As a senior US military leader in the Middle East in recent years, Admiral Brad Cooper has had Shabbat dinners with Israeli military leader Eyal Zamir. He has been hosted by UAE President Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan and played basketball with Syria’s President Ahmed al-Sharaa.
Described by his colleagues as a diplomat in uniform, the four-star commander, one of the most decorated officers in the US military, is now relying on relationships he has spent years developing across the region as he leads President Trump’s war against Iran – the most complex and high-risk US military operation in a generation.
At a news conference last Thursday, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth praised Cooper, 58, for his leadership and focus. “This is the kind of no-nonsense, results-based war fighting that America demands, and you are meeting it in a big way,” Hegseth said. “You are the man for this moment.”
In a video release giving an operational update, Cooper listed the latest accomplishments of Operation Epic Fury: striking more than 5,500 targets, sinking more than 60 Iranian ships and destroying Tehran’s ballistic missiles and drone programs.
“American war power is increasing. Iranian war power is decreasing,” Cooper said in a video message Wednesday. “We are focused on very clear military objectives to eliminate Iran’s ability to project force against the Americans and its neighbors.”
Since the war continues, public voting This shows that the majority of Americans oppose this operation. Seven American soldiers have been killed and eight seriously injured In Iran’s counter-attacks. US military investigators believe it is likely The reason was American forces The initial wave of attacks included a deadly attack on a girls’ school in southern Iran, which Iranian officials say killed dozens of children. Trump’s advisers have privately urged the President find a quick exit Amid rising oil prices and concerns that the war could hurt Republicans in the November midterms.
For his part, Cooper, who declined to be interviewed for this article, is staying away from the politics of the war and focusing on waging it, his aides say. According to a US official, he is in frequent talks with General Dan Cain, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the President’s most senior military adviser. He does short workouts and meetings and appears cheerful and healthy despite getting very little sleep, the official said.
People who have worked with him in the Middle East and other parts of the world say Cooper is thoughtful, decisive and calm under pressure.
“When Brad Cooper calls you in the middle of the night with a problem, he’ll have thought about it, he’ll be able to explain it and he’ll have a solution,” said retired General Frank McKenzie, who served as head of U.S. Central Command, which oversees U.S. forces in the Middle East.
Others say that his upbeat personality may give the impression that Cooper is overly optimistic.
“He shows no signs of pressure. He’s not tired. He’s not out of shape. I think he almost thrives under pressure,” said retired Navy Capt. Michael Brasseur, who led the robotics and AI task force under Cooper in the Middle East and is now chief strategy officer at Saab, Inc. Him.”
The son of an Army officer who fought in the Vietnam War, Cooper was well-versed in military tactics from a young age, friends and former classmates say.
During his first year at the U.S. Naval Academy, he impressed his peers when he was being asked questions on the battle group concept in the dining hall. Cooper climbed onto a table and began moving ketchup bottles, pots, and cups around as if they were a variety of ships and military equipment planted in a real-world scenario.
“He was a very intelligent man, a very intelligent young man,” said retired Navy officer Gregory Glaros, a company commander who often debriefed Cooper at the academy. “The dining table scenario showed his sharpness and his knowledge of the use of force from a very early age.”
After graduating in 1989, Cooper participated in the 1991 Gulf War, three counter-narcotics deployments off the coast of South America, a deployment to the North Arabian Sea shortly after the September 11, 2001 attacks, and operations against the Taliban in Afghanistan. He has served in every military operation from Africa to the Pacific and as the Navy’s chief of legislative affairs at the Pentagon.
In 2021, he was confirmed as commander of US naval forces in the Middle East, a position that put him in Bahrain, just 150 miles off the coast of Iran. There, he got a front-row seat to the Iranian regime’s strategy, capabilities and threats — an understanding that is helping inform his decisions today, his colleagues say.
