Iran will strike oil installations, submarine cables, data centers and AI facilities in seven Gulf countries in the event of another US-Israeli attack, said Mohsen Rezaei, the secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council.
Mehdi Mohammadi, an adviser to Mohammad Ghalibaf, the hardliner who led negotiations between Iran and the United States to end the conflict between the two countries, said Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu had agreed in principle on an attack but could not guarantee a positive outcome. He added: “We view the next conflict as an existential threat. The third war in two years means a threat to existence. Our strategy is ‘zero red lines’.”
Mohammadi said: “We are breaking the temporal and spatial dimensions of the conflict. The war will continue longer and in a wider geographical area than the enemy anticipates.”
Iran’s ability to mount such operations, including any unofficial assistance it receives from China or Russia, will be a key factor in any U.S. decision to restart the war.
Iranian media reported that Rezaei said: “In the event of war, cables, data centers and artificial intelligence facilities could also be targeted. If conflict breaks out again, we will have a broader plan.”
“There can be no arrangement whereby Iran’s economic lifelines are attacked as long as the economic architecture that enables these attacks is considered intact and safe.”
According to recent reports in the US media, US military advisers have drawn up a detailed list of targets for a new joint US-Israeli attack on Iran, which will be implemented after the US mid-term elections on November 3.
Foreign ministers from three European countries, as well as Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Egypt, will meet in Istanbul on Friday to establish concerted policies on the linked Iranian, Yemeni and Palestinian crises. It is alarming to note that a new war is now the working hypothesis in Tehran and Washington.
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) naval services said it simultaneously struck four commercial vessels seeking to sail through the Strait of Hormuz on Wednesday. Ships transferred oil from one ship to another.
The IRGC claimed three other ships were hit by mines in the strait. There was no independent verification of the number of ships hit, but Brent crude oil was trading at $113.4 a barrel, a recent high, propelled by US reports of a new joint Israeli-US attack on Iran.
Trump has declined to strike Iran again seven times in the past four months. However, the impasse in diplomatic negotiations has led U.S. government officials to talk about a possible new military campaign that would target missile sites, oil installations and nuclear sites.
The sabre-rattling by both sides coincided with lengthy joint training maneuvers by the United States and Israel, including exercises in Iraq. Dozens of Israeli planes also flew over the Iranian border earlier this week, according to the Axios news site. A major fire at a large aluminum factory in Arak, central Iran, suggests sabotage operations may be underway inside the country.
Netanyahu met with U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth in Israel on Monday to discuss the timing and purpose of a joint attack, including possible political implications for Netanyahu’s re-election chances.
Netanyahu would prefer Iran to attack first, he reportedly told Hegseth.
The U.S. military buildup is expected to be completed by early November, before a possible newly Democratic-leaning Congress or Senate is in session in January. Trump plans to station three aircraft carriers, thousands of Marines, fighter jets and special operations forces in the Middle East by November.
Reza Nasri, an international lawyer close to Iran’s Foreign Ministry, said: “A third wave of war would not remain contained. The region’s power grids, desalination plants, refineries and ports would burn. Tens of millions of people would be left without water or electricity and a massive wave of refugees would move from Arab countries to Europe.”
“Hormuz would shut down completely, oil would rise and the global economy would tip into recession. The Israeli economy, already bled by mobilization and missile strikes, would not survive a prolonged war of attrition. And Trump would be trapped in a crisis that would consume the remainder of his presidency and leave a disaster for his successors,” Nasri said.
The Fars news agency, close to the IRGC, said Iran had given directives to its various military and operational units “stating that in the event of another widespread war, involving the assassination of Iranian officials and the deaths of civilians, the Iranian response will not be limited to military targets, but will also include political targets.”
This week, Iranian and Pakistani mediators again explored familiar if reconfigured options for a ceasefire, including proposals that Iran would receive billions in frozen assets in exchange for lifting the strait blockade, allowing U.N. weapons inspectors to visit its bombed nuclear sites and export its stockpile of highly enriched uranium to a third country.
Iran has offered to end the blockade of Hormuz within seven days and begin negotiations on its nuclear file, but only if preconditions are met, including the lifting of US sanctions.
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