According to reports, the confrontation with Washington illustrated to Iran that Western markets rely on oil, much of which transits waterways within range of its territory. This strategic assessment currently informs preparations in Tehran as the truce deteriorates toward renewed hostilities.
During a nighttime operation, forces conducted strikes on 90 locations, resulting in fatalities exceeding a dozen individuals. Iran conducted a missile and drone strike on bases in Kuwait and Bahrain, describing the action as an initial step in response to what it termed breaches of agreement by the United States.
Following two bombing campaigns by American and Israeli forces, officials in Tehran determined that territorial positioning offers greater strategic value than conventional military capabilities. They are now developing strategies to restrict access to two strategically positioned maritime passages and potentially disrupt petroleum supply routes.
The change has been intensified by information that altered Iran's assessment of potential threats. Intelligence records made public showed Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates provided support for armed actions against Iran in the recent hostilities – participation by states whose oil infrastructure faces exposure to Iranian rocket attacks. This shift made neighbouring states that had been considered peripheral into potential targets.
On Thursday, Ebrahim Azizi, who heads the parliamentary committee on national security and foreign policy, issued a statement that combined defence-related content with political commentary. The official warned that any fresh actions or errors by the United States would receive a firm and forceful response, and indicated that threats to Iranian security would result in retaliatory measures against adversaries globally.
Petroleum traders currently anticipate that tensions will diminish rather than intensify.
Military strategists in Iran have outlined options including strikes on energy infrastructure in Saudi Arabia and neighbouring states, potential blockade of the Bab el-Mandeb waterway, and deployment of advanced long-range weaponry. A document released by the Fars news agency, which has ties to the Revolutionary Guard, outlined Iran's position on potential responses, stating that any further hostile action must be countered with measures affecting core interests of the United States and its partners.
The document outlines a four-stage process. The initial measure involves stopping petroleum shipments through the Hormuz passage. According to reports, Iran would attempt to halt all oil shipments through the Strait of Hormuz by targeting tankers and deploying underwater explosives. The doctrine indicated they would pursue strikes targeting neighbouring production and refining facilities with damage extensive enough to prevent reconstruction for multiple years.
Iran possesses this as its most potent instrument of influence. While Iran's missile systems remain vulnerable to defensive countermeasures, blockading the strait would impose economic consequences that cannot be militarily neutralised, potentially allowing a nation with limited commercial exposure to disrupt a vital shipping corridor.
The approach was attempted previously and produced results. The system is operational at this time. According to Bloomberg, earlier Thursday just one vessel traveled through the waterway—a sanctioned crude carrier of very large size that transited the route controlled by Iran alongside an Iranian container ship. Ship-tracking systems recorded no vessel movement along the pathway nearer to Oman's shoreline, an area reportedly overseen by maritime authorities.
The alternative approach involves establishing a secondary operational area in the Red Sea. The document urged Iran to establish control over the Bab el-Mandeb strait, the passage connecting the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden, to disrupt supply routes and prevent arms deliveries to the area. Blocking both straits simultaneously would allow influence over two important shipping passages that link Europe with the Middle East and Asia. While the Strait of Hormuz lies along Iran's coastline, control over Bab el-Mandeb would likely depend on Houthi forces operating from Yemen, which would shift hostilities away from Iranian territory and present operational challenges for any potential American military involvement.
The third approach focused on increasing expenses for the United States through asymmetric operations designed to cause casualties among American forces, with the aim of making the intervention economically and politically unsustainable. Tehran recognizes its military capabilities are insufficient to prevail in armed conflict with Washington. The objective is narrower and, by its own reasoning, more attainable – to inflict sufficient cost in each successive engagement that remaining becomes less viable than withdrawing, an erosion approach that ultimately diminished resolve in Iraq. These attacks on American installations in Bahrain and Kuwait on Thursday represented the initial phase of this strategy.
Credit: IRIB via Reuters The fourth involves a policy change with unclear boundaries and implications. Military specialists in Iran, contending that adversaries had crossed previously established limits, recommended that the government maintain deliberate uncertainty regarding its response capabilities to compel reassessment of the nation's defensive thresholds. The approach includes setting clearer limits and testing whether Washington will cross them, paired with promises to respond more forcefully if it does.
The weapons stockpile, though reduced in size, remains intact. Iran operates the region's most extensive ballistic-missile arsenal, which includes solid-fuel variants like the Kheibar Shekan and the Fattah described as hypersonic, as well as numerous Shahed attack drones – the weaponry deployed against American installations in Arab nations on Thursday. Tehran is reconstructing its aerial defence capabilities, compromised during the initial phase of the conflict, through deployment of the domestically manufactured Bavar-373 alongside surviving Russian S-300 systems, supplemented by coastal early-warning radar installations that monitor maritime and aviation activity across the strait.
Officials stated that these capabilities have been maintained and grown following the truce, with one representative noting that preparations have increased, involving greater production of projectiles and defensive systems as well as reconstruction of protective networks, adding that while resources appear adequate, uncertainty remains about potential actions, while a second representative indicated that wartime distribution methods have become standard practice to reduce vulnerability.
The highest national security body holds formal authority over war and peace matters, though all such determinations must receive approval from the supreme leader. The conflict has clearly transferred influence to military leadership, with one official describing a system where military directives carry the force of law—an arrangement that could allow a local commander in the strait to initiate hostilities based on individual assessment rather than deliberate decisions from Tehran.
According to officials, the nation's security depended on domestic resources, operational readiness, and converting challenges into advantages—steps that would establish a defensive posture deterring aggression, with one stating that Washington responds solely to demonstrations of strength.
