Mohsen Rezaei, Iran’s longest-serving Revolutionary Guards commander, is back at the center of the country’s security establishment after receiving new roles that put him close to Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei and at the heart of national security decision-making. His return matters for Washington: Rezaei has spent decades portraying the United States as an enemy and has repeatedly threatened American forces and interests.
Iran has returned one of the most experienced figures in the history of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps to the center of power.
On August 9, Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei appointed Mohsen Rezaei as his representative to Iran’s Supreme National Security Council. Separately, President Masoud Pezeshkian appointed Rezaei secretary of the SNSC, replacing Mohammad Bagher Zolghadr.
The distinction matters. Rezaei was not simply “promoted by Khamenei” to lead the council. The president formally appointed him secretary, while Khamenei gave him the separate position of the Supreme Leader’s representative.
Together, however, the appointments give a veteran commander with a deeply confrontational record toward the United States a renewed role at the heart of Iranian security policy.
From IRGC commander back to the center of power
Rezaei, born in 1954, was appointed commander of the IRGC in 1981 when he was just 27.
He remained in command until 1997, leading the organization throughout virtually the entire Iran-Iraq War and becoming the longest-serving commander in the IRGC’s history.
After leaving military command, Rezaei remained inside Iran’s political establishment. He served for years as secretary of the Expediency Council, repeatedly ran for president and later became vice president for economic affairs under President Ebrahim Raisi.
His return to a prominent security role accelerated in 2026.
Mojtaba Khamenei appointed Rezaei as a senior military adviser in March. His August appointments now bring him directly into the Supreme National Security Council, the institution responsible for coordinating some of Iran’s most consequential national security, defense and foreign-policy decisions.
For the United States, Rezaei’s history makes that development particularly significant.
“Vigorous revenge against America”
Rezaei’s hostility toward Washington is not new.
Hours after a U.S. drone strike killed Qassem Soleimani in Baghdad on January 3, 2020, Rezaei publicly vowed retaliation.
“We will take vigorous revenge on America,” he said in a statement reported by Reuters.
It was part of a broader pattern in which Rezaei has treated confrontation with Washington as extending beyond individual American presidents or administrations.
In 2026, as tensions between Iran and the United States intensified, his language became increasingly focused on American military forces.
During an April interview reported by Anadolu Agency, Rezaei warned Washington against attempting to police the Strait of Hormuz.
“These ships of yours will be sunk by our first missiles,” he was quoted as saying, adding that U.S. vessels could be exposed to Iranian missiles and destroyed.
The context is important: Rezaei was describing what Iran could do in response to American intervention in the strait, rather than announcing an imminent Iranian attack on U.S. ships.
Even with that qualification, the statement amounted to an explicit warning that Iran could use missiles against American naval forces.
Threatening to expand a war against U.S. forces
Rezaei went further during a June interview with CNN.
“We will drag the war to the Indian Ocean,” he said while discussing the possibility of an expanding conflict, including “attacking these other American bases.”
By August, he was again warning about American military assets.
“There will certainly be serious dangers to the US ships and bases,” Rezaei said in remarks reported by Euronews, adding that Iran would not simply watch while Washington continued a naval blockade.
He has also called for the removal of Western forces from the region entirely.
“All foreign forces, American or European, must leave the region,” Rezaei said in May, according to Iran’s Tasnim news agency.
Taken together, the statements show something broader than opposition to one U.S. president. Rezaei has repeatedly presented American military power in the Middle East as something Iran should confront and ultimately remove.
A remarkable warning about American hostages
One of Rezaei’s most extreme reported comments came during the same April interview in which he threatened U.S. warships.
Anadolu Agency reported that Rezaei said it would be “great” if the United States attempted a ground invasion because Iran could “take thousands of hostages” and demand “a billion dollars” for each one.
That quotation requires caution.
The remark was explicitly hypothetical, describing what Rezaei claimed Iran could do following a U.S. ground invasion. It was not an announcement of an existing Iranian plan to seize Americans.
The quotation also rests on Anadolu’s reporting of the interview; an original Persian transcript was not independently located during research for this article.
Even with those qualifications, the reported remark illustrates the unusually aggressive language Rezaei has been willing to use when discussing a direct war with the United States.
Wanted over the AMIA bombing allegations
Rezaei also carries serious international legal baggage from his years at the top of the IRGC.
Argentine prosecutors have accused him of participating in the planning of the 1994 bombing of the AMIA Jewish community center in Buenos Aires, which killed 85 people.
Argentina sought his arrest, and Interpol approved a Red Notice connected to the case.
But an important distinction is necessary: Rezaei has never been tried or convicted over the AMIA attack.
The allegations against him originate from the Argentine investigation. Prosecutors alleged that Rezaei participated in discussions connected to planning the bombing, but he has never appeared before an Argentine court to face those accusations.
A Red Notice is also not an international conviction or arrest warrant. It is a request to law-enforcement authorities around the world to locate and provisionally arrest a person pending possible extradition or other legal proceedings.
Iran has rejected the accusations surrounding the AMIA case.
Sanctioned by Washington, but not as a “designated terrorist”
Rezaei is also under U.S. sanctions.
The Treasury Department sanctioned him in January 2020 under Executive Order 13876, which allows Washington to target senior Iranian officials appointed by Iran’s Supreme Leader.
That distinction is important too.
Calling Rezaei a “U.S.-sanctioned Iranian official” is accurate. Describing him as having been specifically “sanctioned for terrorism” or formally “designated a terrorist” under that action would not be.
The sanctions nevertheless add another layer to an already hostile relationship between Rezaei and Washington.
Why his return matters now
Rezaei has made inflammatory statements before. What has changed is his position.
For years, he could be described as an influential former commander operating within Iran’s political establishment.
That description is increasingly inadequate.
He now serves as secretary of the Supreme National Security Council while simultaneously representing Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei on the body. Khamenei had already brought him closer in March by naming him a senior military adviser.
That gives Rezaei’s rhetoric a different significance.
A threat from a retired commander can be dismissed as political messaging. Statements from an official positioned inside Iran’s highest national security machinery deserve considerably more attention, particularly when they concern U.S. warships, American bases and the possibility of a wider military confrontation.
It would still be a mistake to treat every statement Rezaei makes as an Iranian operational plan. His most extreme comments frequently contain hypothetical or conditional language, and some have stronger sourcing than others.
But his underlying record is difficult to dismiss.
Rezaei commanded the Revolutionary Guards for 16 years. He has vowed “vigorous revenge” against America, threatened U.S. naval forces under specific conflict scenarios, discussed attacks on American bases and demanded the withdrawal of U.S. forces from the region.
Now he is no longer speaking only as a veteran of Iran’s revolutionary establishment.
He is back inside the room where Iranian national security policy is shaped.
