Iran warned on Monday that it could target U.S. oil and gas interests in the Gulf if the U.S. launches any new attacks on its assets.
Responding to U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s warning that “if Iran shoots at U.S. ships, we will destroy (and sink) their oil tankers,” Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf said: “It’s simple: the oil and gas production chain here is sprawling, accessible, and exposed. American oil and gas companies across these waters and facilities share that exposure.”
“Strike our assets and you get struck,” he added. “We’ve already proven it.”
Ghalibaf’s warning comes as Tehran seeks greater leverage amid Washington’s ongoing economic pressure campaign and stalled efforts to negotiate an end to the war that the U.S. and Israel launched on Feb. 28.
Mohsen Rezaei, Iran’s Supreme National Security Council Secretary, told Iranian state TV on Sunday that Tehran has concluded “new strategies must be adopted in the war, in negotiations, and in confronting the blockade.” Among the measures planned is a new “exclusion zone” in the Persian Gulf and Gulf of Oman. The zone would begin at the blockade line, extend through the Strait of Hormuz, and continue into the Persian Gulf, Rezaei said. Vessels entering the zone to transit the Strait would be placed on an Iranian sanctions list.
The latest flare-up began Saturday, when Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) attacked U.S. warships in the region. The U.S. responded by striking three Iranian oil tankers, including one near Kharg Island, Iran’s main oil export hub. The U.S. and Iran have for the past week exchanged a flurry of attacks, ending a brief respite in active hostilities. Oil prices reached near six-week highs on Monday as commercial traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, a narrow waterway through which a fifth of global oil and liquefied natural gas shipments flowed before the war, has fallen sharply.
Negotiations remain at a standstill
Diplomatic efforts between the U.S. and Iran have stalled. The two countries signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) on June 17, agreeing to reopen the Strait of Hormuz and engage in technical talks to end the war. But the truce was short-lived.
After a commercial vessel was struck in the Strait in late June, the U.S. attacked Iranian missile storage and radar sites, prompting Iran to retaliate against U.S. military installations in the region. Intermittent attacks continued in July, and fighting resumed in late August after a brief, informal pause.
The Trump Administration has said it is investigating a U.S. strike last week on a family compound in southern Iran where a wedding celebration was underway, killing at least five people and wounding more than 60, according to Iranian state media.
No new formal negotiations have been announced since the MOU’s 60-day deadline expired on Aug. 17. Although some of Iran’s top officials, including President Masoud Pezeshkian, have signaled a willingness to return to the MOU and resume talks with the U.S., the two countries’ positions remain far apart. The U.S. wants to significantly restrict or dismantle Iran’s nuclear program and guarantee unrestricted commercial passage through the Strait of Hormuz. Iran has called for broad sanctions relief, access to frozen assets, an end to the U.S. naval blockade of Iranian ports, and a role in managing the Strait.
Hard-liners in Iran have shown little appetite for compromise on those red lines, and analysts previously told TIME that Iranian leaders may believe time is on their side, with Tehran prepared to absorb further economic and military pressure in hopes that rising energy prices will eventually prove too politically costly to U.S. President Donald Trump.
“The Iranian nation accepts neither threats nor coercion, nor negotiations whose outcome would be the weakening of the country’s rights,” Hossein Taeb, head of the IRGC’s Basij paramilitary force, said on Monday. “Negotiations are for securing the nation’s rights, not surrendering them.”
While Trump faces domestic pressure to rein in gas prices and avoid an open-ended war in the Middle East ahead of the November midterms, he has also appeared determined to secure an outcome he can present as a victory.
“I’m not trying to force Iran to the bargaining table,” Trump posted on Truth Social last week. “I like our position now much better, with almost total control of the Hormuz Strait, and their economy totally collapsing. They are just playing out the inevitable.”
Iran considers new tactics
Iran is planning to establish a new restricted zone to amp up global economic pressure and force an end to the U.S. blockade. At the same time, Iran and Oman have agreed on a temporary shipping corridor through the Strait of Hormuz and are in talks on its future administration—an arrangement that could formalize Tehran’s role in managing the waterway against U.S. opposition.
But Ghalibaf acknowledged in parliament on Sunday that Iran is struggling with sharp inflation, a collapsing rial, and high unemployment.
Washington’s economic pressure campaign, which includes the naval blockade, sanctions on Iran, and the threat of secondary sanctions on Iran’s trading partners, has squeezed Tehran. The International Monetary Fund estimates that inflation in Iran is near 70%.
The Strait of Hormuz, which Iran began restricting at the start of the war, has been the country’s most important bargaining chip. But that leverage may be weakening as Gulf states turn to routes that bypass the Strait and the U.S. escorts shipments through the corridor. The conflict has also inflicted mounting costs on Iran’s own economy by trapping tens of millions of barrels of Iranian crude inside the Gulf.
