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Iran warns neighbors joining US economic effort
August 23, 2026
Iran's Supreme National Security Council leader Mohsen Rezaei warned that neighbors joining the new US effort against Iran's economy would be treated as enemies.
Mohsen Rezaei, named this month to lead Iran's Supreme National Security Council, has told nearby countries that any of them joining Washington's new campaign against Iran's economy will be handled as an enemy, AP News reports. What follows, in his words, is that "we will target their interests." The routes he pointed to are the oil-shipping lanes leaving the Persian Gulf, the ones that serve as alternatives to the Strait of Hormuz. He also charged Washington with making the world less secure on nuclear matters, his argument being that Iran took part in international monitoring and was attacked anyway. Reuters carries Tehran's answer to the threatened sanctions as a prediction that the American effort will fail. The Hill carries the same warning to Middle East neighbors.
Around that threat sits ground the coverage shares. U.S. President Donald Trump spent the past week promising deeper economic pressure and isolation, at a level he called "unprecedented," and Iran has lived under sanctions for years. AP News reports that control of the waterway, long treated as international, was taken by Tehran in the weeks after the U.S. and Israel attacked on Feb. 28, and that Iraq and Iran both say Iranian help moved some vessels carrying Iraqi oil through the strait, with no clarity on what came back the other way. Diplomacy runs alongside. Egypt's foreign ministry says its top diplomat and Iran's counterpart went over ways to bring Tehran and Washington to a negotiating table, and Araghchi describes speaking by phone with Pakistan's army chief, Field Marshal Asim Munir.
The outlets line up on who spoke, what he threatened, and which shipping routes he named. Their differences run to emphasis rather than fact. What is settled is the warning itself and the American pressure that prompted it. The commercial machinery behind it is not, from the fees Rezaei says will be imposed to the routes France and Saudi Arabia are examining.
Still developing
The fees Rezaei said would be imposed were still forming by the time of draft, and discussions with Oman over management of the strait were ongoing.
How settled the reporting is
Sources
- AP News — Iran security chief threatens neighbors against economic measures, and other Mideast developments
- The Hill — Iran warns Middle East neighbors against joining US ‘economic war’
- Al Jazeera — Can Iran retaliate against countries that join US ‘economic war’?