DECODING: The IRGC, backbone of an Iranian regime under fire

Introduction: a guard that answers to no one but the supreme leader

A force apart, outside the conventional military chain

There is one simple thing to understand first if you want to grasp what has been unfolding in Iran since the start of July 2026: the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, or IRGC, is not an army like any other. It does not answer to the Ministry of Defense in the conventional sense. It reports directly to the supreme leader, and its primary mission has never been to defend the country's borders but to protect the survival of the theocratic regime itself. This distinction, often overlooked in Western commentary, explains why the American strikes that hit roughly a hundred sites linked to the IRGC on the night of July 11 to 12, 2026, were not simply a punitive military operation but a frontal attack on the very skeleton of power in Tehran.

Washington's strategic reasoning becomes clearer once you see this. Striking dozens of IRGC sites in a single night, after Iran's attack on commercial shipping in the Strait of Hormuz, is not simply answering a one-off provocation. It is targeting the organization that controls the missiles, oversees the regional militias, and has locked down, for decades, most of the levers of domestic coercion in the country. CNN noted that the IRGC represents Iran's elite forces, distinct from the regular army, tasked with overseeing missile capabilities and preserving the Islamic revolution, answering only to the supreme leader, according to a report published on July 9, 2026.

An organization born to watch over the army itself

The IRGC was created in 1979 precisely because the new leaders of the Islamic revolution did not trust the imperial army inherited from the Shah. Since then, this parallel architecture has never stopped expanding: ground forces, aerospace, naval forces, the Quds Force for foreign operations, and a sprawling economic empire that, according to several estimates cited by Western analysts, weighs on a significant share of the country's GDP. This is not a symbolic praetorian guard. It is a state within the state, with its own parallel diplomacy and its own financial networks.

It is precisely this second face, financial and economic, that the most recent American sanctions are trying to dismantle. The U.S. Treasury Department confirmed it had targeted a network of exchange houses and companies linked to Mojtaba Khamenei and the IRGC, including Dubai-based financier Ali Ansari, accused of building an international real estate and commercial empire for the benefit of the regime's elites, according to an official statement dated July 10, 2026.

What strikes me first is a truth too often forgotten by hasty commentators: you understand nothing about Iranian politics if you keep treating the IRGC as just another army. It is the skeleton of theocratic power, and hitting that skeleton means targeting the regime's capacity to survive, not merely its capacity to defend itself.

An organization forged in the Iran-Iraq war

The baptism of fire that shaped its doctrine

The Iran-Iraq war, from 1980 to 1988, was the true crucible of the IRGC. Facing a regular army the new religious power considered politically suspect, it was the IRGC that carried the weight of the bloodiest offensives, including the human waves of young volunteers sent to the front. That founding experience instilled in the organization a culture of sacrifice and strategic endurance that continues to shape its military doctrine nearly four decades later, including in the way it absorbs today's American strikes without publicly ceding ground.

This culture of prolonged resistance largely explains why IRGC leaders keep projecting public defiance, even after weeks of repeated bombing of their infrastructure. They were trained, literally, to treat attrition as an acceptable variable of the regime's survival, not as a signal of imminent collapse.

From the battlefield to the country's political leadership

What sets the IRGC apart from other revolutionary guards around the world is its ability to convert military prestige into direct political power. Over the decades, former IRGC commanders have held key posts in government, in provincial administrations, and even within parliament. This porousness between the military hierarchy and the civilian hierarchy has let the Corps weave a web of influence that reaches far beyond the strict security domain.

It is this structural omnipresence that makes the current succession at the summit of power so sensitive. After the assassination of the former supreme leader during the 2026 war, it was Mojtaba Khamenei, long described as the "power behind the robe," who was elected third supreme leader by the Assembly of Experts, confirming the IRGC's decisive weight in forging consensus at the top of the state, according to a detailed biography published on Wikipedia.

