Iran vows revenge and blockade on oil exports in Strait of Hormuz

Iran has promised further retaliation – including a possible blockade of vital oil shipping lanes – following US strikes analysts now believe Tehran may have been ready for.

Iranians demand continued attacks on Israel and a response to the US attacks in a protest on Tehran on Sunday. Picture: Getty Images

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Iran launched a new round of ­missiles into Israel and promised further retaliation – including a possible blockade of vital oil shipping lanes in the Strait of Hormuz – following US strikes on its ­nuclear facilities on Sunday that analysts now believe Tehran may have been ready for.

In the wake of those attacks Iran’s parliament voted to block the narrow sea lanes through which some 20 per cent of the world’s oil supply passes, as its ­Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi flew to Moscow for emergency talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin over the war with Israel.

The Islamic Republic’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, also promised “punishment” would continue against the “Zionist enemy” in a social media post early on Monday, while his Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps warned the strikes had made every American and US base in the region a target.

Donald Trump, who is said to have previously opposed Israeli plans to assassinate the ailing Ayatollah and pave the way for regime change, on Sunday night uploaded a post to his Truth social media platform suggesting he may have changed his mind.

“It’s not politically correct to use the term, ‘Regime Change’ but if the current Iranian Regime is unable to MAKE IRAN GREAT AGAIN, why wouldn’t there be a Regime change???” he wrote.

Khamenei was arguably in the “most dire situation of his entire life as an autocrat”, said Karim Sadjadpour, from the Carnegie Endowment of International Peace.

“He’s in a bunker. He’s 86 years old. He has limited physical, cognitive bandwidth. Most of his top military commanders were assassinated. He doesn’t control his own airspace. Israel controls it.

“He can’t win this war. He’s outmatched militarily, financially, technologically.”

Israel on Monday moved to ­increase pressure on the regime with strikes on Tehran’s notorious Evin prison, which holds political prisoners and dissidents.

As Washington, Israel and world oil markets braced for an inevitable Iranian response, many have questioned the capacity of a regime now weakened, humiliated and increasingly isolated to retaliate in a way that would not cause itself harm.

Australian Strategic Policy ­Institute senior defence analyst Euan Graham said a full-scale blockade of the Strait of Hormuz is not viable given how much Iran ­relies on the earnings from oil ­exports that pass through those waters, including to its biggest customer, China. “War risk would also drive up insurance premiums which would get passed on to consumers worldwide, once again driving up ­inflation and creating global ­energy insecurity,” Dr Graham told The Australian.

Whether it would even have the ability to do so is questionable given Israel’s current superiority in the skies, the presence of two US aircraft carriers and the fact the US navy’s Bahrain-based Fifth Fleet has trained for decades to respond to such a scenario.

Iran’s missile stockpile is also likely to have been halved by ­Israel’s ongoing bombardment since June 13, and previous attacks last October, diminishing its ­capacity to fight a prolonged ­conflict or contend with further US military attacks should it target American assets in the region.

Iranian sailors on an armed speed boat in the Persian Gulf near the strait of Hormuz in 2019. Picture: Getty Images

China is suspected to have helped Iran reconstitute its air-­defence capabilities in the wake of last year’s clashes. But Beijing has little to gain from further involvement with the US on the verge of being dragged into yet another Middle East quagmire that takes its focus off the Indo-Pacific.

“China won’t be unhappy about the US deciding to involve itself once again in a military conflict in the Middle East. That’s a good news day for Beijing,” says Monash University nuclear expert and International Relations Professor Ben Zala.

While Iran is a major Kremlin ally that has provided Russia with drones and missiles for its war in Ukraine, Russia too seems reluctant to involve itself in the conflict.

Mr Putin cited Israel’s massive Russian-speaking population at the weekend as a reason for Moscow’s calibrated stance, describing the Jewish state as “almost a ­Russian-speaking country”.

“Almost two million people from the former Soviet Union and the Russian Federation reside in Israel,” he said. “Undoubtedly, we always take this into account in Russia’s contemporary history.”

Dr Graham said Iran was looking “very exposed”.

