to force Iran to reduce launches. Naqdi clearly wants American planners to believe none of those options will be easy.
“If We Run Out of Missiles, We Become More Dangerous”
Then came one of the interview’s most ominous statements. Naqdi suggested that even if Iran eventually exhausted its missile supply, that would not necessarily reduce the threat posed by Tehran. He argued that Iran would become “even more dangerous,” warning that American economic interests around the world could be targeted. The statement appeared designed to communicate that Iran sees the conflict as extending far beyond conventional exchanges between military forces. That is precisely what makes any prolonged U.S. Iran war so difficult to contain. Iran possesses conventional armed forces, but its broader strategic doctrine has historically incorporated asymmetric tools and regional networks capable of threatening interests outside Iran’s borders.
Naqdi’s warning was therefore not merely about missiles. It was a warning that Tehran believes it has additional ways to impose costs if its conventional long-range arsenal becomes constrained. For Washington, that raises an uncomfortable strategic problem: destroying one Iranian capability does not necessarily end the confrontation. It may simply push Tehran toward another.
IRGC Adviser Attacks Hegseth and Accuses U.S. Leaders of Profiting From War
Naqdi also personally attacked U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, calling him a criminal and leveling extraordinary allegations against senior American officials. He suggested that U.S. leaders were benefiting financially from market fluctuations surrounding the conflict and called on Congress to investigate the postwar finances of President Trump and people close to him. PBS presented the claims as Naqdi’s allegations; the interview did not establish evidence substantiating them. That distinction matters.
Accusing American officials of intentionally profiting from warfare is an extraordinary charge and should not be treated as fact without evidence. But the rhetoric demonstrates another dimension of Tehran’s information strategy: Iran is attempting to frame the conflict not simply as a military confrontation but as one driven by corrupt American political and financial interests. That narrative is likely intended for audiences well beyond Iran.
Nuclear Escalation Produces an Extraordinary Threat
The interview became even more serious when the conversation turned to nuclear weapons. Asked about the possibility of the United States using a nuclear weapon, Naqdi claimed such an attack would trigger an enormous response and asserted that American military bases around the world would be immediately occupied. The practical feasibility of Iran seizing U.S. military bases across the globe is highly questionable. The United States maintains one of the world’s most powerful military networks, and Iran does not possess the conventional expeditionary capability required to simply occupy American installations worldwide. The statement is better understood as wartime deterrence rhetoric than as a literal description of an immediately executable Iranian military operation. But the fact that nuclear escalation is being publicly discussed by a senior IRGC adviser illustrates the stakes of the conflict. Once two governments begin openly discussing what happens after nuclear weapons are used, the margin for catastrophic miscalculation becomes dangerously small.
Iran Still Insists It Does Not Want a Nuclear Bomb
Despite the aggressive rhetoric, Naqdi denied that Tehran is seeking a nuclear weapon. Iran has maintained for years that its nuclear program is intended for peaceful purposes, while Western governments and Israel have repeatedly raised concerns about enrichment levels, weaponization capabilities and Tehran’s ability to move toward a bomb. Naqdi argued that Iran’s true strength does not come from possessing nuclear weapons but from what he described as winning the support and “hearts” of people around the world. That argument sits uneasily beside the rest of the interview.
Within minutes, Naqdi simultaneously presented Iran as a country that does not need nuclear weapons while boasting about missile production, defending wartime restrictions in Hormuz, threatening American economic interests and discussing consequences following a hypothetical U.S. nuclear strike. It is a contradiction that reflects the dual message Iran has attempted to project throughout the conflict: Tehran wants to appear powerful enough that attacking it is prohibitively expensive, while simultaneously insisting it is not pursuing the ultimate weapon that could trigger an even larger confrontation.
Naqdi Compares Israel to Apartheid South Africa
Naqdi also addressed Iran’s longstanding hostility toward Israel, comparing the Israeli political system to apartheid-era South Africa and arguing that the future government of the territory should ultimately be determined by a majority vote of its native population. Iran has for decades rejected Israel’s current political structure and supported Palestinian armed groups and other forces confronting Israel.