There is something chilling in this historical continuity: an organization born to watch over an army deemed too independent ended up, forty years later, producing the country's own new supreme leader. The IRGC did not just survive the Islamic revolution; it became its chief institutional heir.

Control of the missiles, the heart of deterrence power

A ballistic arsenal kept out of the regular army's reach

Iran's ballistic missile program, one of the largest in the Middle East, sits directly under the authority of the IRGC, not the regular armed forces' general staff. That institutional choice is no accident: it guarantees that the country's strategic strike capability remains entirely in the hands of loyalists to the theocratic regime, safe from any temptation of a classic military coup. That architecture explains the speed and scale of Iranian missile fire on American bases in Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, and on the Jordanian base of Al-Azraq between July 9 and 10, 2026.

This centralization of ballistic power in the hands of the IRGC also means that every American strike targeting its production or storage sites is, in effect, an attack on the regime's most prized deterrent tool. It is no coincidence that the American strikes on the night of July 11 to 12 hit nearly 140 targets linked to the IRGC, according to several American outlets, immediately after Tehran's proclaimed closure of the Strait of Hormuz.

The Strait of Hormuz, a lever of global economic pressure

The IRGC does not merely fire missiles: through its dedicated navy, it also holds the ability to disrupt one of the most critical energy chokepoints on the planet. About one-fifth of the world's oil passes through the Strait of Hormuz, and its proclaimed closure by the IRGC on July 12, 2026, following the attack on three commercial vessels, immediately spiked nervousness in international energy markets, even though Brent prices had previously fallen sharply during earlier phases of de-escalation, according to an analysis by the Foley & Lardner firm published in early July 2026.

Using a global shipping lane as geopolitical bargaining chip perfectly illustrates the logic of asymmetric deterrence the IRGC has developed for years: rather than trying to match conventional American military power, threaten global economic interests directly to force negotiations on its own terms.

Shutting down a strategic strait to rattle oil markets is a formidably effective weapon, and it is exactly the kind of blackmail that should remind the West why it can never treat the IRGC as just another regional military actor. This is an actor that has learned to turn geography into a lever of global pressure.

The Quds Force and the export of the revolution

An external arm that shaped the entire Middle East

Within the IRGC itself, the Quds Force occupies a distinct place: it is the one that patiently built the network of militias allied with Tehran across the region, from Lebanon's Hezbollah to Iraqi Shiite militias, to the support given to Yemen's Houthis. This proxy-influence strategy has let Iran project considerable regional power without necessarily committing its own conventional forces directly, limiting the domestic political risk of open, prolonged conflict.

This architecture of proxies also explains why the current conflict with the United States is never confined to Iranian territory alone. The Iranian strikes on American bases in Kuwait and Bahrain, documented in early July 2026, fit this same logic of dispersing fronts, aimed at multiplying pressure points on Washington rather than concentrating on a single, predictable response.

A doctrine of calibrated retaliation, not total war

What stands out in the IRGC's military conduct since the start of the 2026 escalation is the persistence of a logic of calibrated retaliation rather than uncontrolled escalation. The missile strikes on regional bases, documented and publicly claimed, seem designed to demonstrate real nuisance capability without triggering the total collapse of the still-fragile negotiating framework between Tehran and Washington.

This calibrated approach does not, however, eliminate the risk of miscalculation. Every missile salvo, even one claimed as measured, carries a real risk of spiraling out of control, particularly when civilian installations or energy infrastructure sit near the military targets struck, as has been reported repeatedly around the Bushehr power plant.

Let's name things plainly: this is not restraint out of virtue, it is cold calculation. The IRGC strikes hard enough to show it has not caved, but not so hard that it permanently shuts the door on a de-escalation that would let it, once again, survive a crisis that should have cost it far more.

The Revolutionary Guard's economic empire

From ports to telecommunications, a hand on the real economy

Beyond the strict military domain, the IRGC controls a considerable economic empire, spanning port infrastructure to telecommunications, through entire swaths of the construction sector. This diffuse economic presence lets the Corps fund part of its operations without relying solely on the official state budget, while securing direct influence over strategic sectors of the national economy.