“Its military options are very limited,” he said. “All their proxies have been defanged. Now they too have been defanged. Their ace in the pack (the nuclear project) has gone, at least for the next few years. They’re scrabbling around trying to hit back, and Russia and China are nowhere to be seen.”

At an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council on Monday, Russia, China and Pakistan called for an immediate and unconditional ceasefire in the Middle East while Moscow and Beijing condemned the US strikes.

Many oil-rich Arab states have also done so, fearing a conflict spillover could threaten their own security and economies. “Peace in the Middle East cannot be achieved by the use of force,” said China’s UN ambassador Fu Cong.

He added there was still hope for a diplomatic and peaceful solution to address Iran’s nuclear issue.

Just how much damage US and Israeli strikes have done to Iran’s decades-old nuclear project is now the subject of intense debate. US President Donald Trump said on Sunday that the 14 “bunker buster” bombs dropped on Tehran’s heavily fortressed Fordow nuclear ­facility, and simultaneous bombardments on enrichment facilities at Natanz and Isfahan, had “totally obliterated” the regime’s nuclear weapons program.

But by Monday, satellite imagery taken before and after the US strikes showed 16 trucks at the tunnels leading into Fordow, and more at Isfahan where much of Iran’s 408kg of near-bomb grade uranium is believed to have been stored, suggesting Iran may have relocated enriched uranium and nuclear components from the sites before the US strikes aimed at ending its nuclear ambitions.

Trucks positioned near the entrance of Iran's Fordow Fuel Enrichment Plant last week. Picture: Maxar Technologies / AFP

Iran has said as much while US Vice President JD Vance admitted in an interview on Monday the Trump administration did not yet know the fate of Iran’s stockpile of near-bomb-grade uranium.

Still, he added: “They no longer have the capacity to turn that stockpile of highly enriched uranium to weapons-grade uranium.”

Whether that is true is also up for debate, given speculation that not only enriched uranium but nuclear centrifuges may have been loaded onto trucks from Fordow or Isfahan.

“We don’t have good answers and won’t for some time,” said Professor Zala.

“But we do know they were able to get trucks to the Fordow site after the initial Israeli attacks so we should assume it’s possible that some of that material was moved.”

The regime was censured earlier this month by the International Atomic Energy Agency board of directors in part for not providing sufficient information to questions over suspected covert nuclear facilities.

Tehran responded by announcing it was building a new enrichment facility in a secured location.

“Do they have another site ready to go and do the Israelis or Americans know where that is because then it would be fair game?” Professor Zala said.

David Albright, a former international weapons inspector who now heads the Institute for Science and International Security, said you had to “assume significant amounts of this enriched uranium still exist”, and that it was possible the uranium was moved to a covert facility where it could be enriched to 90 per cent for a nuclear weapon in a short period.

Iran may also have thousands of uranium-enriching centrifuges that were not installed in Natanz and Fordow.

“The program has been seriously set back, but there’s a lot of odds and ends,” he told National Public Radio.

He said the only way to truly end Iran’s nuclear program was through a diplomatic agreement.

Donald Trump has urged Iran to make peace, but its humiliated rulers have ruled out any further negotiations while Israeli strikes continue.

Mass protests on the streets of Tehran, and elsewhere in the country, were looking less like a regime showpiece in the wake of Sunday’s strikes and more like popular anger at the heavy toll on long-suffering Iranians.

“Events of the last few weeks appear to have had a significant impact on public opinion on nuclear weapons,” Iran expert and editor of Amwaj.media Mohammad Ali Shahbani told The Guardian on Monday.

“I’m not a pollster, but I can tell you that what I hear anecdotally from many of my Iranian contacts and acquaintances is that they need a deterrent to stop this happening in the future.

“The mood seems to have shifted from support of enrichment to support of nuclear weapons themselves. People look at North Korea’s nuclear weapons and see that nobody is attacking North Korea. That lesson is being internalised.”

Some 950 Iranians, including 380 identified civilians, have so far been killed by Israeli strikes with another 3400 people injured, according to estimates by the Washington-based Human Rights Activists which crosschecks local reports with its sources in Iran.