TEHRAN/ WASHINGTON: The secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council (SNSC) Wednesday warned the United States that Iran’s new strategy will shatter its foundation as the President Donald Trump said he would not force Tehran to the negotiating table.
Trump also told reporters that the renewed US campaign against Iran would not continue for too long.
Major General Mohsen Rezaei said in a statement posted on ‘X’ that the US’s desperate attempts to salvage the ongoing imposed war will fail and a newly adopted Iranian strategy will dismantle its regional presence.
General Rezaei addressed the mounting panic in Washington and Tel Aviv as the war of aggression against Iran stretches into its seventh month without achieving any of its strategic objectives.
“With this desperate flailing, not only will you fail to climb out of the depths of the hell you have created for yourselves, but you will soon witness how Iran’s new strategy in the battlefield, diplomacy and countering the economic blockade will shatter your foundations.”
Meanwhile, President Donald Trump called on the Iranian people to “rise up and fight.”
“I’m not trying to force Iran to the bargaining table,” Trump said in a post on Truth Social. “I couldn’t care less if they sign a worthless, to them, agreement. I like our position now much better,” he said, adding that the US was in almost total control of the Strait of Hormuz and that Iran’s economy was “totally collapsing.”
“They are just playing out the inevitable. When are the Iranian people going to rise up and fight?”
Trump also suggested renaming the Strait of Hormuz as “Trump Strait” despite the fact that the crucial waterway remains contested amid the war with Iran.
“Now that we have it under USA control, should we change the name Hormuz Strait to TRUMP STRAIT??? Like America itself, it would be ‘hotter’ than ever before!” Trump said on his Truth Social network.
It is the latest geographical name change floated by Trump and comes a week after he ordered Lake Ontario to be renamed as “Lake America” amid a trade war with Canada.
Trump also renamed the Gulf of Mexico as the “Gulf of America” on his first day back in office in January 2025.
Neither Mexico nor Canada have accepted the changes.
Trump’s comments came as the US military said that it completed its latest wave of strikes on Iran, saying it struck Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) targets as the Iran war escalated following a weekend exchange of fire.
US forces struck IRGC targets “including air defence sites, radar systems, maritime assets and facilities, mine laying capabilities and communications sites,” the US Central Command said on ‘X’.
In retaliation of Tuesday night’s US strikes on the southern Iranian provinces of Hormozgan and Sistan and Balouchestan, the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) launched a ballistic missile strike targeting American drone hangars at Prince Hassan air base in Jordan.
The IRGC Public Relations Department announced in statement on Wednesday morning that a heavy attack by the IRGC’s ballistic missiles on the RQ-4 and MQ-9 drone hangars at Prince Hassan base destroyed a number of drones and killed a number of pilots and flight crew.
Also, several of their technical infrastructures were set on fire.
The IRGC announced that four IRGC Aerospace Force servicemen have been martyred in a US attack on parts of Iran’s western Kermanshah Province. Iran’s Army also announced a fresh wave of drone attacks against US military bases in the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, saying dozens of ‘Arash’ loitering munitions targeted radar systems and US troop positions in response to attacks on innocent Iranian civilians.
The Army said the attacks were carried out from the early hours of Wednesday as the 30th stage of Operation Thunderbolt.
“Dozens of the Army’s loitering munitions targeted radar systems and the locations of US forces at the Al Dhafra and Al Minhad bases in the UAE,” the Army said in a statement.
It added that radar installations and gathering points of US forces at Sheikh Isa Air Base in Bahrain were once again subjected to heavy attacks by Arash loitering munitions.
The Army described Al Dhafra as one of the “important operational centres” of the US in the region, saying the base is used for air operations, reconnaissance, surveillance and support missions.
The statement stressed that the Army’s response to US attacks on civilians would continue.
“The enemy’s attack on residential areas and its targeting of a wedding ceremony is a clear instance of a war crime and exposes the evil nature of ‘American human rights,’” the Iranian Army said.
It warned that the Army’s response to those crimes “will certainly be extensive and widespread.”
The IRGC also targeted the living quarters and command post of the US commander at Ali Al-Salem Air Base in Kuwait in a retaliatory attack early Wednesday.