This economic grip also explains why Western sanctions targeting the IRGC have progressively widened in recent years to increasingly complex financial networks, involving shell companies registered in jurisdictions as varied as Hong Kong, the United Arab Emirates, or Saint Kitts and Nevis, as confirmed by the latest U.S. Treasury designations targeting the network linked to Mojtaba Khamenei, according to Iran Focus on July 11, 2026.

Wealth piling up while the population grows poorer

The contrast is stark: while the IRGC and the elites tied to it accumulate real estate portfolios abroad, the Iranian population keeps enduring chronic inflation, a devalued national currency, and limited access to foreign exchange, compounded by decades of international sanctions. This economic fracture feeds real popular resentment, documented by several waves of protests violently repressed over the past decade.

It is that same fracture Washington is explicitly trying to exploit by targeting the personal assets of figures linked to the IRGC rather than the Iranian economy as a whole. The U.S. Treasury Secretary stated this goal outright, saying he wants to preserve these seized assets "for the Iranian people," according to the New York Post on July 10, 2026.

There is a particular obscenity in these real estate portfolios piling up in Dubai, London, or Cyprus while ordinary Iranian families can no longer afford to buy meat. This economic fracture is not a bookkeeping detail; it is one of the deepest fault lines in the regime, and it deserves to be documented with the same rigor as the missile strikes.

The nuclear program, the Corps' private domain

Pickaxe Mountain and Parchin, construction sites that never stop

The country's most sensitive nuclear facilities, notably the underground site at Pickaxe Mountain and the Parchin complex, remain tightly bound to the IRGC's sphere of influence, which handles their physical security. Recent satellite images, analyzed by the Institute for Science and International Security, revealed ongoing reconstruction activity at both sites in June and July 2026, in apparent violation of the protocol set out by the memorandum of understanding signed with Washington on June 17, according to Mint on July 11, 2026.

This reconstruction, documented independently of any official Iranian statement, illustrates a constant of the regime's behavior for decades: signing de-escalation commitments while quietly continuing the most sensitive activities out of sight, even at the risk of fresh sanctions or fresh strikes once the truth surfaces on satellite images.

Access denied to international inspectors

The regime has also drastically restricted the International Atomic Energy Agency's access to sites damaged by the American and Israeli strikes of 2025 and 2026, citing domestic legislation that bans any inspection of bombed facilities. The spokesman for the Iranian parliament explicitly confirmed this ban, stating that "access to sites that have been bombed and damaged is not permitted under any circumstances," according to The Eastern Herald on July 2, 2026.

This deliberate opacity feeds Western suspicions about the persistence of a nuclear weapons program, despite repeated denials from Tehran. It also confirms the IRGC's central role in managing this strategic file, since it is its own security apparatus that keeps these sites physically closed to international inspectors.

A regime that forbids access to its own bombed sites has nothing to teach anyone about transparency, and it would be naive to believe this opacity stems from simple administrative caution. This is a deliberate strategy of concealment, and the IRGC is its most faithful guardian.

Domestic repression, the founding mission never abandoned

The Basij, the armed arm of social surveillance

It must never be forgotten that the IRGC's founding mission remains, above any regional geopolitical consideration, preserving the regime's domestic control. The Basij militia, organically attached to the Corps, continues to play a central role in social surveillance, suppressing protests, and enforcing the moral codes imposed by the religious authorities, including during the most acute periods of international tension.

According to revelations published by Iran International in 2023, leaked internal IRGC documents confirmed that Mojtaba Khamenei, even before rising to supreme leader, already exercised effective control over the Basij and decisive influence over appointments within the Intelligence Protection Organization, according to the biography published on Wikipedia.

A foreign war that never suspends domestic repression

What sets the IRGC apart from a conventional army is its ability to wage a foreign war and domestic repression simultaneously, never easing one for the other. Even at the height of missile exchanges with American forces in July 2026, nothing suggests any loosening of social control over the Iranian population, particularly over women and the religious minorities most closely watched by the security apparatus.

