WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump said Friday that Iran has been “totally defeated” in the US-Israeli military campaign against the country and wanted a deal he would not accept, despite Iranian officials pledging to continue the fight.
“The Fake News Media hates to report how well the United States Military has done against Iran, which is totally defeated and wants a deal – But not a deal that I would accept!” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform, without elaborating.
Trump’s comments came after he said that Washington had heavily bombed military targets on Iran’s oil hub Kharg Island and the US Navy would soon begin escorting tankers through the Strait of Hormuz.
But as the US strikes on Iran persisted, Tehran launched a new wave of drone and missile attacks on Israel and its Gulf neighbours.
Iran’s top diplomat said this week that talks remain off the table and attacks would continue for as long as necessary.
“I don’t think talking with the Americans would be on our agenda anymore,” Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi told PBS News this week, adding Tehran had a “very bitter experience” during previous negotiations with the US.
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader since the death of revolutionary founder Ruhollah Khomeini in 1989, was killed along with several family members and top security figures in air strikes at the start of the US-Israeli attacks late last month.
But analysts said the system he led remained firmly in place, even if it was likely to be adapted by his son and successor, Mojtaba Khamenei.
This was likely to mean even greater influence for the Revolutionary Guards, the ideological arm of the military created to ensure the survival of the system and whose influence is felt across Iran, including in the economy.
Thomas Juneau, a professor at the University of Ottawa, told AFP that “the system is resilient and it remains able to implement well-developed contingency plans”.
“Continuity is built into the system and its institutions, and so far, there is no indication that the collapse of the Islamic Republic is imminent.”
‘Dangerous pattern’
While he has been a low-profile figure rarely seen in public, Mojtaba Khamenei is seen by analysts as a hardliner close to the Revolutionary Guards who took a lead role in the suppression of protests.
“The selection of Mojtaba as his father’s successor is an additional indication that the regime’s leadership intends to remain defiant and does not plan to compromise on what it perceives as its core values and interests,” said Juneau.
In a show of defiance, several key surviving figures in the government and security forces took to the streets of Tehran on Friday for a rally even as explosions went off nearby.
Sporting dark sunglasses despite heavy rain, national security chief Ali Larijani said US President Donald Trump did not understand that “the more he presses, the stronger the nation’s determination will become”.
Judiciary chief Gholam Hossein Mohseni Ejei, meanwhile, barely flinched as an explosion rocked an area close to the demonstration, in images widely broadcast on state TV.
Not present was Mojtaba Khamenei, who has not been seen in public since his appointment.
Another notable absentee from the rally was parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, a former Revolutionary Guards commander who some commentators believe is at the heart of the war effort.
Torbjorn Soltvedt, associate director at risk analysis firm Verisk Maplecroft, said that the conflict was “locked in a dangerous pattern that’s unlikely to change anytime soon” as Iran hits back with its own attacks in the region that have sent energy prices surging.
‘Highly resilient’
“Right now, there are no clear off-ramps. Despite intense US and Israeli airstrikes, Iran can target shipping and critical energy infrastructure with concerning regularity,” Soltvedt told AFP.
“The regime has proved highly resilient so far, reflecting the extensive control and influence held by the office of the supreme leader and hardline factions in politics and the armed forces,” he added.
Barbara Slavin, a fellow at the US-based Stimson Center, said Mojtaba Khamenei’s authority would “depend heavily on continued backing from the Revolutionary Guards whose political and economic influence has expanded dramatically over the past two decades”.
“It is unlikely Mojtaba will be predisposed to make any concessions” to the United States and Israel, she said, given their responsibility for the killing of Iranians and the destruction of Iran’s infrastructure.
Should the Islamic Republic survive the war, it would be able to fall back on a narrative similar to that which followed the 1980-1988 war with Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, known in Iran as the “imposed war”.
“If it survives this war, which for now seems to be the case, it will be able to claim victory,” said Juneau.
“This would be a costly victory, however: its leadership has been decapitated, its military capabilities degraded, its economic infrastructure damaged,” he added.
Iran, meanwhile, threatened on Saturday to destroy US-linked oil infrastructure after President Donald Trump said the United States had bombed Iran’s oil hub Kharg Island.
The military’s Al-Anbiya Central Headquarters said in a statement cited by Iranian media that oil and energy infrastructure belonging to firms that cooperated with the United States would “immediately be destroyed and turned into a pile of ashes” if Iran’s energy facilities were attacked.
The announcement, reported by Iran’s Fars and Tasnim news agencies, was in “response to statements” made by the US president who had earlier said in a social media post that strikes had “obliterated” military targets on Kharg Island.
Trump had also threatened to hit the island’s oil infrastructure if Tehran did not allow passage for ships via the strategic Strait of Hormuz, through which a fifth of global crude oil and liquefied natural gas normally pass.
Kharg Island, located around 30 kilometres (19 miles) off the Iranian mainland, handles roughly 90 percent of Iran’s crude exports, according to a recent JP Morgan note.
The war has sparked chaos in global markets and sent oil prices soaring.
Iranian strikes have all but halted maritime traffic in the Strait of Hormuz, leaving investors and governments globally nervous about the risk of dwindling energy supply and higher inflation.