While in the Middle East, Cooper led efforts to stop military equipment that Iran was smuggling to its proxy groups throughout the region. He worked to deepen military cooperation between the Gulf countries and Israel following the Abraham Accords. And he led a maritime alliance of more than 30 countries, which allowed him to foster relationships with leaders across the region.
In the early days of the Biden administration, Dana Stroll, who oversees Middle East policy at the Pentagon, recalled attending dinner at Cooper’s home in Bahrain with local defense and military officials. They served Indian-style food, including mixed grill and a variety of curries and no alcohol. Alcohol is illegal for Muslims.
Stroll said, “It was clear that he had a knack for building relationships and creating an environment where people could break bread together and feel like they had access to him.” “They just took into account the cultural context.”
When the Iran-backed Houthis first fired drones and missiles into the Red Sea off Yemen in 2023, opening a new front in the conflict between Hamas and Israel, it was Cooper who called in a US warship to repel the attack. A Navy officer who worked with him that night said Cooper remained with his team during the 10-hour standoff, and he was willing to take a personal risk if the situation deteriorated or the conflict escalated.
Cooper has also adopted cutting-edge technologies to counter Iran. In Bahrain, he supported an effort called task force 59That combined unmanned boats and other drones with artificial intelligence to expand the navy’s eyes and ears in the Gulf.
When Cooper took command last summer, he brought his instincts to CENTCOM headquarters in Florida. One of his first initiatives was to deploy a new squadron one-way attack drones Copied from the widely used Iranian version, Shaheed-136. Cooper said the U.S. used drones in the early hours of the epic fury, disrupting Iran’s own plans against the regime.
Cooper has also advocated the use of artificial intelligence and space tools to fight Iran. In Wednesday’s video, he said AI was being used to sift through vast amounts of data in seconds so US leaders can make decisions faster than the enemy can react.
“Brad has figured out how to work with the most innovative parts of the Defense Department,” said Doug Beck, a former Apple executive who led the Pentagon’s Defense Innovation Unit. “Get that talent, find an operational problem, use technology to solve that problem, and build it into operations so you can actually do it instead of just talking about it.”
Not all of the operations Cooper has been involved in have been successful. When the Biden administration asked CENTCOM to find a way to get more humanitarian aid to Gaza in 2024, Cooper, then the deputy commander, was part of the initiative to build a floating pier off the enclave. the pier was Widely viewed as a failure: It broke down frequently due to bad weather, remained operational for only 20 days and cost $230 million.
Cooper took over as head of CENTCOM in August, after helping organize Operation Midnight Hammer to bomb Iran’s nuclear facilities the previous June. US officials said they were tasked with stabilizing Gaza, supporting a delicate political transition in Syria and planning for another potential conflict with Iran. In January, they moved warships, aircraft, and air defenses to the area in preparation for Epic Fury.
Despite preparations, Iran has managed to block shipping in the oil-rich Gulf, damage civilian infrastructure throughout the region, and attack US air defenses and bases, with deadly results. On Sunday, after the attacks began, a single-strike drone struck a tactical-operations center at a commercial port in Kuwait, killing six US troops and seriously injuring others.
Critics have said the Pentagon should have been more prepared for the damage Iran would cause from its drone strikes.
“Iran has had success with martyrs – much more than I expected,” said retired Vice Admiral John Miller, who previously commanded the Navy in the Middle East. CENTCOM and Gulf partners “have had to adjust to the fact that Iran is sending drones anywhere they think they can hit and have impact.”
Cooper was at his Tampa headquarters when he was informed of the deadly attack in Kuwait by his deputy, Lieutenant General Patrick Frank. His aide said the news hardened Cooper’s resolve to end the conflict.
“We are on the path to eliminating Iran’s ability to threaten Americans and our friends, and we are achieving this through a combination of lethality, precision and rapid innovation,” Cooper said in his March 11 video message.
Write to Shelby Holiday at shelby.holliday@wsj.com and lara seligman lara.seligman@wsj.com