This repressive continuity, documented by multiple human rights organizations over recent years, is a reminder that the IRGC does not merely defend territorial borders: it defends a social and religious order imposed by force, and that mission knows no truce, even during open war with a foreign power.

We talk a great deal about missiles and sanctions, almost never enough about this continuous domestic repression that never stops, even under the bombs. The IRGC wages two wars in parallel, one against the foreign enemy and one against its own people, and the second may be the most revealing of its true nature.

A hierarchy that survived the 2026 decapitation

The supreme leader's assassination did not shake the institution

One of the most revealing facts about the IRGC's institutional resilience remains its ability to absorb, without apparent collapse, the assassination of the former supreme leader during the 2026 war. According to Wikipedia, Mojtaba Khamenei himself was wounded in the airstrike that killed his father, his wife, and other family members, before being elected unanimously by the Assembly of Experts to succeed him.

This transfer of supreme power, in a context of open war and despite conflicting reports about the new leader's health, demonstrates the solidity of the internal succession mechanisms the IRGC has patiently built over decades. A less institutionalized regime probably would not have survived a shock of this magnitude without a visible fracture at the top.

State funerals as a display of continuity

The state funeral held in Mashhad for the assassinated former supreme leader also served, beyond the displayed mourning, as a public demonstration of institutional continuity. According to Reuters, these funerals temporarily suspended indirect negotiations between Washington and Tehran, with Trump stating that neither side would attack during this period of several days, in an article dated July 6, 2026.

This simple fact, a tacit truce respected during a funeral, shows just how much religious and political ceremony still carries real organizing force within the Iranian system, even in the middle of a war. The IRGC, historic guardian of this revolutionary ceremony, draws obvious symbolic benefit from it, reinforcing its legitimacy at the very moment its authority might seem most fragile.

I cannot help but see a chilling form of political efficiency here: even the violent death of the supreme leader gets reclaimed, staged, turned into an argument for continuity rather than proof of vulnerability. It is a bitter lesson about the adaptive capacity of this kind of authoritarian regime.

The priority target of the July 2026 American strikes

A hundred and forty sites in a single night

The night of July 11 to 12, 2026, marks a significant escalation in the American targeting of the IRGC. According to the New York Post, American forces struck 140 sites, including missile and drone installations, naval assets, munitions depots, communication systems, and surveillance sites, bringing the total number of targets struck in Iran since hostilities resumed on July 6 to more than 300.

This deliberate intensification of targeting confirms that Washington now considers the IRGC, not Iran's regular army, the central adversary in this confrontation. It is an implicit but glaring acknowledgment of the Corps's institutional centrality in the architecture of Iranian power, well beyond its purely military function.

An escalation triggered by an attack on maritime shipping

These massive strikes are directly linked to the IRGC's attack on the container ship M/V GFS Galaxy, as well as the proclaimed closure of the Strait of Hormuz. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth summed up the American logic of retaliation bluntly, saying publicly that "Iran made a bad choice," before the retaliatory strikes began at 7:15 p.m. Washington time on the direct order of President Trump, according to the New York Post on July 12, 2026.

This sequence of events perfectly illustrates the repetitive pattern of this war over recent months: a maritime provocation from the IRGC, followed by a massive American response, followed in turn by fresh Iranian retaliation on regional bases, in a cycle that seems structurally incapable of leading to lasting de-escalation as long as the IRGC's power architecture remains intact in Tehran.

A hundred and forty targets in a single night is no longer a symbolic punitive strike; it is a strategic message of brutal clarity: the United States chose to hit the regime's institutional skeleton, not just its visible military muscle. It needed to be said clearly, without minimizing or exaggerating the scope of that choice.

