Early in the war, the IRGC seemed determined to play chicken with Donald Trump. Arguably, both sides blinked to some extent in April and again in June with the ceasefire and the MOU. This week, however, the game of chicken has reappeared, only with the US accelerating this time.
When Trump threw out the MOU last week and announced a resumption of the blockade on Monday, some wondered whether he intended to pressure the IRGC to negotiate more seriously rather than opt all-in for war. Trump has used occasional strikes to punish the Iranian regime for attacks on vessels transiting the Strait over the past few weeks, mainly for demonstration purposes. This time, however, CENTCOM has not just conducted strikes but has sustained and expanded them into a strategic campaign that looks a lot more like the beginning of the conflict:
The U.S. reimposed a naval blockade on Iran and intensified its airstrike campaign Wednesday in retaliation for Tehran’s attacks on ships trying to pass through the Strait of Hormuz. The American strikes hit an Iranian army barracks, killed at least seven troops and wounded more than 260 people across the country, Iranian officials said. ...
The U.S. carried out a wave of strikes, hitting dozens of targets over seven hours overnight, the military’s Central Command said Wednesday. Later, it resumed striking Iran during daylight — an unusual move that further signaled the increasing tempo in attacks.
One strike targeted a barracks for Iran’s 388th Mechanized Infantry Brigade, which operates tanks and armored vehicles, in Sistan and Baluchestan province, Iranian state television reported. The report said the Americans fired at least 13 missiles in the attack and that the seven dead included conscripts and career soldiers. A number of troops were wounded.
Including those at the barracks, more than 30 people have been killed in recent days, Iranian government spokesperson Fatemeh Mohajerani said, without elaborating.
The specific target in this case may indicate a different kind of strategic expansion. The 388th Mechanized Infantry Brigade does not belong to the IRGC but to the Artesh, the official army of Iran and a nominally separate entity. That may be a distinction without a difference at this point, according to an analysis by AEI's Annika Ganzeveld, as the regime long ago purged independent leadership in the Artesh and replaced them with loyalists. The mullahs trusted the unit enough to carry out "sensitive" missions, such as support for Bashar al-Assad in Syria and suppression of uprisings, starting with 2009's doomed Green Revolution.
Basically, there's not much difference between the IRGC and the Artesh, but there may be enough to matter in an existential crisis. The US and Israeli attacks in March appeared to spare the Artesh as a signal of potential partnership if the army rebelled against the IRGC. This time, CENTCOM may be making a point of not sparing the Artesh, especially its internal-suppression units, as a different and stronger signal about what may come their way if they do not choose survival over lunacy with the IRGC.
At this point, though, both sides may just be playing chicken again. The Wall Street Journal reports that Iran wants to wait out the renewed conflict to see if Trump will get worried about the impact on midterm elections. The renewed blockade may accelerate their own internal troubles, however:
President Trump would prefer a resolution before the November midterm elections and before oil prices surge back to painful levels for Americans. Tehran is hoping it can outlast Trump before a reimposed U.S. naval blockade cripples its already reeling economy—and without provoking another large-scale American and Israeli attack aimed at toppling the Islamic government.
Each side has concluded that its best course is to resume the conflict at a low level while waiting for the other to buckle, analysts said. “It’s really about endurance now,” said Hamidreza Azizi, a visiting fellow specializing in Iran at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs.
For Tehran, the immediate task is to maintain its chokehold on the strait, using its battered but still formidable array of small boats and antiship missiles to block oil tankers and other ships from exiting the Persian Gulf. Achieving such an aim would raise the pressure on Trump, as it did after the war began, but there is less time now before U.S. voters go to the polls.
For Washington, the challenge is to find a way to slip out of that knot, by degrading Iranian military sites that threaten shipping and by curtailing Iran’s oil exports from the gulf with a reimposed naval blockade. The strategy had limited success early in the conflict, but it might show better results as the toll on Iran mounts.
That's a serviceable take on the situation, but it misses the impact of the strike on the 388th. That's not a unit that has anything to do with the Strait of Hormuz; its value comes in protecting the regime from popular revolts. The new escalation appears aimed again at regime change, or at least regime collapse, along with continued strategic degradation of IRGC capabilities. The first five weeks of the war did a lot more strategic damage to the IRGC's ability to rebuild those capabilities than is widely recognized. However, targeting Artesh forces and key dual-use infrastructure threatens the regime's ability to survive at all, and a weeks-long campaign that returns to such a strategy will create the kind of existential crisis that may have the Artesh thinking twice about loyalty to theological lunatics.
Of course, we thought that before, but the US stopped the campaign well short of that crisis point. Perhaps Trump learned a lesson over the past three months. And maybe the Iranians just learned one, too:
Iran's top negotiator Qalibaf is expected to release a statement addressing the war and recent events.
— Open Source Intel (@Osint613) July 15, 2026
Ghalibaf may dangle an offer of more talks in exchange for a ceasefire ... again. Let's see if Trump will bite again.
Addendum: The word "escalateo" comes from Tom Lehrer, who used it while introducing a song for the TV show That Was the Week That Was. For the life of me, I cannot now find the reference (it was about LBJ and Vietnam), but if I can find it, I'll add the video here.
Editor's Note: For decades, former presidents have been all talk and no action. Now, Donald Trump is eliminating the threat from Iran once and for all.
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