Iranian officials say US weighing new strikes or tighter sanctions on Iran

Tehran adviser cites two-week decision window, says Iran rejected Vance meeting

Senior Iranian officials believe the United States is planning either further military strikes against Iran or an ever-tightening economic stranglehold intended to push Tehran into retaliatory action, according to an assessment published on 11 November by Mehdi Mohammadi, an adviser to Iran’s chief negotiator in talks with Washington, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf. The report described Mohammadi as a reliable indicator of Ghalibaf’s thinking.

Writing on his Telegram channel, Mohammadi said the Americans had proposed a timeframe of about two weeks after which Trump would make a decision on military action. He cast doubt on Trump’s claim that the military option was off the table, saying Washington was preparing for a limited strike and that Iran was already preparing a response.

If US sanctions continued, Mohammadi said, a comprehensive pre-emptive war would be needed “to increase the cost of sanctions for the enemy.”

He described the US response to Iran’s latest proposals on reopening the Strait of Hormuz as “not only unsatisfactory but completely deceptive.” “They do not want to release the frozen funds,” he said. “They do not want to lift the sanctions and they do not want to stop the war in Lebanon.”

Mohammadi also disclosed that Iran had rejected a request from Vice-President JD Vance for a direct meeting with Iranian negotiators before Washington gave a response to Tehran’s conditions for lifting the siege on the strait.

For now, according to the report, Trump has settled on a strategy of suffocating Iran through economic pressure, tightening the blockade on Iranian oil exports while facilitating those of other Gulf states through Hormuz.

Despite Iranian claims that the blockade of the strait is working, the report cited concern that Brent crude is trading at a relatively low $93 a barrel and that Saudi oil production is near prewar levels of 9.3 million barrels a day. Iran said it bombed a US radar post on the Omani island of Didamar three days before the report was published. A tanker was shown burning off Oman in the strait on Sunday, apparently after an attack by Iranian forces trying to stop oil shipments, according to imagery published by Reuters.

Mohammadi’s assessments suggest some senior Iranians fear Washington’s strategy might work by destabilizing the country. The thinking, as the report laid it out, is that economic turmoil could spark street protests, potentially around the anniversary of nationwide demonstrations that began in late December last year. On that basis, the Iranian leadership might conclude that the “no peace, no war” impasse was unsustainable and that pre-emptive action was required.

In another development, Mohsen Rezaei, the secretary of Iran’s national security council, said he had told Russia that Iran was not prepared for even a particle of its highly enriched uranium stockpile to leave the country, saying the material might be needed for planned nuclear-powered submarines.

Mohammad Mokhber, an adviser to Mojtaba Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, warned Europe that any complicity in the US blockade would be “an act of war that will be etched in the nation’s historical memory.”

Tehran has been increasingly clear, the report noted, that US bases in Europe would be targeted if fighting resumes. “If American planes take off from a distant military base and come to this country to bomb Iran, we will also target that base. We are announcing this now so they have no excuse tomorrow,” Rezaei said.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio gave the impression this week that the policy of economic strangulation was sufficient and described Iran’s demands as unrealistic, per the report. Trump is under pressure to resolve the crisis before Democrats take charge of Congress on 3 January.

A Reuters Ipsos poll found 71% of Americans want Congress to pass legislation to end the war in Iran. The midterm elections signaled that the conflict is highly unpopular, the report noted, but Democrats do not have a strategy to end it and reopen the Strait of Hormuz — a dynamic the report said risks leaving the political initiative with the White House and an increasingly hardline Iranian leadership.