The IRGC's regional allies put to the test

China and Russia, cautious but committed partners

The IRGC does not operate in complete strategic autarky. Its ties with China, which remains a major outlet for Iranian oil despite sanctions, and with Russia, an increasingly open industrial and military partner since the invasion of Ukraine, form an economic and diplomatic safety net that Tehran keeps mobilizing in the middle of a crisis. This Iran-China-Russia triangle, joined by North Korea in a shared effort to bypass Western sanctions, today forms one of the most concerning axes for the stability of the international order.

This convergence between authoritarian regimes is no coincidence. It reflects a shared strategy of resistance against an international order dominated by Western democracies, in which the IRGC plays an advanced regional role, alongside a North Korea supplying recognized ballistic know-how and a Russia that in turn needs Iranian drones for its own war effort against Ukraine.

Doubts about the reliability of these alliances in a crisis

Still, this displayed solidarity between authoritarian regimes has, to date, done nothing to stop American strikes from intensifying against the IRGC, nor has it stopped the closure of the Strait of Hormuz from shaking Tehran's strategic credibility with its own partners. Rosatom, Russia's nuclear agency, suspended the return of its employees to the site of new units under construction in Iran, a sign that even Moscow is carefully weighing the risk level before fully re-engaging its resources on Iranian soil.

This Russian caution, documented by several Western sources following the nuclear file, reveals the real limits of the solidarity displayed between these regimes once the danger becomes concrete and immediate. The IRGC can count on diplomatic partners, but it clearly cannot count on direct, unconditional military support from Russia or China in the event of a major escalation on its own soil.

It must be said without indulgence: China, Russia, North Korea, and Iran form a real axis of nuisance for the West, but that axis remains fundamentally transactional. No one in Moscow or Beijing is going to risk their own stability to save the IRGC from strategic collapse on its own territory.

What the Israeli warning about a plot against Trump reveals

Information that must be handled with the caution it demands

According to CNN, Israel shared intelligence with the United States about an alleged Iranian plot to assassinate President Trump, information corroborated in substance by the Wall Street Journal, which described a "fresh plot" devised by Tehran, in articles published July 9, 2026. This kind of intelligence, by nature difficult to independently verify at this stage, must be reported with the methodological caution any unconfirmed intelligence file demands, absent material proof made public.

This caution does not preclude noting how consistent this information is with the IRGC's operational profile, whose Quds Force has historically been linked, according to Western intelligence services, to several assassination attempts targeting regime critics abroad over the past decade. But consistency with a known profile is never, on its own, definitive proof.

A threat that, if confirmed, would directly implicate the Corps

If this threat were confirmed by additional material evidence, it would almost necessarily implicate, given the IRGC's monopoly over the regime's most sensitive foreign operations, the direct responsibility of the Corps or its Quds Force in its planning. This hypothesis remains, at this stage, a scenario documented by intelligence sources, not a fact materially established before a court or an independent commission of inquiry.

Rigorous journalistic treatment of this file therefore requires reporting the existence of this warning, its Israeli origin, and its transmission to American authorities, without turning a piece of intelligence into absolute certainty. That demanding but necessary line must guide any serious coverage of this development.

I refuse to turn unconfirmed intelligence into spectacular certainty, even when it concerns a threat as grave as an assassination plot against an American president. Factual rigor is never more important than when the political stakes are this red-hot.

Trump's stance toward the IRGC apparatus

A necessary evil for the West against the Iranian threat

On the geopolitical level, the firmness Donald Trump has shown toward the IRGC fits, without excessive indulgence, a logic that can be called a necessary evil for long-term Western security. Facing a regime that has repeatedly demonstrated its regional nuisance capacity through its missiles, its proxies, and a nuclear program not fully dismantled, the direct confrontation posture adopted by the Trump administration at least has the merit of strategic clarity, against a decade of diplomatic hedging that failed to stop Iran from continuing to develop its most dangerous capabilities.

This firmness has translated concretely into intensified financial sanctions and repeated strikes directly targeting IRGC infrastructure, a strategy that, without guaranteeing definitive success, at least has the merit of refusing the fiction of a possible normalization with a regime that keeps funding regional militias and threatening global freedom of navigation.

