Please Click LIKE at the bottom of this commentary, and share it everywhere!! By Craig Andresen – The National Patriot – Commentary

The strategy employed by the U.S. against the Iranian regime should be pretty clear by now except to some critics of President Trump who are getting close to stage 3 TDS. The strategy, as I have said many times, is to use our military to cut the Iranian regime off from the one thing they need the most…money…while systematically eliminating remaining targets that threaten not only our military, but Iran’s Arab State neighbors, shipping in the Strait of Hormuz, and potential ground operations that may well be coming soon against the IRGC.

Evidence that the strategy is working can easily be found if one pays attention to reports, not only from our military, CENTCOM or our media, but also from more unlikely sources like Iran itself.

Sure, there are those who are fit to be tied over pauses in the action, and over “negotiating” with the enemy, but I believe that those who have adopted the talking points of the IRGC, in that “The U.S. is losing the war,” or that “Trump is a fool and doesn’t know what he’s doing,” would rather continue to virtue-signal their own personal armchair quarterback belief that they could do better if they, not President Trump were running the show.

As for the most recent “pause” for so-called “negotiations,” just over a week ago, it wasn’t President Trump, nor was it Steve Witkoff or Jared Kushner who suggested it, rather it was Admiral Bradley Cooper, Commander of the United States Central Command (CENTCOM) who advised it and for a very interesting reason…the U.S. military had run out of targets related to the Strait of Hormuz. This isn’t to suggest that Iran has nothing remaining with which to threaten shipping, just that the IRGC hasn’t exposed any of what they may have left or where they’ve been hiding it for about a week.

Last week, after the IRGC did what the IRGC always does, and fired ballistic missiles at the U.S. base in Jordan, all of which were intercepted and destroyed, President Trump said, “We’re going to beat the fucking shit out of them. We’ll be hitting them hard. They’re going to get a beating.”

That leaves one to ponder what sort of action that might entail, but when one considers a few new developments including a fresh wave of additional specific military aircraft recently deployed to the region by the U.S. military, it looks different from the standard operations we’ve seen over the past month. Without giving too much away, the combination of bombers and fighter aircraft that ramped up over the past week and a half are exactly the  tools that would be used to protect a ground forces while at the same time, jamming and destroying enemy targeting command and control positions and hardware in a “real-time” operation.

I’ll get back to that shortly.

Yet another new development has been a much more determined operational willingness by our Gulf partners, including the UAE, Bahrain and Kuwait, all of which recently sent jets to attack targets inside of Iran, including drone- and missile-storage depots, among other military sites belonging to the IRGC, along with last week’s launching of Saudi fighter jets to assist in attacking IRGC controlled militia personnel and military equipment operating inside of Eastern Iraq signaling the emergence of a Gulf State coalition no longer willing to sit on the sidelines .

It also should be noted that the strikes carried out by the Saudi military were in conjunction with U.S. forces under the command of CENCOM utilizing both CIA and probably Mossad intel and U.S. satellite targeting information which means that the Saudi military being a key player in those strikes sends a very clear message to other Arab States that this is not a U.S. and Israeli  to the exclusion of Arab Nations operation. The ripple effect could very well signal an end to Arab State reluctance to engage against the Islamist regime of Iran, or inside another Arab Nation like Iraq.

Exactly how fed up with the Iranian regime and their proxies is Saudi Arabia? Last Wednesday, it was SAUDI ARABIA that issued a call for a “COALITION OF THE WILLING” to attack and destroy the Houthi militias that have recently attacked Saudi and other Arab sites in the region. That’s important because it was an ARAB nation, not the U.S. or Israel seeking to grow the coalition and in that part of the world, the likelihood of a positive response depends on who is asking.

Add to all of this yet another new development resulting from last Tuesday’s attempt by Iran to destroy a U.S. base in Jordan, and yet another sign that the Arab coalition is indeed growing – the UAE has announced an AI partnership with the United States that could well set a new standard for the future of warfare. Since April of 2026, the UAE has been the target of better than 1,600 drones incoming from the IRGC in Iran and some of Iran’s proxies and while a few of those attacks got through, most didn’t. The most important part of that is that each attempt by Iran, each drone the IRGC fired at the UAE provided huge amounts of data that the UAE now has on file.

That data will now be used via this partnership to create new, faster, and more accurate AI advanced capabilities to build defensive systems to protect against such attacks in future wars. Call it a cyber-dome if you will.

None of this would have been possible, the growing Arab Coalition, the joint strikes, and the cooperation between intel sources and new AI partnerships had the U.S. military not taken the time to allow the IRGC and Iran to expose, and then have destroyed, so much of their weapons and hidden bunkers.