The IRGC, in its attacks on the US Ali Al-Salem base in Kuwait early this morning, successfully targeted the living quarters and command post of the American commander of that important base.
No information has yet been released regarding the fate of the commander of the US base at Ali Al-Salem.
Meanwhile, the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) has called the Iranian attacks “heinous”.
“These Iranian attacks represent a blatant violation of the sovereignty of states and a direct threat to their security and stability,” GCC Secretary-General Jasem Mohamed AlBudaiwi said.
The council includes six countries in the Arabian Peninsula: Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the UAE.
Saudi Arabia earlier released its own criticism of Iranian strikes on an oil tanker, urging all parties to “halt the escalation”.
The US has warned its citizens in Saudi Arabia and across the Middle East to remain highly vigilant amid a complex security environment and the possibility of unforeseen escalation in regional tensions.
In a security alert issued on Sept 1, the US Mission in Saudi Arabia said Americans currently in the Middle East should exercise heightened vigilance and remain prepared for potential flight cancellations, airspace closures and other travel disruptions.
“Due to tensions in the Middle East, the security environment remains complex with the potential for unforeseen escalation,” the US Embassy in Riyadh said in the alert.
The mission advised US citizens in the region to remain alert to developments that could affect their travel plans and movement.
Meanwhile, Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei denounced the US bombing of a wedding ceremony in Sirik as another sign of Washington’s moral collapse after the attack killed and wounded over 70 Iranian civilians, including women and children.
Baqaei made the remarks in a post on ‘X’ following the latest US attacks in Kohestak, Sirik, on Tuesday night, where a wedding ceremony was bombed as part of what he described as the United States’ desperate effort to conceal its failure.
“The truth of the illegal US war against Iran was put on display last night in Sirik, where a wedding ceremony was bombed as part of the US desperate attempt to hide its defeat,” Baqaei wrote.
He added that the reality was the crimes committed by the United States, rather than AI-generated videos falsely portraying US officials as moral and victorious figures.
“The reality is the crimes that the US commits, not AI-generated videos that falsely portray US officials as moral and victorious heroes,” he said.
Baqaei further cited American author Tim O’Brien’s book ‘The Things They Carried’, writing: “A true war story is never moral… if a story seems moral, do not believe it.”
Meanwhile, Iran’s Red Crescent Society (IRCS) has called on the International Criminal Court (ICC) to investigate a US missile attack on the wedding ceremony.
In a letter to the ICC’s Office of the Prosecutor, the IRCS said the attack, reportedly carried out by US forces against a civilian gathering, raised serious concerns under international humanitarian law and warranted an independent investigation.
“Given the reported civilian character of the location as the venue of a family wedding ceremony, as well as the presence of civilians at the site, the incident raises serious concerns under international humanitarian law and warrants an independent, impartial, thorough, and effective investigation,” the IRCS said. The organization called on the ICC’s Office of the Prosecutor to receive and assess the information concerning the attack, preserve and evaluate relevant evidence, and take appropriate measures within its legal mandate if the jurisdictional requirements under the Rome Statute were met.
Meanwhile, the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier docked at a port in eastern Thailand on Wednesday after its grueling deployment in the Middle East that kept the ship at sea for more than 250 days.
Associated Press journalists watched the Lincoln, which is carrying about 5,000 service members, as it made its way into the Laem Chabang port in Chonburi province shortly after the destroyer USS Frank E Petersen Jr sailed past the area.
The Lincoln has been supporting the US war against Iran. Its deployment included a record-setting uninterrupted time at sea. Concerns have grown about the Lincoln’s lengthy deployment following reports of deteriorating mental health among the crew and shortages of supplies including food and hygiene products.
Crew members were not immediately accessible to media, but the ship itself looked due for at least a new paint job, with large blotches of what appeared to be rust on the hull, especially just above the waterline and at the edge of the flight desk, where fighter aircraft and helicopters were parked.
When asked about the aircraft carrier’s appearance, Capt Dan Keeler, the Lincoln’s commanding officer, replied that “it is normal for a long deployment and we’re not going to make further comments.”
Meanwhile, Iran’s currency has dropped to a record low of more than 2.2 million rials per US dollar, two websites tracking the free market rate showed on Wednesday.
