WANA (Mar 23) – Exactly what is happening inside Iran’s war room—and what military orders and operational strategies Ayatollah Seyed Mojtaba Khamenei is issuing in his capacity as commander-in-chief—remains unclear. There is no precise public information.

 

Yet based on his two most recent messages, along with their external reverberations and the emerging signals on the battlefield, some of these directives can be identified with reasonable clarity.

 

A) From the Supreme Leader’s two public messages, the following can so far be classified as his military directives:

 

  1. Maintaining the continued closure of the Strait of Hormuz
  2. Continuing attacks on U.S. military bases in the region
  3. Remaining prepared to open a new front if deemed strategically necessary
  4. Destroying American and Israeli enemy assets and capabilities as war reparations
  5. Treating each martyr as the basis for a separate Iranian military retaliation file
  6. Stripping security from both internal and external enemies (an intelligence and security directive)
  7. Exempting certain neighboring countries from Iranian military strikes

People walk past a huge billboard displaying images of Iranian missiles, amid the US-Israeli conflict with Iran, in Tehran, Iran, March 16, 2026. Majid Asgaripour/WANA (West Asia News Agency)

B) But battlefield evidence also suggests that several additional military orders have been issued—whether under the commander-in-chief’s direct supervision, with his approval, or through his explicit command:

 

  1. Delivering a multiplied response to any attack on Iran’s energy infrastructure
  2. Increasing both the intensity and the number of missile salvos against the Israeli regime, while repeating strikes more frequently against selected enemy areas in the region
  3. Adding a new list of targets for military action when required

 

These directives cannot be understood in isolation from the wartime context imposed on Iran beginning on February 28, 2026—the day Israel, with direct U.S. support, launched a large-scale, multi-layered attack on Iranian territory. This was not merely a conventional military operation; from its very first hours, it was designed to decapitate Iran’s chain of command.

 

In the opening wave, Tehran and several other sensitive locations were struck. According to published reports, the operation was accompanied by the assassination of Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei and a number of senior military and security figures—an event that effectively shifted the equation from “mutual deterrence” to open, full-scale war.

 

What had previously unfolded as controlled confrontations, limited strikes, and a shadow war between Tehran and Tel Aviv entered a new phase on February 28: the second round of direct Iran-Israel-USA war—this time not on the margins, but on Iranian soil itself.

 

The official justification offered by Washington and Tel Aviv was the familiar narrative of a “preemptive action” aimed at preventing an “imminent threat” stemming from Iran’s nuclear and missile programs. Tehran rejected that claim from the outset, describing it instead as political cover for a war that had long been planned.

A man holds an anti-Israeli poster of the Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, during the funeral of Iranian security chief Ali Larijani and victims of the IRIS Dena warship at Enghelab Square, amid the U.S.-Israeli conflict with Iran, in Tehran, Iran, March 18, 2026. Majid Asgaripour/WANA (West Asia News Agency)

The official Iranian response—from the president to the diplomatic establishment and the military command—has rested on three central pillars:

 

First, what occurred was a clear act of aggression and an imposed war.

 

Second, Iran’s response would not be limited to a symbolic retaliation, but would continue until the aggression stops.

 

Third, the battlefield would not be confined to the occupied territories alone; U.S. bases and interests across the region would also become part of Iran’s new deterrence equation.

 

That is why, from the very first hours, Iran’s missile and drone strikes against Israel and certain U.S.-linked assets and bases in the region were not merely an act of “revenge.”

 

They amounted to a formal declaration that the Islamic Republic had entered a new phase: a costly, multi-front war of attrition.

 

Many of the military directives now attributed to Iran’s command center should therefore be read within that broader framework—not as isolated reactions, but as elements of a sustained war strategy.