Iran hardens stance on Hormuz, vows to keep Strait closed until US ends war

Tehran has hardened its stance on the Strait of Hormuz, with newly appointed security chief Mohsen Rezaei warning that the vital waterway will remain closed until Washington ends the war and blockade against Iran, the Al Jazeera reported.

“Iran’s message is clear,” Rezaei said in a social media post late Tuesday, shortly after meeting China’s ambassador to Tehran. He said the strait would not reopen until the United States ended the war and blockade, released Iran’s frozen assets and agreed to a region-wide ceasefire covering Lebanon and Gaza.

“Until all conditions are met, the Strait will remain closed,” said Rezaei, a former wartime commander-in-chief of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).

His uncompromising stance echoes that of his predecessor, Mohammad Bagher Zolghadr, and comes as Tehran projects defiance amid nearly six months of conflict with the US and Israel. Iranian officials insist the country remains both willing and capable of resisting its adversaries.

Tehran turns to China as tensions rise

Rezaei’s first official meeting as secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council was with a Chinese delegation led by Beijing’s envoy to Tehran, Cong Peiwu. State media said Rezaei called for closer ties with China and praised Beijing for refusing to support US-backed resolutions targeting Iran at the United Nations.

He also stressed that any potential arrangement with Oman over the Strait of Hormuz would be separate from negotiations with Washington.

Despite Tehran saying last week that an Oman-mediated arrangement had been finalised and was awaiting approval at the highest level, there were few signs of an imminent breakthrough. Military tensions continued around the Strait of Hormuz, the Red Sea and the Bab al-Mandeb Strait.

A merchant vessel appeared to have been struck by a projectile off Oman on Sunday night, around the time Rezaei’s appointment was announced. On Tuesday, the Iran-aligned Houthis in Yemen launched one of their deadliest recent maritime attacks, striking an Egyptian-owned vessel in the Red Sea. Six people were reportedly killed, according to Yemen’s internationally recognised government, a rival of the Houthis.

The US military, meanwhile, said a US Navy helicopter fired two Hellfire missiles at a Panama-flagged vessel as part of efforts to enforce its naval blockade of Iran’s southern ports.

The incident marked the 12th vessel attacked by US forces since April and the third since the blockade resumed nearly a month ago, following the collapse of a memorandum of understanding signed by Iran and the US in June.

With the 60-day period covered by the repeatedly violated agreement due to expire next week, mediators including Pakistan and Qatar are continuing diplomatic efforts to pull the two sides back from the brink.

Iran hardens its military posture

Instead of easing, however, Tehran’s rhetoric has grown increasingly belligerent.

The IRGC has indicated that it intends to respond more forcefully to threats from US President Donald Trump’s administration, including warnings of further attacks on Iranian power plants and civilian infrastructure.

“If Iran is threatened again, hundreds of thousands of miles of energy lines, thousands of power plants, all the American and non-American systems, and even global infrastructure connected to the internet will be exposed to threat,” IRGC spokesman Hossein Mohebbi said Wednesday.

He claimed that the US military presence in the region had diminished sharply, saying Washington had deployed around 30 to 40 warships before the war but no longer had a warship in the Persian Gulf. He also pointed to what he described as dwindling stocks of key air-defence missiles and precision munitions in the US arsenal.

Mohammad Reza Naqdi, an adviser to the IRGC commander, meanwhile claimed on state television that Iran had continued producing ballistic missiles and drones at a pace exceeding its wartime use of the weapons.

“Even if the war takes several years, our ballistic missiles would still descend on our enemies,” he said.

New military leadership takes shape

Iran’s Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei has also reshaped the country’s military leadership, appointing six new figures to senior posts this week and consolidating a circle of trusted officials.

Among them was longtime ally Hossein Taeb, who was appointed head of the IRGC’s paramilitary Basij force.

Ali Abdollahi, commander of the Khatam al-Anbiya joint wartime headquarters, was chosen to head the General Staff of the Armed Forces. He is expected to oversee closer coordination between Iran’s regular military and the IRGC.

In his first message after the appointment, Abdollahi called for stronger capabilities in missiles, drones, naval operations, ground warfare, cyber operations and asymmetric warfare. He also stressed greater inter-service coordination and naval preparedness around the Strait of Hormuz.

IRGC commander-in-chief Ahmad Vahidi said he would work alongside the new military leadership to resist what he called “Zionist-American arrogance”.

Economic pain fuels fears of unrest

Behind the increasingly forceful military posture, however, Iran is grappling with deepening economic hardship and growing uncertainty.

President Masoud Pezeshkian warned Wednesday that Iran’s adversaries could be seeking to exploit domestic discontent and trigger another wave of nationwide protests.

“The current war is more complex than before, and the enemy is pursuing collapse from inside the country,” he said.

Iranian officials also sought to reassure the public about border security. Ali Akbar Javidan, head of the police border guard in western Kurdistan province, dismissed US claims that Kurdish separatist fighters based in Iraq could mount a ground offensive into Iran as “delusional”.

He said Iran’s borders remained secure, attributing this to the vigilance of security forces and support from communities in border regions including Kurdistan, Sistan and Baluchistan, and Khuzestan.

For ordinary Iranians, however, the war has become a grinding reality marked by economic strain, uncertainty and an increasingly heavy security presence.

“I have given up on predicting what’s going to happen,” Jamshid, a 36-year-old resident of central Tehran, told Al Jazeera.

“I don’t expect anything to get better this year, or maybe even next year,” he said, adding that he hoped the crisis would not drag on much longer because “most of our youth is already gone” dealing with its consequences.