In the summer season of 2024, the menace to maritime delivery in the Red Sea was at its peak.
Houthi rebels in Yemen had been firing on worldwide vessels, forcing marine site visitors to keep away from one of the world’s most crucial waterways and to sail hundreds of miles round Africa as a substitute. By August, they sank two ships and killed a number of crew members, as US and UK strikes failed to discourage them.
Vice Adm. Brad Cooper, then the No. 2 at US Central Command, wanted to see the downside for himself.
Cooper, who was in cost of developing with a plan to fight the Houthis, knew the waters properly as former commander of the Navy’s Fifth Fleet based mostly in Bahrain, mentioned Dan Shapiro, who labored at the Defense Department on Middle East Affairs. Experiencing the downside firsthand meant that Cooper can be inserting himself underneath the command of officers far junior to himself.
“Rather than just take in the reports of the commanders of those vessels, he went out and sailed with them. He put himself in harm’s way,” Shapiro informed CNN. “It says something about his understanding of the connection between the real-time details on the ground and the strategy.”
Two years later, Cooper, now an admiral, is in cost of Central Command, or CENTCOM, which is main the joint US-Israeli war effort against Iran. The day earlier than Donald Trump gave the order to launch the operation on February 28, Cooper briefed the president at the White House on army choices.
But as the war expands throughout the area, with Iran attacking US property, Gulf neighbors and industrial vessels, the endgame has grow to be much less and much less clear. And the stakes have risen significantly.
Like generals Norman Schwarzkopf and David Petraeus, CENTCOM commanders who oversaw earlier US war efforts in the Middle East, Cooper is underneath immense stress to ship a decisive battlefield victory. But he’s additionally been requested to execute a war plan in opposition to Iran that has existed inside the Pentagon in some form or kind for years. Past presidents in the end selected to not perform these plans — partly as a result of of the repercussions now unfolding.
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Markets are roiled by the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, the world’s most important power delivery lane. Thirteen American service members have been killed, with one other 140 wounded. And bipartisan lawmakers are urgent for solutions on what led the US to strike an Iranian girls’ school that killed 168 kids.
It’s now as much as Cooper to maintain the army marketing campaign on observe till a political resolution is made to finish it — nonetheless lengthy which will take.
Sources who’ve labored intently with Cooper say he’s notably well-equipped for this second — not simply as a result of his battlefield acumen but additionally as a result of of his political instincts, having discovered to navigate each the contested waters of the Middle East and the corridors of energy in Washington. A spokesperson for CENTCOM mentioned Cooper was not out there to be interviewed for this story.
But interviews with present and former army officers, protection officers, lawmakers and congressional aides reveal that over a naval profession spanning greater than three many years, Cooper has proved efficient each in his interactions with lawmakers in Congress who oversaw his budgets in addition to together with his allied counterparts in the Middle East.
That was very true of the Israel Defense Forces now collectively conducting army operations with the US in opposition to Iran.
“After five years in the region, I don’t believe there was a general in Israel who did not know him,” a present Israeli army official informed CNN of Cooper’s tenure main the Navy’s Fifth Fleet. Cooper visited Israel so many instances that he got here to know many Israeli colonels by title, too, the official mentioned.
Cooper has spoken nearly day by day — and typically a number of instances a day — with the Israeli army chief, Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir, the Israeli official mentioned.
In a rarity for a army officer, Cooper additionally joined Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner and US envoy Steve Witkoff final month for indirect diplomatic talks with Iran in Oman. Kushner and Witkoff visited the USS Abraham Lincoln plane service the following day at Cooper’s invitation.
Since taking on in August 2025, two months after US strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities, Cooper is simply the second Navy admiral to guide CENTCOM.
Officials say he’s a distinction to his predecessor, retired Army Gen. Michael “Erik” Kurilla, who had an enormous and at-times brash persona however largely most well-liked to remain behind the scenes, whereas Cooper is extra comfy in the highlight.
Kurilla, whose army profession included commanding particular operations forces, holds a virtually mythological standing in elements of the Army as a result of his time in fight, together with a deployment to Iraq when he was shot a number of instances however continued preventing. An imposing determine and persona, “nobody wondered who was in charge” when Kurilla was in a room, a former protection official informed CNN.
Kurilla was a “brilliant operator,” the official added. But Cooper — smaller in stature and extra soft-spoken, with a profession largely spent serving aboard US Navy ships — appears to have eased into the extra political facets of his job quicker than Kurilla ever did, the official mentioned.
“He’s a politician, he shakes hands, seems genuinely interested in whatever you’re talking about, remember’s people’s names — he’s got the four-star piece figured out way better than Kurilla,” the former official mentioned.
Under Cooper, CENTCOM’s messaging has grow to be in some methods extra political, with extra references to Trump in press releases and movies, the former official mentioned. His language additionally seems at instances to echo that of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth: In a message to service members as operations in opposition to Iran started, Cooper informed troops to be “relentlessly lethal,” a time period often utilized by Hegseth and his staff in the Pentagon.
