The war of words between Iran and the United States escalated sharply on Thursday with a top military commander of Iran dismissing the warning from Washington not to close the Strait of Hormuz — the principal gateway through which the world's oil supplies pass.
Hossein Salami, deputy chief of the elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), announced on state-run Press TV that the “Islamic Republic of Iran asks for no other country's permission for the implementation of its defence strategies.” He was responding to a Pentagon statement which asserted that Tehran's interference “with the transit or passage of vessels through the Strait of Hormuz will not be tolerated”.
Tensions have heightened after the U.S. began to prepare for sanctions that would cripple Iran's oil exports — the lifeline of the country's economy.
With these sanctions possibly kicking in next month, Iran's First Vice President had on Tuesday threatened to block oil supplies flowing out of Gulf terminals from the Strait of Hormuz. A day later, Iran's naval chief, Adm. Habibollah Sayyari said his country would find it “very easy” to close the Strait the Hormuz — a prospect which can cause oil prices to zoom and undermine the fledgling recovery of the ailing western economies.
The back-and-forth between the Iranians and the Americans have acquired a sharper edge as both sides are backing their threats with large deployments of warships in an area east of the Strait of Hormuz.
The Iranian navy's ongoing exercise is being closely monitored by several U.S. warships which have been deployed in the vicinity, say media reports. Coinciding with its show of military strength, the Iranians on Wednesday asserted that the West was losing its ideological influence worldwide. Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei whose pronouncements echo in large parts of West Asia said that the U.S. had no control over the wave of uprisings in Arab countries, which were bringing Islamists into power.
Speaking to Iranian diplomats, Ayatollah Khamenei chose to address a deep-seated apprehension among the region's intellectual, official and clerical elite that, in the end, the U.S. was manoeuvring the Arab rebellions which had already toppled entrenched regimes in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya.
Choosing his words carefully, Iran's chief jurisprudent said it would be a “delusion” to conclude that Washington has been steering the Arab revolt. He also compared these rebellions with the Iranian revolution of 1979, which toppled the regime of the Shah of Iran, a pillar of America's strategic influence in the oil-rich region.
“Some assume that the United States is stage-managing these developments behind the scenes, but it is sheer delusion, just as 30 years ago some were under the illusion that the Islamic revolution was engineered by the United States,” he said.
Ayatollah Khamenei said the Arab Spring was an expression of an “Islamic Awakening”.
However, this “does not mean that they all want an Islamic government or approve of the model of Iran's Islamic government.”
Iran's top cleric anticipated that the leaderships thrown up by the popular Arab uprisings would stand naturally opposed to the United States and Israel.
In line with the Ayatollah Khamenei's assertions, Iran's judiciary chief, Ayatollah Sadeq Amoli Larijani, compared the upheavals in the Arab world to a “political earthquake” that had shaken the West.
He stressed that “Islamic thoughts” were defeating “principles of western liberal democracy”.
