The Iranian authorities have been claiming for days to have changed their military strategy in the war with the United States. As announced by several senior officials of the Islamic Republic, the Asian country has put aside the defensive doctrine to adopt a new strategy in which "any aggression against the interests and security of Iran will receive a faster, stronger and more painful response," the president of Parliament and leading Iranian negotiator, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, warned days ago. The "era of proportional responses is over," Ghalibaf concluded before, this Sunday, veteran General of the Revolutionary Guard Mohsen Rezaei confirmed it in an interview on Iranian television.
Rezaei, appointed several weeks ago as the new secretary of the Supreme National Security Council, assured that "as part of the change in military strategy", his country had carried out approximately 48 hours before, "an important warning attack against a US warship." The general maintained that, after reviewing the events of the last year, Iran has come to the conclusion that it must adopt new strategies regarding the war, negotiations with the United States and the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz.
"In the coming days we will announce a new prohibited zone [for naval transit] that will include the space between the US blockade line and the loading ports. Any ship that begins to move to either side of the Strait of Hormuz will enter Iran's sanctions list," said Rezaei, who also warned that in the coming days Iran will announce the creation of an agreed route between the Islamic Republic and the Government of Oman to transit through the strait.
Days ago, the Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister, Kazem Gharibabadi, explained that both countries had agreed on a provisional corridor to allow the passage of commercial ships while they negotiate, within a period of between 30 and 60 days, a new permanent navigation route through this canal through which a fifth of the world's crude oil transited before the outbreak of the conflict. As has been known, the idea is for the ships to access the Persian Gulf through the Iranian route and leave through the Omani route before returning to Iranian waters. "It will be like a two-way highway," said the vice minister.
"The United States' claim that ships and tankers are passing through it is a lie," said Rezaie, who acknowledged that many ships are trying to cross it using the route closest to the coast of Oman while their navigation systems are turned off. "Most of them are attacked. However, for environmental reasons, for now we have decided not to sink those ships," said the general, who reiterated that the strait remains closed.
Climbing in Hormuz
The statements come after a weekend marked by a strong escalation in the Strait of Hormuz in which Washington assured that several ballistic missiles were launched against a US aircraft carrier and a guided missile destroyer, which managed to evade them without any casualties.
In response, US forces attacked three Iranian oil tankers: two were knocked out of service and a third was destroyed in the Gulf of Oman. The Revolutionary Guard responded with more attacks, this time against three oil tankers that, according to Tehran, were sailing on "unauthorized" routes. The Islamic Republic later warned that any ship attempting to pass through the strait via unauthorized routes could be attacked.
In Iran they also point out that the latest attacks against US bases in Jordan and Erbil, in the autonomous region of Iraqi Kurdistan, are part of this new military strategy. "If they attack our assets, they will be attacked. We have already demonstrated this capacity. Ask their military bases that have been out of service," assured the president of Parliament. Ghalibaf thus responded to US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who had previously threatened that the United States would destroy Iranian oil tankers if Tehran attacked US naval ships again.
