Iranian state TV pundit: hit US bases, disrupt oil trade via Hormuz Strait

A prominent Iranian state TV commentator has called for sweeping retaliation against US and Israeli interests, including strikes on regional bases, oil infrastructure, and ports, and disruption of oil trade through the Strait of Hormuz.

“If you’re going to go after the US, don’t fool yourself thinking you can just hit a few bases and depots and then gradually escalate,” Mostafa Khoshcheshm said on Iranian state television. “Trump won’t tolerate that… if Israel escalates to step two, you go straight to step ten—escalate to full-blown war.”

Among the options he laid out were attacks on US military assets in Kuwait and Bahrain, and crippling strikes on Israel’s main ports. “Destroy their infrastructure, economic facilities—their ports: Ashdod, Haifa, and Eilat,” he said. “Leave the people and cities, but obliterate those ports.”

Khoshcheshm also raised the prospect of blocking the Strait of Hormuz—a strategic chokepoint for a fifth of the world’s oil supply. “Shutting down the Strait of Hormuz is another option, or at least disrupting it,” he said. “If you do that—hit hard and decisively, shut the Strait, hit oil facilities—what does that mean? It means oil prices will skyrocket globally. The world would enter a full-blown economic panic. That means we all go down together—not just us.”

He accused Azerbaijan of providing fuel for US aircraft attacking Iran and warned that planned military drills near the Zangezur corridor in southern Armenia were part of a broader strategy to encircle and isolate Iran.