Iran said on Thursday it would respond with “long and painful strikes” against U.S. positions if Washington resumed attacks, while also reasserting its claim over the Strait of Hormuz, complicating U.S. plans to form a coalition to reopen the waterway.
Two months into the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran, the vital sea channel remains closed, choking off 20% of the world's oil and gas supplies. That has sent global energy prices surging and heightened concerns about the risks of an economic downturn.
Efforts to resolve the conflict have hit an impasse, with a ceasefire in place since 8 April. However, Iran still blocks the strait in response to a U.S. naval blockade of Iran's oil exports, Tehran's economic lifeline.
U.S. President Donald Trump was to receive a briefing on Thursday on plans for a series of fresh military strikes on Iran to compel it to negotiate an end to the conflict, a U.S. official told Reuters.
Such options have long been part of U.S. planning, but reports of the proposed briefing first published by Axios late Wednesday initially drove oil prices higher, with Brent crude briefly topping $126 a barrel. It later slipped back to around $114.
Air defence sounds were heard in some areas of Iran's capital Tehran late on Thursday, Iran's semi-official Mehr news agency reported, and the Tasnim news agency said air defences were engaging small drones and surveillance unmanned aerial vehicles.
On Thursday, the United Arab Emirates said it had banned its citizens from travelling to Iran, Lebanon and Iraq, and urged those currently in those countries to leave immediately and return home, citing regional developments.
Trump reiterated to reporters on Thursday that Iran would not be allowed to have a nuclear weapon and that the price of gasoline- a key concern for his Republican Party in the November midterm elections would "drop like a rock" as soon as the war ended.
While repeating allegations of serious rights violations by Iran, Trump said he was "OK" with it playing in the upcoming soccer World Cup in the United States, after FIFA president Gianni Infantino insisted the country would take part.
A senior official in Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said any new U.S. attack, even if limited, would trigger “long and painful strikes” against U.S. positions in the region.
Aerospace Force Commander Majid Mousavi added that Iran had seen what happened to U.S. bases and warned the same would apply to American warships.
Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei said in a written message to Iranians that Tehran would eliminate "the enemies' abuses of the waterway" under new management of the strait, indicating that Tehran intended to maintain its hold over it.
"Foreigners who come from thousands of kilometres away ... have no place there except at the bottom of its waters," he said on Thursday in a written statement.
United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres warned that if the disruption caused by the closure dragged on through mid-year, global growth would fall, inflation would rise and tens of millions more people would be pushed into poverty and extreme hunger.
"The longer this vital artery is choked, the harder it will be to reverse the damage," he told reporters in New York.
Trump faces a formal U.S. deadline on Friday to end the war or make the case to Congress to extending it. However, analysts and congressional aides said they expect him to either notify Congress that he plans a 30-day extension or simply disregard the deadline.
Trump reiterated on Thursday that Iran's economy was "a disaster," but analysts say that if he expects Iran to blink first in a game of economic chicken, he may be waiting a while.
The conflict has aggravated Iran's dire economic problems, risking calamity after the war, but it looks able to survive a standoff in the Gulf for now, despite a U.S. blockade that has cut off energy exports.
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