'Only place US belongs in Gulf is at bottom of its waters'

In defiant message, Mojtaba Khamenei signals ‘new chapter’ for Iran’s control of Hormuz

Marking ‘Persian Gulf Day,’ written statement from still unseen new supreme leader says Iran will protect missile, nuclear programs as ‘national assets,’ bucking US effort to curb them

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Iran’s supreme leader said Thursday that the only place Americans belonged in the Persian Gulf is “at the bottom of its waters” and that a “new chapter” was being written in the region’s history.

Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, speaking in a written statement read by a state television anchor as he has since taken over as Iran’s supreme leader, struck a defiant tone, insisting that the Islamic Republic will protect its “nuclear and missile capabilities” as a national asset, likely seeking to draw a hard line as US President Donald Trump seeks a wider deal to cement the shaky ceasefire now holding in the war.

Khamenei was reportedly badly wounded in the February 28 attack that killed his father, the 86-year-old Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and he has not been seen in public or on video since he assumed his father’s role as supreme leader in March. According to several anonymous sources, he suffered severe facial and leg injuries, though he remains mentally sharp and is taking part in meetings with senior officials via audio conferencing.

Other sources have claimed that the younger Khamenei is not exercising the same centralized authority as his father, with power instead shifting to senior commanders in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and out of the office of the supreme leader, who remains under close medical care.

Khamenei’s most recent remarks come as Iran’s oil industry has begun to be squeezed by a US Navy blockade halting its oil tankers from getting out to sea. Meanwhile, benchmark Brent crude for June delivery reached as much as $126 a barrel in trading on Thursday as Iran maintains its chokehold on the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow mouth of the Persian Gulf through which a fifth of all crude oil and natural gas traded passes.

All this is putting additional pressure on the world’s economy as Trump likely weighs how to respond.

“By God’s help and power, the bright future of the Persian Gulf region will be a future without America, one serving the progress, comfort and prosperity of its people,” Khamenei said.

“We and our neighbors across the waters of the Persian Gulf and the (Gulf) of Oman share a common destiny,” he said. “Foreigners who come from thousands of kilometers away to act with greed and malice there have no place in it — except at the bottom of its waters.”

Ceasefire shaken as strait choked off

With a fragile ceasefire in place, the US and Iran are locked in a standoff over the strait. The US blockade is designed to prevent Iran from selling its oil, depriving it of crucial revenue while also potentially creating a situation where Tehran has to shut off production because it has nowhere to store oil.

The strait’s closure, meanwhile, has put pressure on Trump, as oil and gasoline prices have skyrocketed ahead of crucial midterm elections, and it has pressured his Gulf allies, which use the waterway to export their oil and gas.

A recent Iranian proposal would push negotiations on the country’s nuclear program to a later date. Trump said one of the major reasons he went to war was to deny Iran the ability to develop nuclear weapons. Iran has long maintained its program is peaceful, though it enriched uranium at near-weapons-grade levels of 60 percent.

Speaking to mark Persian Gulf Day in Iran, Khamenei’s remarks signaled that nuclear issues and Iran’s ballistic missile program wouldn’t be traded away.

“Ninety million proud and honorable Iranians inside and outside the country regard all of Iran’s identity-based, spiritual, human, scientific, industrial and technological capacities — from nanotechnology and biotechnology to nuclear and missile capabilities — as national assets, and will protect them just as they protect the country’s waters, land and airspace,” Khamenei said.

He referred to America as the “Great Satan,” a long hurled insult by Iranian leaders toward the US since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

Khamenei signals strait will remain shut

In his remarks, Khamenei seemed to signal Iran would maintain its control over the waterway, which sits in the territorial waters of Iran and Oman. Iran had been charging some ships reportedly $2 million apiece to travel through the strait.

He said that Iran’s control of the Strait of Hormuz will make the Gulf more secure, and that Tehran’s “legal rules and new management” of the strait will benefit all the region’s nations.

However, the world considered the strait an international waterway, open to all without paying tolls. Gulf Arab nations, chief among them the United Arab Emirates, have decried Iran’s control of the strait as akin to piracy.