Iran International
Tehran is signalling that its response to US pressure may be to widen the conflict, turning restrictions on its shipping and aviation into risks for airports and waterways stretching from the Persian Gulf to the Red Sea and potentially the Indian Ocean.
The emerging pattern is one of horizontal escalation: rather than confining its response to the point of pressure, Iranian officials are increasingly warning that action in one arena could produce retaliation elsewhere.
IRGC spokesman Hossein Mohebbi made that logic explicit on September 23, declaring that “Iran will certainly change the geography of the war” and adding that “our targets will no longer necessarily be the same as before”.
A day later, Yahya Rahim Safavi, military adviser to Iranian Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei, gave the clearest indication yet of how far that geography might extend.
In a video released by the IRGC-linked Fars News Agency, Safavi said the front could expand further in response to continued warfare, “reaching the Indian Ocean and perhaps beyond”.
He added that linking Hormuz and Bab el-Mandeb “will change the battlefield”.
Fars noted that it was the first time an adviser to Khamenei had explicitly mentioned the Indian Ocean, home to the US-British base at Diego Garcia, nearly 4,000 kilometres from Iran.
In an earlier interview reported by Fararu, Safavi said Houthi advances mean the United States now faces a new challenge at Bab el-Mandeb and in the Red Sea.
IRGC Aerospace Force commander Majid Mousavi warned that “if you make the sacred Strait of Hormuz unsafe, we will turn the entire region into hell for you from across Iran”.
From shipping to aviation
The same logic has increasingly appeared outside the maritime arena.
Secretary of the Supreme National Security Council Mohsen Rezaei addressed Iran’s neighbouring Arab states in an interview with state broadcaster IRINN on September 23, saying: “If you stand with America, we will not just watch you.”
He warned that if Iranian flights were banned with their cooperation, “their airports will have no flights”. He did not specify any country, airport or method of disruption.
Rezaei linked the warning to the Hormuz standoff.
He also said Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi was due to convey Iran’s seven conditions through mediators and that, until they were met, neither the strait would reopen nor negotiations resume.
Tehran had given the Americans “four to five days” to meet the conditions, he asserted.
A widening map of pressure
The statements suggest Tehran is increasingly answering different elements of Washington’s pressure campaign with threats or measures in corresponding domains.
Safavi’s framing of Hormuz and Bab el-Mandeb as a connected theatre suggests Tehran increasingly sees pressure around the two strategic chokepoints as interconnected.
The most immediate audience for many of these warnings is Iran’s Arab neighbours, whose airports, ports and territory are exposed to the consequences of US-Iran escalation.
Rezaei’s remarks appear designed to raise the potential cost for those states of cooperating with Washington’s pressure campaign.
Iran has already demonstrated a willingness during the conflict to target regional aviation infrastructure, repeatedly striking Kuwait International Airport and damaging terminals and a radar system.
The Indian Ocean references extend this widening map further.
For now, the shift is clearest at the level of rhetoric: none of the statements reviewed sets out a specific Iranian plan for operations there.
But combined with threats against regional airports and repeated references to Bab el-Mandeb, they point to an increasingly explicit message from Tehran that further US pressure could carry risks well beyond the Strait of Hormuz.
Speaking at the 81st General Assembly on Wednesday, the president said Tehran was ready for dialogue but rejected "the language of force," called Donald Trump's words a sign of "the character of a bully and the logic of force," and held up photographs of the late Ali Khamenei and of schoolchildren killed in the strike on Minab in the war's first hours.
Three things drew the messages: the gap between the president's posture abroad and the state's conduct at home; the crackdown of January that he did not name; and the way he spoke.
'Only brave in front of us'
The most frequent reaction set the president's words in New York beside the state's words in Iran.
"The Islamic Republic wants dialogue with anyone stronger than itself," one wrote, "and bullies its own defenseless people."
Another pointed to Pezeshkian's repeated use of the word force: inside Iran the state threatens America, he wrote, and in New York it asks "why are you bullying us."
The president's own language on the January protests was not far from writers' minds. In August he called the protests a "riot" and described those who reported the killings as "cowards and traitors," remarks that had drawn an earlier wave of messages. On January 11, days after the killings, he had called the protesters "terrorists" and demanded a "decisive" response from the security forces.
One writer put it in a single line: for 47 years the Islamic Republic has been busy with terror, and now Pezeshkian comes to play the victim.
Another watched the delivery rather than the text. "People like Pezeshkian only claim power and swagger in front of us," he wrote. "From the trembling voice, the stumbles and the level of stress in his speech, it was clear how brave he is in front of real superpowers."
What he left out
Pezeshkian never used the word protests. The Iranians he described in the streets these past seven months were the crowds at the state's own rallies, organized by the Revolutionary Guards and the Basij, out at night, in his telling, to defend the country against people "America and Israel had incited and put guns in the hands of."
The millions who came out against the state, and the tens of thousands killed, did not appear in the speech at all.
A writer from Qeshm, the island in the Strait of Hormuz, said the president had repeated the state's version of the protests instead of speaking about Iran's own victims, including those killed on January 8 and 9 and in earlier crackdowns.
Others treated the speech as an occasion to list what it omitted: the protests of December 2017 and January 2018, Bloody November in 2019, the Woman, Life, Freedom uprising of 2022, the January 2026 uprising, and the poisoning of girls' schools in 2022 and 2023.