Another key element to a commitment to join into the war by the growing Arab coalition is, much to the consternation of virtue-signaling armchair stage 3 TDS sorts is…the Strait of Hormuz and its importance to the broader picture. Remember, it wasn’t until a Saudi tanker was hit in the Red Sea, because the Saudis circumvented the Strait of Hormuz that this Arab State coalition started to take hold.

Remember too that at the start of this war, Saudi Arabia wanted nothing to do with it going so far as not allowing the U.S. to use our own bases in their country from which to base strikes against Iran, to now working under the joint command of CENTCOM and using their air force together with U.S. military assets to pound IRGC militants within Iraq who, in the attempt to terrorize the world into NOT bypassing Hormuz AND bowing to IRGC ransom demand shine a bright light indeed ON Hormuz. It took some time, but finally the growing Arab State coalition realized that it wasn’t Trump making it “all about Hormuz,” as so often stated by armchair quarterbacks…it was in fact IRAN that made it about Hormuz by not being shy about its importance in funding both the regime itself, and its proxies..

Okay…what could, “We’re going to beat the fucking shit out of them…”  look like going forward?

After weeks of pounding once buried and hidden IRGC bunkers, weapons systems, command and control structures communication and radar towers and even a few bridges and other infrastructure targets, could the next step be the biggest of all? We have specific strike platforms bolstered, a growing Arab State coalition, a combined intel apparatus between the CIA and Mossad, a well trained and fight-ready Kurdish force that wants the Iranian regime gone and we have Crown Price Pahlavi telling his people that he will soon provide instructions for the final chapter in taking down the Islamist regime of Iran.

We know that CENTCOM and Admiral Bradley Cooper have presented President Trump with several plans regarding a much broader expansion for U.S. military action in Iran, and we also know that Secretary of War, Pete Hegseth met with Prime Minister Netanyahu while the latter was in Washington last week. Last Friday, it was announced that President Trump was holding a full Cabinet meeting at Camp David.

I believe a good deal of the discussions are centered on the timing and logistics of a scenario that would be meant to lay waste to every bridge, road, rail system, port and airport with Iran that the regime could use to move existing stockpiles, or for the purpose of resupplying depleted stockpiles. Take out the power grid, and for that matter, seize Kharg and other key Iranian islands with a combination of U.S. and IDF special ops forces.

Let the anti-Iranian regime Kurds forces now in western Iraq do what they are trained and ready to do – root out and destroy IRGC thugs while helping to arm and support the Iranian people who yearn for freedom.

Turn Israel loose to identify, target and render incapable of fogging mirrors not only IRGC leadership personnel, but on whatever remains at this point of the radical cleric regime leaders.

Whatever the next course of action, some things are clear. Taking down Iran’s Islamist regime must include not only kinetic action, but also financial action. Rushing toward a conclusion before clearing obstacles would be like building the roof for a house before laying a foundation. Understanding the regional mindset is equally as important as understanding the radical Islamist mindset. A coalition of Arab States willing to engage in the fight takes patience which leads to a broader coalition which includes not only Israel’s Mossad, but Israel’s military as well. And having a regional Arab-based fighting force ready, willing and able to carry out ground operations in concert with all the various players is an absolute must.

Unfortunately for the virtue-signaling armchair stage 3 TDS critics, who continue to deride the strategy which has played a huge part in bringing the necessary pieces of the puzzle together, while blaming and deriding only President Trump for not building the roof before the foundation, in neither the immediate aftermath of Midnight Hammer in June, 2025, nor in the immediate aftermath of the opening salvo of Epic Fury, were the pieces of the puzzle necessary in place, but thanks to patience and a clear understanding of the regional mindset, pragmatism, rather than emotionalism has led to what stands a much better chance for success.

I firmly believe the reason the Iranian regime is desperate, lashing out at and alienating their Arab neighbors, financially being bled dry and facing the end of their terroristic and tyrannical influence over the region, their own people and the world is because there are no armchairs in the Situation Room at CENTCOM.

Time will tell.

Copyright © 2026 Craig Andresen / thenationalpatriot.com all rights reserved

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For more political commentary please visit my RIGHT SIDE PATRIOTS partner Diane Sori’s latest Op-Ed at The Patriot Factor, From Vietnam to Iran Questionable Decisions Made

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Tomorrow, Tuesday, July 2128th. from 7 to 8:30pm EST, RIGHT SIDE PATRIOTS Craig Andresen and Diane Sori discuss ‘‘From Vietnam to Iran Questionable Decisions Made’; “The Iran War – Options vs. Alternatives Part 2,”and important news of the day. Tune in to RIGHT SIDE PATRIOTS on https://rspradio1.com Click ‘LISTEN LIVE.’