Chief of Staff of the Iranian Armed Forces Major General Mohammad Hossein Baqeri said while the country’s military doctrine is based on defense, the Armed Forces may take an offensive approach at the tactical level to preserve the country’s national interests.
“Based on the teachings of Islam and the Islamic Republic’s causes, we have no intention of invading or even casting a greedy eye on the territory of any country…,” Major General Baqeri told reporters in Tehran on Sunday.
Iran’s military strategies are meant to defend the independence and territorial integrity and national interests of the nation but this does not mean that the country’s Armed Forces would only take passive approaches at operational and tactical levels, he added.
“While we cast no greedy eye on the interests and soil of another country, we may have an offensive approach in protecting our own interests, so that the aliens, by observing its outcome and evidence, would banish the thought of violating the interests of our country,” the commander went on to say.
In similar remarks, Commander of the Iranian Army Ground Force said the Army has made structural changes to its combat strategies, noting that a focus on offensive approach has been put on the agenda of the Iranian Armed Forces.
Speaking at a televised program on Saturday night, Brigadier General Kiomars Heidari outlined the achievements of a large-scale military exercise that his forces held in the central province of Isfahan for two days.
He said the war game was based upon the structural changes that have been adopted in the Army and also focused on the new strategy of offense that all of the Armed Forces have been ordered to pursue.
The general said the Army Ground Force does not rely on “asymmetric warfare” as a strategy anymore, adding that the military forces have gained such a high level of deterrent power that they have abandoned the asymmetric warfare strategy and focused on effective offensive tactics instead.
“Our doctrine is based upon deterrent power,” General Heidari noted, saying military experts have developed such advanced homegrown equipment that the country has no problem in any field of the military industry.
The Army Ground Force staged the war game, involving 12,000 assault forces from all units, on Friday and Saturday.