The rial has dropped about 10 percent in the past week. The troubled currency has lost about half of its value in a year of tightening US sanctions and US and Israeli attacks that began in February.
Meanwhile, Reuters reported that top aides to President Trump are pushing to keep the Iran war from escalating before November’s midterm elections to staunch Republican electoral losses, four people familiar with the discussions said, a strategy already under strain as the US and Iran exchanged back-and-forth attacks overnight.
White House officials will consider ramping up military action after the November 3 vote, said the sources, who requested anonymity to describe internal thinking, though any return to full-scale conflict is far from a given.
For now, the sources said, the administration wants to rely on applying more economic pressure on Iran in an effort to extract concessions in any future negotiation that months of military action failed to secure.
“We are keeping the pressure on Iran,” one White House official said. “But November is a priority.”
Keeping the war mostly contained until then would help prevent the unpopular conflict from dominating the news as Trump’s Republicans campaign to defend thin majorities in the Senate and House of Representatives, said the sources, three of whom are White House officials.
Only 31 percent of Americans approve of the war, while some 63 percent disapprove, according to a late August Reuters/ Ipsos poll, and voters are particularly unhappy about high gas prices.
A tactical pause could also give the US military some breathing room to replenish its heavily depleted munitions stockpiles, the sources said.
But pulling off the play-it-cool strategy looks more difficult by the day. While the conflict remains much less intense than it was during the spring or during a flare-up in the middle of the summer, both sides have exchanged tit-for-tat strikes in recent days.
Iran’s leaders, emboldened after months of disrupting traffic through the Strait of Hormuz and facing little internal unrest, will likely keep striking at US and allied Gulf targets, including military bases, vessels and energy infrastructure, at least periodically, analysts said.
The US will face pressure to retaliate, potentially leading to an escalatory spiral that brings both sides back to a full-scale air war – whether the administration wants it or not.
“The [Iranian] regime has every incentive to disrupt the ‘calm’ – which is no real calm, after all, since the administration’s explicit aim is to increase economic pressure massively on Iran,” said Barbara Leaf, who served as the top State Department official for the Middle East under former President Joe Biden.
The president’s approval rating has fallen from 40 percent to 33 percent since the conflict began, according to Reuters/ Ipsos polling. Sources said he is not currently interested in escalation, but he is famously prone to changing his mind and could change course in respo
Trump has publicly said the upcoming elections were not factoring into this Iran strategy.
But as the war enters its seventh month, his White House finds itself increasingly constrained by logistical and political realities.
“The timetable has changed,” one senior White House official said. Another added that the “calendar is driving Iran.”
Reuters reported in August that the military had used “virtually all” of its supply of certain precision missiles. The Washington Post reported on Sunday that the heads of the Army, Navy and Air Force warned Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth in a written assessment that prolonging the war was unsustainable and would diminish the military’s readiness in other theaters.
The Pentagon has said the military had “everything it needs to execute” its mission. “President Trump has destroyed Iran’s military capabilities and is crippling what’s left of its abysmal economy with the most powerful naval blockade in world history and crushing sanctions,” White House spokeswoman Olivia Wales said. “The president will continue to advance America’s interests at home and abroad and will never allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon.”
Currently, two White House officials said, Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio are among the high-ranking Trump aides who are on board with the idea of trying to keep the Iran conflict relatively “quiet” until November.
In recent weeks, administration officials have instead intensified an economic isolation campaign, during which the US has threatened to slap countries that trade with Iran with massive sanctions, while maintaining its own blockade on the strait.
The trade-focused strategy, however, has its own limits, analysts and officials said. Iran has spent decades under layers of US and international sanctions that have battered its economy but have not deterred its leadership. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said on Sunday that the pressure campaign may cause Iran to lash out militarily, raising the prospect that the economic campaign could itself stoke military escalation.
Additionally, some major world powers, like China, have not joined Washington’s bid to isolate Iran, prompting questions about the campaign’s effectiveness.
“The purpose of the new sanctions package is meant to add economic pressure on top of that being caused by the blockade to force Iran back to the table, after the administration determined it was a better option than returning to kinetic action,” said Alex Plitsas, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council.
“Iran is concerned about it, but China has already indicated that it’s not willing to play ball, which calls into question how effective it will be.”