Rhetoric that calls for critical scrutiny on the domestic front

It would nonetheless be dishonest not to note that this same international firmness comes, on the terrain of American domestic politics, with statements that call for rigorous factual examination rather than unconditional endorsement. Trump's remarks referencing instructions for massive bombing "if anything happened to him" deserve to be reported as they are, without validation or amplification, as one presidential statement among others in a context of exceptional tension, not as an officially formalized military doctrine.

This distinction between the geopolitical register, where the hard line against the IRGC appears largely justified by documented facts, and the register of American domestic politics, where every presidential statement must be subject to the same critical scrutiny as any other public remark, is a basic journalistic requirement this file does not allow us to bypass.

One can judge Trump's firmness toward the IRGC as largely justified by the facts, while still refusing to turn every one of his most spectacular statements into gospel truth. The two requirements are not contradictory; they are simply the price of honest journalism.

The IRGC's weight in the future regional equation

An adversary that will not disappear with a ceasefire

Whatever the immediate fate of negotiations between Washington and Tehran, one structural reality remains: the IRGC will not disappear with the signing of a new ceasefire, however solemn. Its institutional, economic, and ideological roots in the Iranian state apparatus are too deep to be dismantled by a single round of sanctions or a bombing campaign, even one as intense as July 2026's.

This reality demands that Western strategists adopt a long-term vision that goes beyond immediate crisis management. Durably weakening the IRGC requires a patient combination of targeted military pressure, financial strangulation of its international networks, and quiet support for internal Iranian dissent dynamics, rather than a bet on sudden collapse that, to date, has never materialized despite decades of cumulative Western pressure.

What the West must refuse to downplay

Underestimating the IRGC's institutional resilience would be as serious a strategic error as overestimating its immediate vulnerability to strikes. The organization's recent history, from the Iran-Iraq war to Mojtaba Khamenei's successful succession after his father's assassination, demonstrates an institutional adaptability that deserves to be taken seriously by anyone hoping to see this regime collapse quickly under external military pressure alone.

It is this demanding, sometimes uncomfortable, clarity that must guide Western analysis of the Iranian file in the months ahead, rather than the comforting illusion of a fast and definitive victory over an institution that has survived forty-seven years of accumulated crises, wars, and sanctions.

I do not believe in quick victories over an institution as deeply entrenched as the IRGC, and I think it needs to be said, even if it displeases those hoping for a spectacular collapse of the Iranian regime in the coming weeks. Clarity is worth more than poorly calibrated hope.

What the Hormuz crisis reveals about the nature of the regime

A power that prefers maritime blackmail to open negotiation

The sequence of events in July 2026 around the Strait of Hormuz reveals a structural constant in the IRGC's behavior: a preference for the show of force over transparent negotiation. By attacking commercial vessels flying the flags of the Marshall Islands, Saudi Arabia, and Liberia, then proclaiming the closure of a global shipping lane, the IRGC deliberately chose to internationalize a dispute that could, in theory, have stayed confined to a strict bilateral framework with Washington.

This strategic choice confirms a reading already documented by numerous Western analysts: the IRGC treats global economic interests as a legitimate bargaining lever, even at the cost of placing the burden of its tensions with the United States on shipowners, sailors, and third-country economies that have no direct stake in this bilateral conflict.

A strategy that isolates Iran further on the international stage

This hijacking of global commercial shipping carries a cumulative diplomatic cost for Tehran, beyond the military and financial losses directly tied to American strikes. Every new attack on civilian vessels reinforces, among Iran's Asian and European trade partners, the image of a regime willing to sacrifice global economic stability to preserve its own leverage against Washington.

This dynamic of progressive isolation, documented by continuous coverage of the crisis since early July 2026, paradoxically illustrates a form of strategic fragility in the IRGC: an actor militarily strong enough to disrupt a global shipping lane, but diplomatically isolated enough that it cannot turn that leverage into a lasting political victory.