“He’s a people pleaser. You can see it when he testifies — he has this kind of Alabama ‘aw shucks’ demeanor,” the former protection official informed CNN.
After the October 7 Hamas attacks on Israel in 2023, Kurilla and Cooper labored intently collectively as the war in Gaza unfolded.
“Erik and Brad were a tremendous team during perhaps one of the most challenging periods the Middle East had ever seen,” mentioned Brett McGurk, former White House coordinator for the Middle East and North Africa, who labored extensively with Cooper throughout the Biden administration.
“History has not yet recorded the true story of what we confronted during this period, with Iran opening fronts across the Middle East, attacking American personnel in Iraq, Syria, Jordan and American ships in the Red Sea,” mentioned McGurk, now a CNN world affairs analyst.
In an announcement to CNN, Hegseth mentioned Cooper “has my full and complete confidence” and that Cooper’s “deep understanding of the region and focus on the fight is critical to the mission and continued success of our warfighters supporting Operation Epic Fury today.”
Hegseth mentioned the present operation wouldn’t have been doable with out the “total success” of final summer season’s strikes on Iran’s nuclear services, overseen by Kurilla. “Under both commanders, CENTCOM has strengthened coordination with key regional partners, while keeping our forces focused on defeating threats and protecting American interests,” Hegseth mentioned.
As Kurilla ready to retire, the former protection official mentioned he lobbied for Cooper to get the job, telling Trump instantly that Cooper ought to take over as the subsequent CENTCOM commander regardless of different names being floated. And Trump, who revered Kurilla, took his advice to coronary heart, the former official added.
The son of a profession Army officer, Cooper graduated from the US Naval Academy in 1989. He studied worldwide relations at Harvard and Tufts and acquired a grasp’s diploma in strategic intelligence from the National Intelligence University.
Cooper’s profession consists of stints main instructions based mostly in Japan, South Korea and Bahrain, the place he held a number of instructions earlier than main the Navy’s Fifth Fleet.
In Washington, he served as an govt and army assistant at the White House, the Office of the Secretary of Defense and was head of the Navy’s legislative affairs workplace.
As a army assistant in the White House underneath Barack Obama, Cooper was in cost of an initiative championed by then-first girl Michelle Obama to safe jobs and training for veterans as the president wound down US troop presence in Iraq.
The Navy legislative affairs job put Cooper in contact with congressional committees that now oversee the US war in Iran — and any supplemental spending requests to fund it. It’s a job that’s useful for senior commanders to study to navigate the “political” waters of Washington, mentioned retired Rep. Mac Thornberry, a Texas Republican who chaired the House Armed Services Committee.
“Any of our combatant commanders are going to make decisions that will receive a lot of scrutiny. The Leg (Affairs) job helps sensitize them to some of those factors,” Thornberry mentioned. “Plus, obviously, it helps them see firsthand where their funding comes from.”
Cooper started assembly extra lawmakers when he took over the Fifth Fleet. A House Democrat lively on army points praised Cooper as “smart and thoughtful,” pointing to an progressive process drive he led utilizing drones in the Strait of Hormuz.
“He’s known as a straight shooter,” a Democratic congressional aide informed CNN. “I think generally folks on the Hill enjoy him as a person, but in our experience he’s also a professional, very forthcoming.”
For years, Cooper has had a deep connection to Israel — one which comes “from his heart,” in keeping with a former senior Israeli army official who has labored intently with him.
That relationship dates to Cooper’s time as the commander of the Fifth Fleet.
“There was unprecedented cooperation with the Israeli navy,” the former Israeli army official mentioned. “One of the main decisions made at the time was to place an American liaison officer in the Israeli navy and an Israeli liaison officer at the naval base in Manama, which shows the extent of the partnership.”
The former official mentioned Cooper organized conferences between the navies in the area and linked the naval commanders to create a “regional maritime watch against terrorism.”
Cooper’s relationship with Israel goes past the skilled. In November, he spoke at the funeral of Israeli American hostage Omer Neutra, whose stays had been launched by Hamas after two years of war in Gaza. “Omer made the ultimate sacrifice we hope no soldier ever has to make, but many have made it nonetheless, in service to a higher cause,” Cooper mentioned.
After Iran first launched ballistic missiles and drones at Israel in April 2024, Kurilla raced round the Middle East, organising a regional missile protection community between international locations that didn’t all have diplomatic relations with Israel.
When Cooper was promoted to the head of CENTCOM final August, he picked up the place Kurilla left off, officers informed CNN, deepening the relationships his predecessor had seeded.
He carried out his personal debriefing of the US and Israeli operations in opposition to Iran final June, the Israeli army official mentioned, as he remained in contact together with his predecessor. The official mentioned the two international locations started to determine “collaborate and coordinate” in the occasion of one other spherical, sharing classes discovered and exploring regional situations.
The discussions set the stage for final month’s joint US-Israeli assault on Iran.
“It helps that you have the same spirit and nothing changes in a dramatic fashion,” an Israeli army official mentioned, “and that the commander continues in the path of the earlier commander.
