Iran’s parliament speaker declared Sunday that Tehran has defeated the United States and Israel both militarily and politically, escalating a war of words after President Donald Trump announced plans for the United States to take control of the Strait of Hormuz.
Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, the speaker of Iran’s parliament and Tehran’s chief diplomatic representative, argued that the US and Israel had entered the conflict with a series of clearly defined goals but had failed to accomplish any of them.
“I say with complete conviction that we won this war, both militarily and politically,” Ghalibaf stated. “The United States and Israel attacked us with nine specific objectives, but they failed to achieve any of them.”
Ghalibaf said his declaration of victory was not intended to suggest that Iran had physically destroyed the US military. Rather, he maintained that victory should be measured by whether Washington and Israel succeeded in accomplishing the objectives they had set for the conflict.
“The United States and Israel failed to achieve any of their nine stated objectives, and that was their greatest defeat,” Ghalibaf claimed.
Ghalibaf, who has served as Iran’s leading representative in diplomatic contacts with Washington, also portrayed a memorandum of understanding reached between Iran and the United States as a significant diplomatic achievement for Tehran, calling it “a document of pride and of our victory on the diplomatic front.”
The Iranian official conceded that the country’s population has yet to fully appreciate what he described as the scale of Tehran’s success, saying Iranians should take pride in what he called a “glorious victory.”
Ghalibaf’s comments came after Trump delivered a dramatically different assessment of the conflict during a rally on Long Island on Friday, where he said Iran was being badly defeated and announced that he intends to place the strategically critical Strait of Hormuz under American control.
“After we finish defeating Iran, which is being very badly defeated, pretty soon, I will be declaring the Hormuz Strait a territory of the United States,” Trump told the crowd.
Trump also described Iran’s leadership structure as having been devastated during the conflict, saying the destruction has made it increasingly difficult for Washington to find anyone with whom it can negotiate.
Iran has “no leadership. Their leadership is gone. Their second tier is gone. The third tier is half gone. That’s one of my problems, that there is nobody to negotiate with. It’s a problem. It’s the only country in the world where nobody wants to be president.”
Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi responded to Trump’s declaration by insisting that Tehran alone determines passage through the Strait of Hormuz. He said Iran would continue its naval blockade until the United States recognizes what he called its “strategic defeat”.
Gharibabadi directly challenged Trump in a social media post, declaring that the strategic waterway belongs to Iran and will remain under Iranian control.
“Once and for all, accept the reality: up to this point, you have suffered strategic and heavy defeats; the Strait of Hormuz has been Iranian, is Iranian, and will remain Iranian.”
He went on to insist that only Tehran has the authority to determine whether the strait remains open or closed and said the blockade would continue as long as Washington refuses to acknowledge defeat.
“This strait will only be closed and opened under Iran’s command, and as long as you do not accept the reality of defeat and cease your fanciful delusions, Iran will continue to enforce the blockade.”
Another senior Iranian official took aim at Trump on Shabbos, invoking a recent security measure in which the president was transported between aircraft inside a catering vehicle amid security concerns.
Ebrahim Azizi, chairman of the Iranian Parliament’s National Security Commission, mocked Trump while warning him to focus on his own safety rather than threatening to take control of the Strait of Hormuz.
“The US President ought to worry about his own security rather than his endless bluffing regarding the Strait of Hormuz; before he ends up hiding in a food truck,” Azizi wrote on social media.
