Reference News Network, March 7 report: The U.S. "New York Times" website published an article on March 3, titled "Iran's Strategy: Expanding the Scale of War, Increasing the Cost of War, and Wearing Down Trump," by Steven Erlanger. The article is excerpted as follows:
The Islamic Republic of Iran's top priority is survival. To achieve this goal, its leaders hope to increase the cost of war for U.S. President Trump - including U.S. military casualties, energy prices, and inflation - in order to force him to declare "victory" and withdraw his troops.
Diplomats and analysts point out that facing overwhelming firepower from the United States and Israel, Iran is expanding the battlefield from its own territory to a broader region. Its goals include destroying the oil and gas infrastructure of neighboring countries, blockading shipping in the Strait of Hormuz, and restricting air traffic. Iran also tries to exhaust the enemy's expensive missile interception reserves.
Vali Nasr of the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University said: "The war has evolved into a test of will and endurance. Iran faces opponents with far superior military strength. Therefore, its strategy is to test the opponent's will by expanding the battlefield, complicating the war, and increasing threats to the world economy."
Ali Vaez, director of the Iran project at the International Crisis Group, said: "The Iranians want to spread pain as much as possible, regardless of the cost, and even if relations with neighboring countries deteriorate, they hope to generate enough opposition to force Trump to retreat."
He added: "For the Islamic Republic of Iran, survival is victory, even if it is a pyrrhic victory."
This plan is called "asymmetric protracted war," which involves enduring initial losses to retain the ability to escalate the conflict when the air defense forces of Israel, the United States, and Persian Gulf countries are stretched thin. The logic behind this strategy is that, under pressure from mid-term elections and the controversial "Make America Great Again" movement, Trump would choose to scale back the war before further increasing U.S. military casualties and inflation.
Ali Larijani, secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, claimed on social media on February 2 that Iran "is prepared for a prolonged war, unlike the United States," including plans to gradually escalate the conflict and expand the battlefield.
Military analyst Franz-Stefan Gadi said the conflict is "a race against time." He stated that Israel, the United States, and their allies are trying to quickly destroy Iran's missiles, launchers, and communication nodes to prevent Iran from easily launching more advanced missiles in the event of a shortage of interceptors.
Even well-equipped Israel had to limit the use of interceptors during the 12-day war with Iran last June, allowing some Iranian missiles to land, provided these missiles were not considered to be approaching key targets or cities. (Translated by Zhang Lin)
Original source: toutiao.com/article/7614435990601515555/
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