Iran's supreme leader says closure of Strait of Hormuz should be used as leverage

[BumRushDaShow]

Source: PBS News/AP

Mar 12, 2026 10:00 AM EDT


DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei said Thursday that the leverage of closing the Strait of Hormuz should be used and that Iran's attacks on Gulf Arab neighbors will continue.

His first statement since his appointment was read on state television by a news anchor. Khamenei did not appear on camera, and an Israeli assessment indicates he was wounded in the war's opening salvo.

Iran's unrelenting attacks on shipping traffic and energy infrastructure in the Persian Gulf pushed oil back above $100 a barrel on Thursday, as American and Israeli strikes pounded the Islamic Republic with no sign of an end to the war in sight.

Iran is trying to inflict enough global economic pain to pressure the United States and Israel to halt their bombardment, which started the war on Feb. 28. Iran's president said its attacks would continue until Iran gets security guarantees against another assault, indicating that even a ceasefire or U.S. declaration of victory might not halt the conflict.

Read more: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/irans-supreme-leader-says-closure-of-strait-of-hormuz-should-be-used-as-leverage

[Irish_Dem]

1. Trump and Hegseth thought they held all the cards.

And they could trash talk Iran, humiliate and defeat them.

[catsudon]

2. that is the reality

iran's allies who are capable of helping iran are Russia and China

Russia did help iran by providing 'intelligence' with targets. but now I don't believe they will as :

I'm going to oversimplify the following because i don't have the exact figures

Russia only need the price of oil to go above $55? and you see the price of oil jump, for every dollar above that number, their gdp increase. they've already double their profit because of this life line.

trump's kabuki theater, saying at first the war could last 4 weeks and could be longer and saying 'oil price could jump'.... oil of course jumped so high. and then next day saying the war is pretty much over and oil price dropped (but not back to previous level) classic TACO

that fucker just transfer billions of wealth in one day, those people who thought the oil price will go up buying those oil futures just to see how trumps word can just change the market like that by saying things regardless if it is true or not.

now china, who just had their perfect impenetrable red flag anti missile defense (look up hq-19 aka red flag 19) rendered useless, this is suppose to be the latest missile tech, that rivals THAAD. total silence from china, except for a weak response which is unlike their previous wolf warrior stance.

so now, you see who's the big winner is, in all this.... all this is all to punish china in the very end.

south korea is also a big loser in this one. they were trying to walk between china and usa. as you can tell Lee is more friendly towards china. (ex. when they didn't want to have joint military excessive with usa and japan earlier to please china.) well lee didn't know trump would yank the thaad system from korea and move it middle east just like that. he made a miscalculation and now you can see why south korean market crashed so hard for two days in a roll compare to other asian countries.

korea isn't totally fault less, since they did sell iran a few korean ships , one being iran's first drone carrier . i mean wasn't there a sanction? the ships were civilian ships that got converted into a 'drone' aircraft carrier. usa wants to know if south korea helped with the conversion (after all who would best at knowng how to covert a ship but their own?)

i would not be surprised japan will be the new focus for pacific defense. lee of south korea will lose the next election''

i apologize for writing a short story, but this 0% ai and took me hours

[hedda_foil]

6. How was China's newest anti-missile defense system rendered useless?

I looked it up as you suggested and there is nothing in the recent news to support your statement. Several links to support each of your interesting points would be most useful. Otherwise, there's nothing to suggest you know what you're talking about.

[ananda]

3. To be fair, they really didn't know any better...

since their "best people)" have been helping and
enabling Trump since forever.

They could plead not guilty by reason of both
ignorance and insanity.

[Irish_Dem]

4. It wouldn't matter if experts told them the truth.

They ignore experts because the Trump crime family thinks they are the smartest ones in the room always.

But yes most likely anyone who speaks the truth has been fired a long time ago.

[ananda]

5. And, I suspect, his "best" people are worse than he is...

because that's the way his narcissism works, along with
the need to have idiot yesmen.

[Bluejeans]

7. Iran forgets there's always reverse leverage

Iran forgets they have a return address leaving them open to retaliation. For example, Flfot every day Iran closes the Strait of Hormuz, we take out up to five of their electrical generating plants. Without electricity Iran will be back in the 14th Century pretty quickly.