Naqdi framed Tehran’s position as opposition to a government maintained through military power and nuclear deterrence rather than opposition to Jewish people as an ethnic or religious population. Israel and its supporters reject Iran’s framing, arguing that Tehran’s rhetoric and support for armed groups dedicated to Israel’s destruction constitute an existential threat. The exchange demonstrated that despite the direct U.S. Iran conflict, Israel remains inseparable from Tehran’s understanding of the broader confrontation.
What “Death to America” Means According to the IRGC
PBS also challenged Naqdi on one of the Islamic Republic’s most notorious slogans: “Death to America.” Naqdi argued that the chant is directed at American leadership and what Tehran considers imperial foreign policy rather than ordinary Americans. That explanation has been repeatedly offered by Iranian officials over the years.
For Americans hearing crowds chant “Death to America,” however, the distinction is understandably difficult to accept at face value, particularly when the same government supports attacks on U.S. interests and has repeatedly threatened American forces. Still, Naqdi’s explanation provides insight into how Iranian officials publicly frame the slogan. Tehran wants the confrontation portrayed as being with the American government and its foreign policy, not with the American population.
Where Is Mojtaba Khamenei?
One of the interview’s most intriguing moments came when Sayah asked Naqdi about the prolonged absence of Iran’s new Supreme Leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, from public view. Naqdi said the reason was security. When pressed further about Khamenei’s whereabouts and circumstances, the senior IRGC adviser declined to elaborate and effectively shut down that line of questioning. The answer underscores the extraordinary security concerns surrounding Iran’s leadership after months of conflict.
For a government that wants to project strength and stability, the prolonged absence of its supreme leader inevitably generates questions. Naqdi’s explanation suggests Iranian officials believe the threat to senior leadership remains serious enough to justify keeping Khamenei out of public view. It also revealed the limits of the unprecedented access PBS received. Naqdi was willing to discuss missiles, nuclear war, Hormuz and the possibility of outlasting Trump. The location of Iran’s supreme leader was apparently a different matter.
The White House Response Was Only One Sentence and It Was a Threat
PBS asked the White House to respond to Naqdi’s comments. The answer was short.
“It would be wise for Iran to agree to a deal … otherwise they know what will happen.”
The statement encapsulates Washington’s strategy just as clearly as Naqdi articulated Tehran’s. The Trump administration wants Iran to believe that continuing the war will eventually produce consequences worse than accepting an agreement now. Iran wants the United States to believe exactly the opposite. That is the strategic collision at the center of the conflict.
Washington is betting that escalating military and economic pressure will eventually force Tehran toward acceptable terms. Tehran is betting that it can absorb enough pressure, maintain enough offensive capability and create enough economic and military pain that Washington eventually modifies its demands. Both sides are therefore attempting to convince the other that time is working against them. Both cannot be right.
The Most Important Part of the Interview Was Iran’s Message About Time
Missiles and threats dominated the headlines, but the most consequential element of Naqdi’s interview may have been his discussion of endurance. Iran does not appear, at least publicly, to believe it needs an immediate exit. Naqdi wants Washington to believe Iranian missile factories can keep operating, that Tehran can continue threatening Hormuz, that alternative methods of attacking American interests remain available and that the Islamic Republic is prepared to extend the confrontation beyond Trump’s presidency if necessary.
Whether Iran actually possesses the military and economic resilience to accomplish that is another question entirely. Wars are filled with confident predictions that collapse under contact with reality. Iran has suffered substantial military and economic pressure. American military capabilities remain vastly greater in conventional terms, and Tehran’s claims about missile production, global retaliation and battlefield success deserve the same scrutiny applied to wartime statements from any government.
But strategic messaging matters. And Iran has now delivered its message directly through one of the most senior figures connected to the Revolutionary Guard. Tehran is telling Washington it does not believe it is losing. It is telling Washington it does not believe its missiles are running out. It is telling Washington it does not believe closing or restricting Hormuz is off the table. Most importantly, it is telling Donald Trump that Iran believes it can wait. The White House response was equally clear: make a deal, or face what comes next. Five months into the war, those two positions remain dangerously far apart.
Sources
PBS NewsHour — Rare Interview With Senior IRGC Adviser Mohammad Reza Naqdi
