IRGC Adviser Warns US Bases Would Fall After Nuclear Strike

A senior adviser to Iran’s Revolutionary Guard commander told American television that any US nuclear strike on Iran would end with Washington’s own military bases seized worldwide — one of several striking claims from a rare, extended interview Tehran granted to Western media as its war with the United States grinds into its sixth month.

Brigadier General Mohammad Reza Naghdi told PBS NewsHour that using nuclear weapons against Iran would be “a very serious mistake,” warning that “the morning after they use a bomb, all of America’s military bases around the world will be occupied.” He argued global norms have shifted since World War II, saying the world’s people are now aware of nuclear devastation and wouldn’t tolerate its use — a claim he extended into a broader warning that no country would allow such an act “because the next time it could be them.” Iran doesn’t need its own bomb, he said, offering the interview’s most quotable line: “Our nuclear bomb is the hearts of the people of the world that we won fighting oppression.”

The IRGC almost never grants interviews to Western outlets, which is what makes the sit-down itself as notable as anything Naghdi said in it. Conducted by special correspondent Reza Sayah in Tehran, the interview covered ground well beyond nuclear deterrence: Naghdi said Iran manufactures more missiles daily than it fires and could sustain strikes “even if this war lasts for years,” and floated prolonging the conflict deliberately until Trump’s term ends in January 2029 to impose what he called lasting deterrence costs on any future attacker. He also called Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth a “criminal” over child casualties from the war and accused Trump and senior officials of profiting from wartime messaging — accusations that go well beyond the military-capability claims that typically define Iranian statements to foreign press.

The bravado deserves scrutiny rather than automatic acceptance. Naghdi is the same official who claimed all 14 US-Israeli war objectives “completely failed” and who announced Iran’s shift toward offensive military doctrine last week — claims made without independent verification and consistent with a broader pattern of Iranian officials projecting strength publicly regardless of the war’s actual battlefield state. His prediction that the conflict could stretch to 2029 is itself a form of psychological pressure as much as military forecasting, aimed at shaping US domestic political calculations around sustaining an open-ended war.

What’s harder to dismiss is the strategic logic underneath the rhetoric: a US nuclear strike on Iran would be an extraordinary, unprecedented escalation that Washington has given no public indication of considering, making Naghdi’s warning as much a rhetorical marker for Iranian audiences as a response to any live threat. Whether that marker reflects genuine capability or calculated bluster likely won’t be tested — nuclear use against Iran remains firmly outside declared US policy even amid the war’s worst moments.