Iran Threatens Middle East Energy Infrastructure as Hormuz Standoff Deepens
- Iran warned that regional energy infrastructure could become unsafe unless its own oil sales and security are guaranteed.
- Tehran has proposed reopening the Strait of Hormuz within seven days if Washington meets conditions including easing oil sanctions, lifting its naval blockade, and observing a regional cease-fire.
- The IRGC separately appealed directly to Americans to change U.S. policy, including through their votes, while making a series of claims about casualties and the war’s outcome.
Iran threatened to attack energy infrastructure across the Middle East if its security isn't guaranteed as it ratcheted up its rhetoric while waiting for the United States to officially respond to a plan Tehran says would reopen the Strait of Hormuz.
While air attacks by both sides have subsided recently, ships in the key waterway continue to be targeted by Iran, which claims control over the strait despite US assertions that it remains open.
"In a region where we cannot sell oil, no one else will sell oil either; or if our security is not guaranteed, no infrastructure will remain safe," Iran's chief negotiator Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf said in a video broadcast by state TV on September 29.
The threat came on a day Iran was expecting an official response from US officials over a plan Tehran offered last week to reopen the strait, which before the war was the transit lane for around one-fifth of the world's gas and oil supply.
US President Donald Trump has dismissed the plan, under which Tehran proposed reopening the strait and restarting nuclear talks in seven days, contingent on Washington lifting its naval blockade of ships heading to Iran, the removal of sanctions on oil sales, and the re-imposition of a regional cease-fire.
However, Trump also has said he expects more talks between US and Iranian negotiators this week.
As it awaits a potential official answer to its proposal, the powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) published a letter to American voters on September 29, where it blamed the United States for starting the war on February 28, while adding that the two countries could coexist if US policy changed.
The letter, aimed at US voters who Tehran said could change the course of the conflict, also claimed that more than 3,600 Iranians -- mostly civilians, including 400 children -- were killed during the war. The United States says it has lost 18 of its troops in the war.
The letter concedes that air strikes have destroyed part of Iran's nuclear industry and a “limited” number of air defense sites. It also repeated Tehran's assertion that its nuclear program was solely for civilian purposes.
RFE/RL has reached out to the US State Department for comment on the letter, but did not receive an immediate response.
US voters head to the polls in midterm elections on November 3. All 435 seats of the House of Representatives are being contested, as well as one-third of the Senate's 100 seats.
By RFE/RL