The escalation began Monday night with attacks on commercial navigation near Hormuz, continued Tuesday, and was followed Wednesday morning by strikes on US positions after CENTCOM forces hit more than 80 targets in southern Iran.
Tehran claimed it had struck 85 targets, all of them US interests.
Inside Iran, hardline media quickly framed the confrontation as proof that the June MoU with Washington had failed—or that it had only served to expose US intentions.
The Tehran municipal daily Hamshahri argued that the MoU was not a concession but proof Washington had recognized Iran’s missile capabilities and regional leverage.
It said the latest maritime confrontation showed any attempt by the US or its allies to impose terms during the 60-day implementation period would risk disruption of global energy routes.
Other hardline outlets, including Kayhan, went further.
Writing with vindicated fury, editor Hossein Shariatmadari declared that the “60-day diplomatic mirage” had vanished exactly as he predicted, calling the US strikes proof of “Washington’s innate treachery and structural inability to honor any MoU.”
More than a military confrontation, the attacks appear to reflect a growing divide among Iranian decision-makers: those seeking to advance an agreement with Washington and those who argue that only direct revenge against US President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would be sufficient.
Over the past month, radical hardliners in Tehran—who portrayed their own survival and the system’s survival as victory over the United States—have sharply criticized President Massoud Pezeshkian for signing the MoU with Washington.
They argued that before the agreement, Trump was under pressure from politicians and markets, and that Iran could have extracted better terms.
While the anger surrounding Khamenei’s funeral cannot be dismissed, the divide between Tehran’s hardliners and pragmatists appears to be a major factor behind the renewed confrontation that followed Trump’s conciliatory comments about allowing a peaceful funeral for the man he had ordered killed.
Whatever the precise trigger, the escalation has strengthened the hand of hardliners.
Social-media videos from the funeral in Tehran showed radicals throwing stones at Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and chanting slogans against Pezeshkian.
On Wednesday, ultraconservative MP Hamid Rasai called for a missile strike on Trump’s residence during his visit to Ankara for a NATO meeting, while fellow hardliner Mahmoud Nabavian said Muslims worldwide were expected to attack Trump the way Salman Rushdie was attacked.
Trump said he had always known he was a target for “nasty Iranians,” adding that if they had nuclear weapons, they would certainly use them.
On Wednesday, Hamshahri went further, arguing that strikes on US assets in Kuwait and Bahrain demonstrated that the cost of confrontation would not remain limited to Iranian territory.
The paper said Washington’s move to revoke Iran’s oil-export waivers amounted to total economic warfare and justified an equivalent response: closing the Strait of Hormuz.
“If Iran cannot openly sell its crude, no state in the region will be permitted to export energy,” it warned.
Kayhan urged the Pezeshkian administration to abandon the June framework, restrict maritime access and shift to what it called an unrestricted defensive doctrine under the guidance of the new Supreme Leader, Mojtaba Khamenei.
Meanwhile, figures including parliamentary National Security Committee spokesman Ebrahim Rezai and Mojtaba Khamenei’s military adviser Mohsen Rezai declared Iran’s readiness for combat.
Chief of staff of the armed forces Habibollah Sayyari also warned against any ground operation.
“If the enemy deploys forces to the Iranian shores, their troops will enter a hell that has no exit,” Sayyari said—a remark widely circulated online, with critics joking that it unintentionally described conditions inside the Islamic Republic itself.
