Iran: what is its war plan?

Mar 10, 2026 Features / Columnists, The GHK Lall Column

(Kaieteur News) – In no particular order, Iran sent its missiles hurtling across the skies to Israel, Qatar, Dubai, Saudi Arabia, and the Strait of Hormuz.

The latter was expected as part of a broader, tightening strategy, but certainly not a target in Saudi Arabia, the birthplace of the Prophet. What is Iran’s war strategy, its wargame plan? It seems that in Iran’s playbook, all is fair in war. This is not about wargames or game plans, anymore; the paltry, irrelevant language of sport. This is the real thing: a live war, a hot one, with buildings crumbling and bodies falling. War in all of that apparel in its modernity, capability, and ferocity.

NATO said that it stopped a missile on the way from Teheran to Turkey. An Amazon site has been struck. So, I asked the question again: what could be Iran’s war plan, its war strategy? I hazard a guess, based on its response to coming under attack. Its response has been like a hand of cards that is spread in a broad semicircle. I also see a country, where its leaders been thrown feet first into a pressure cooker under intense heat; and who react along the lines long discussed and long finalized. When they come hunting for the head of Iran, make all of them pay the costliest of prices. The friends and fellow believers, who turned their faces and backs, and openly abandoned, out of a combination that is part cowardice and part calculation. The enemies, who were always thirsting for Iranian blood and forever yapping at its heels.

It is said that a cornered animal will fight back with strength untold, and courage undiminished. There is no knowledge on how long its resistance will last; or how much damage its retaliatory efforts can inflict. Damage that serves as a stark deterrent. And, of course, its hidden weapon, one that is feared because it is unknown. Because it could be planted right in the bosom. Sleeper cells, willing martyrs for what is a losing battle, but which could still appear, if only as part of a complex web of psychological warfare.

From Iran, reports are over 2000 dead, and many more injured. Losses are borne with stoic resignation. In the US, less than a dozen casualties have been reported, and that is being watched like a hawk, almost in the manner of a monitoring machine in a hospital ICU Unit. The numbers rise and all kinds of squawking sounds emerge from the machines. I shouldn’t have to relay the reactions of close ones standing around nervously. To put differently, TV wars have their pleasing aspects. For a contrasting picture, there are body bags that no one has stomach for, ever likes. In my estimation, Iran seems ready to take its blows. But it also seems ready to takedown as many as it can in a war that could encircle and drag in as many as it decides to target. Going down will not be a one-sided affair.

From an Iranian perspective, my sense is that since the country believes that it is under the gun, and will have to absorb many blows and lots of pain. Thus, it must reciprocate and share its own pain on those within the arcs of its reach. Victory is sure to be out of its grasp; but a pyrrhic may be just as acceptable. A big country with likely a deep arsenal of weapons, and with some 92 million citizens should never be counted out, not be seen as a Sunday walk in the park. What is apparent is how much the mullahs and the contingency plans they refined over the years have the population under the tightest lockdown. It explains why the internal revolt expected (perhaps, prompted) by Iran’s enemies now look more like wishful thinking than having any good chance of coming into existence, actually making a difference.

How long Iran is able to hold-on and holdout is the question that many sift and wade through. How long will the allies arrayed against it succeed in holding one head remains to be seen. Casualties are the greatest influencers of change. When it is the other guy that is getting hammered, that’s just fine. When the numbers and pressures add up on the home front, then a new language takes over. This, too, could be part of Iran’s comprehensive war plan.

(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of this newspaper.)

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GHK Lall, Iran, NATO, Teheran, Turkey, war plan

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