Taking a global shipping lane hostage to gain leverage in a bilateral standoff is a show of force that costs everyone dearly except, apparently, the regime orchestrating it. This economic hostage-taking must be named for what it is, rather than treated as a simple technical point of friction between two powers.

Conclusion: understanding the IRGC to understand Iran

An indispensable key for reading the rest of the conflict

At the end of this decoding, one conclusion stands out with a clarity that goes beyond the purely military frame: you cannot understand Iran's trajectory since 1979, nor the current crisis engulfing the Strait of Hormuz and several regional American bases, without placing the IRGC at the center of the analysis. It is not just another army; it is the institutional, economic, and ideological backbone of a regime that has survived wars, targeted assassinations, and accumulated sanctions for nearly half a century.

The American strikes of July 2026, the sanctions targeting Mojtaba Khamenei's financial network, and the Israeli warning about a possible plot against Trump are all fragments of the same reality: a confrontation that consciously targets the very skeleton of Iranian power, not merely its visible military manifestations.

Vigilance that must remain factual, not ideological

This Western vigilance toward the IRGC, fully justified by decades of documented conduct, must nonetheless never turn into crude simplification that would ignore the real complexity of this institution. Understanding the IRGC means documenting both its domestic repressive brutality, its role in regional destabilization, and its remarkable institutional resilience, without ever giving in to the temptation of an easy shortcut.

It is this requirement for factual nuance, applied to a subject this emotionally charged, that must continue to guide any serious coverage of this crisis in the weeks and months ahead, as the fate of the Strait of Hormuz, the nuclear negotiations, and regional stability continues to be decided, in large part, by the decisions made by this uniquely singular organization.

I end this decoding convinced of one thing: ignoring the IRGC's central role condemns you to misreading every next development in this crisis. This institution must be named for what it is, without indulgence or caricature, if we truly want to understand where Iran is headed.

Signed Maxime Marquette, columnist

Columnist's transparency note

What I know and what I don't

I know that American forces struck roughly 140 targets linked to the IRGC on the night of July 11 to 12, 2026, bringing the total number of targets struck since July 6 to more than 300, according to the New York Post. I know that the U.S. Treasury sanctioned, on July 10, 2026, a financial network linked to Mojtaba Khamenei that includes financier Ali Ansari, according to the State Department and Iran Focus. I know that the IRGC claimed the closure of the Strait of Hormuz on July 12 and missile strikes on the Jordanian base of Al-Azraq. I know that Israel shared intelligence with Washington about an alleged Iranian plot against Trump, according to CNN and the Wall Street Journal.

I do not know with certainty whether this alleged plot against Trump will ever be corroborated by public material evidence, nor the exact scale of Mojtaba Khamenei's personal assets that Western investigations continue to document. I would rather say so clearly than turn intelligence information into definitive certainty.

Method

This decoding draws on statements from the State Department and the U.S. Treasury, on coverage from the New York Post, CNN, the Wall Street Journal, and Reuters dated July 2026, as well as analyses from Iran Focus and the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. No scene has been invented, no firsthand account is claimed, and every element attributed to a source is reproduced faithfully from publicly available information.

My editorial angle is stated plainly: I consider Western firmness toward the IRGC justified by decades of documented conduct, while refusing to turn every spectacular statement, particularly on the American domestic political front, into unquestionable truth without corresponding proof.

Sources

Primary sources

Sanctions targeting Mojtaba Khamenei's financial network — U.S. State Department, July 10, 2026

Statement on strikes against Iran — U.S. Central Command, July 8, 2026

Israeli intelligence on an Iranian plot targeting Trump — CNN, July 9, 2026

Secondary sources

American strikes after the closure of the Strait of Hormuz — New York Post, July 12, 2026

Financial network linked to Mojtaba Khamenei sanctioned — Iran Focus, July 11, 2026

Biography and succession of Mojtaba Khamenei — Wikipedia

Nuclear work in violation of the memorandum — Foundation for Defense of Democracies, July 8, 2026