Iran has signaled that it is preparing for another round of war with the United States and has issued public threats against Washington and its allies in an apparent bid to deter President Donald Trump from restarting the current conflict.

Over the past month, Iranian military commanders have intensified a series of public messages claiming that Iran has built large stockpiles of new weapons ready to be unleashed on targets beyond the region should the US resume hostilities that began in February.

Iranian officials have threatened to broaden their targets if the conflict resumes, floating options that include cutting undersea internet cables, striking AI data centers, and attacking regional oil and gas facilities.

“The world will be amazed,” Iran’s Revolutionary Guards spokesperson Hossein Mohebbi said late last month. “We have new targets that have not yet been attacked,” he added.

Nearly nine months after the US and Israel launched their war on Iran, the conflict has stagnated into a stalemate that has left everyone uncertain about Trump’s endgame and the world grappling with economic unrest. Both sides have claimed victory – Tehran pointing to its survival and Washington the damage inflicted on the Iranian regime. Meanwhile, the Trump administration continues testing new economic and military measures to force Iran into capitulation, which Tehran has stubbornly resisted.

“The war is not over,” Mohebbi said. “The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has prepared itself for a long-term war.”

Bracing for war

While Iran’s commanders signal strength and readiness, ordinary Iranians, long burdened by conflict and economic uncertainty, are once again bracing for the on the ground realities of war.

“Every single day and every night, we’re waiting for the bombing to start again,” a 70-year-old Tehran resident told CNN last week. “I’ve charged all my power banks, stocked up on water, and got everything ready, because the attacks could start again at any moment, any day.”

A mother of two described to CNN the fear she lives with as she sends her children to school each morning, past streets where Revolutionary Guards are visible, and military bases remain active.

 

“I would like to know exactly what else the US is planning to bomb?” she said. “They couldn’t even take (the Iranian leadership) out. You couldn’t negotiate either. So, what’s the point of starting another war?”

Iranians are “convinced” war is going to restart, another resident in Tehran told CNN.

“It’s all anyone can talk about…you just have it in the back of your head, is tonight the night? Is it tomorrow? I think it makes it worse that there areall this conversation about it, you can’t even take a break,” the resident told CNN.

The Iranians spoke to CNN on the condition of anonymity in order to speak freely about their fears of further war.

Targeting Europe

Over the last few weeks, White House advisers have held meetings to discuss various options for Iran. While Trump announced publicly that he would not take new actions before the midterm elections, several advisers told CNN privately they didn’t know whether that statement was definitive or could change before election day on November 3.

The US military has developed new strike plans that include potentially using the so-called “mother of all bombs” to target Iranian energy infrastructure and nuclear sites should Trump give the order to resume combat operations either before or after the midterm elections, according to multiple US officials familiar with the matter. The GBU-43/B Massive Ordnance Air Blast Bomb or MOAB is the largest non-nuclear bomb in the US arsenal and would mark a notable escalation.

“These are propaganda tools intended to intimidate the Iranian people,” Alireza Sheikh, an Iranian army commander said on Saturday. “The Iranian people are the father of all bombs.”

Iran has signaled a new, more offensive military doctrine that suggests it will not wait to be struck and could even launch pre-emptive strikes. Last week, Revolutionary Guards social media accounts reported that Iran conducted military exercises across the country, including launching 30 ballistic missiles in one go.

Farzin Nadimi, a senior fellow with The Washington Institute think tank focused on US foreign policy in the region, said if an emboldened Tehran decided to try its new long-range missiles against Europe in an attack, targets might include US forces based at airbases in England, or the logistic hub in Ramstein, Germany, the largest US military installation outside of the US.

“However, Iran would likely reserve that possibility to a very top level of escalation,” Nadimi said.

The US moved all of its long-range bombers stationed in the United Kingdom back to their American home bases earlier this month after an unspecified new threat, officials said. Days before the move, the British government arrested a number of individuals in connection with an alleged Iranian plot to target the UK airbase where the US bombers had been stationed.

To increase their chances of hitting targets, Nadimi said Iran may potentially launch more sophisticated and coordinated swarms of AI-enabled drones fitted with cameras and datalinks that can communicate with each other, adjust flight paths and speed to evade jamming and air defenses.

“They haven’t demonstrated these capabilities yet, but they discussed developing such technologies in the past,” Nadimi said.

Iran may also seek to advance its cruise missile capabilities to include supersonic propulsion to better evade interception and try jamming military communication and surveillance satellites, he added.

Region prepared

Iranian commanders are preparing for what they regard as an inevitable resumption in hostilities, while also attempting to deter Washington by highlighting the costs of an attack, Ali Vaez, deputy program director for the Middle East and North Africa at International Crisis Group told CNN.

“Tehran wants to make clear that the next round will be fought on a much wider battlefield, with fewer restraints and potentially more lethal consequences,” Vaez said. “But the danger is that what Iran intends as deterrence could be interpreted in Washington as provocation, making the very war Tehran hopes to avert more likely.”

When the US and Israel launched the war on Iran in February, they killed the Islamic Republic’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei along with Iranian military commanders, top officials, and civilians, including schoolchildren. Iran’s retaliation focused mostly on its Arab neighbors, which it accuses of colluding with Washington.

Iran effectively blocked the Strait of Hormuz, the only maritime waterway used by neighboring nations to export oil, before striking civilian infrastructure across Arab cities. Dubai, a major tourist destination, was targeted, water plants in Kuwait were hit, and attacks on data centers disrupted banking services in several countries across the region.

 

Iran fired more than 2,500 missiles and drones on the United Arab Emirates alone, more than any other country, including Israel. Abu Dhabi intercepted nearly all of the projectiles, according to figures by the UAE’s defense ministry.

Last week, the head of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, Mohsen Rezaei, warned that Iran will target US assets in the region, including within the UAE, in retaliation for any fresh attacks

“If another war breaks out, numerous undersea cables, data centers, AI facilities and other infrastructure across the region could be destroyed,” Rezaei said.

A senior UAE official told journalists on Thursday that his country is better prepared should fighting resume.

“We don’t want war,” Ali Al-Nuaimi, chairman of the Defense, Interior and Foreign Affairs Committee of the UAE’s Federal National Council said. “But if a war starts today, we are ready to deal with any threat that comes our way better than we were on February 28.”

“Whatever is needed to protect our national security, sovereignty and people, we will do it.”