The messages came days after the UN fact-finding mission on Iran presented its latest report. Its chair, Sara Hossain, said the January crackdown had met protests with an "extremely violent" response, and that many of the violations, including killings and imprisonment, amounted to crimes against humanity.
Several writers said that Iranians themselves had been pushed to the margins of the speech. "Pezeshkian was more a defender of the Revolutionary Guards and of Palestine," one wrote, "than someone who wanted to say anything about the people of his own country."
How he said it
The third and most personal thread was the president's manner: his walk, his delivery, his command of his own text.
Many described his bearing as a street tough's swagger and compared him to Shaban Bi-Mokh, the Tehran strongman whose mobs helped bring down the government in the 1953 coup and whose nickname means "the brainless." Writers said his grip on the speech was so weak that a passerby pulled off the street and put at the UN lectern would have spoken more fluently and said more.
A writer from Tehran said he had been ashamed to watch Pezeshkian represent Iran, in a speech he found empty of manners, culture or "any diplomatic decorum."
"Why can't he speak properly?" another asked. "He talked as if someone had a gun to his head."
One writer compared the speech to those of Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi and said the level of language from the president of the Islamic Republic had left him astonished.
Several concluded that the delivery reflected the office. Pezeshkian, they wrote, has no authority of his own; he reads what is written for him and handed to him.
"That is why they made him president," one wrote. "The text they write for him usually has a fixed structure, and it is on file at the foreign ministry and the presidency."
Iranian customs records showed one delivery arriving on June 17, when Washington and Tehran signed a 60-day truce and China promoted its peacemaking role. More than a dozen shipments followed two days later, carrying over $6 million in parts usable in drones.
The findings put Chinese support for Tehran at the center of Xi Jinping’s Washington visit this week, alongside trade, artificial-intelligence safety and Taiwan. Trump told aides that preserving relations with Xi was a priority, the Journal reported.
Records supplied by ImportGenius, covering January 2025 through June 2026, listed thousands of shipments to Iranian companies and the defense ministry, including GPS devices, motors and aircraft engine parts. Many cited Article 119, which exempts defense imports from tariffs.
Days before war began on February 28, China delivered 300 tons of chemical compounds to the ministry. Trade initially collapsed, and April’s US naval blockade restricted supplies further. Iran responded by expanding air connections.
US-sanctioned Mahan Air increased flights from Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou to Tehran from four weekly in early March to about 27 by late April, FlightRadar24 data showed. It operated 39 China–Iran flights in September’s first week, twice its prewar level. Several were unavailable for passenger bookings. China services continued despite announced suspensions to Oman and Turkey.
CSIS researcher Kate Koren identified Chinese companies advertising sensitive electronics used in Shahed drones. Suppliers cultivated Iranian customers through trade fairs and Persian-language marketing.
Chinese chemical supplies also helped replenish missile production damaged by Israeli attacks in 2024. After reports of those exports in 2025, US forces raided a ship carrying dual-use components from China to Iran.
In a December letter, sanctioned Chinese company Haokun Energy said it had coordinated confidential export licensing for sodium perchlorate, used in missile propellant, and created a Beijing shell company for the transaction. The Journal verified the company’s registration but could not establish whether the deal proceeded.
Washington also targeted networks seeking newer Chinese shoulder-fired missile systems for Iran, which manufactures versions based on older Chinese designs. One unsuccessful effort sought delivery through Belarus to conceal Iran’s Center for Innovation and Technology Cooperation as the recipient. Tasnim separately published footage of IRGC personnel training with portable launchers.
Iran's biggest buyer
China became Iran’s dominant oil buyer after Trump’s 2018 “maximum pressure” campaign; the countries signed a 25-year pact in 2021. US lawmakers put China’s share above 80% of Iranian crude exports. Banks and shell companies have facilitated payments, including in yuan, US officials and other sources told the Journal.
One arrangement involved Iranian petrochemical sales to Egypt through Banque Misr’s UAE branch. After US objections to dollar payments, proposed transactions shifted to yuan through China’s Cross-Border Interbank Payment System. Washington intervened, stopping the plan, and later moved to restrict the branch’s dollar access.
Egypt and the bank said they were engaging US authorities; the bank affirmed regulatory compliance. Beijing suspected Egyptian officials had shared information with Washington, and Xi raised the matter in Cairo on September 1, the Journal reported.
US officials also linked Chinese satellite imagery obtained before and after a July 17 Iranian strike to the attack, which killed three American troops in Jordan. Washington had sanctioned three Chinese imagery companies in May.
Despite hundreds of sanctions, disagreements persisted inside Trump’s administration. Hegseth said China and Russia enabled Iran; Trump cited Xi’s assurances against weapons deliveries, saying: “I trust them.” Rubio said Chinese assistance had not changed the war’s trajectory.
July measures targeted Mahan-linked entities, including a Chinese sales agent. Late-August Operation Economic Outcast targeted a Chinese-owned tanker and procurement networks, but no major Chinese companies. Kpler recorded roughly four million barrels reaching China the following week.
Lawmakers from both parties urged tougher action; Senator Elissa Slotkin called for Iran to become central to the summit. Rubio promised frank talks, while Treasury and the White House defended their enforcement efforts.
China rejected accusations of improper support, citing export controls and opposition to unilateral sanctions. Hong Kong said it implements UN sanctions only.
