Pro-government supporters stand next to a banner bearing the portrait of Iran’s late supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei during a nighttime rally in Tehran, Iran, on July 12, 2026.
Morteza Nicoubzal | Nurfoto | getty images
Iran warned on Thursday that it would “crush” key targets in the Middle East if US President Donald Trump’s threats to target the country’s infrastructure are carried out in the coming days.
Trump said in an interview with Fox News on Tuesday evening that the US military would target key Iranian infrastructure next week if a diplomatic breakthrough is not achieved.
“It’s going to be really bad for them next week because the power plants will be coming in next week,” he said. “Next week the bridges will come. We’re going to knock out all their power plants. We’re going to knock out all their bridges unless they come to the table and negotiate.”
In a statement published on Telegram Thursday morning, a spokesman for Iran’s top military command said that if Trump’s threats were implemented “everything that is still intact … that is, all the infrastructure in the region – will be crushed under the steel blows of the powerful Armed Forces of the Islamic Republic of Iran; so that not a trace of them remains and it will seem as if they never existed in the first place.”
He said that “under no circumstances and in no way will we allow the United States, as a foreign and extra-regional country, to intervene in the Strait of Hormuz.”
“This is Iran’s invincible red line,” the spokesman said.
The strait, a waterway in the Middle East that is vital for shipping oil and other key commodities, has become a focal point of fighting between US and Iranian forces.
The armed conflict has escalated in recent days after the US launched strikes against Iran in response to an attack on commercial ships in the Strait of Hormuz earlier this week.
Meanwhile, Tehran has launched attacks on several Gulf countries.
US Central Command carried out a fresh wave of strikes on Iran overnight which ended at 9 pm ET.
“U.S. forces struck Iranian command centers, air defense sites, missile and drone capabilities, and coastal surveillance facilities to further degrade Iran’s ability to threaten innocent sailors and the crews of commercial vessels transiting the Strait of Hormuz,” CENTCOM said in a statement posted on Twitter.
“CENTCOM used precision munitions to hit targets in several locations, including Bandar Abbas.”
Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson also warned of retaliatory action on Wednesday.
“Our hands are not tied,” he said at an event in Tehran, according to state-affiliated media. “Our combatants will respond to American aggression with full force and power, and in other sections of the memorandum, wherever we had mutual commitments, we have not implemented them.”
Last week, Trump said the ceasefire agreed between the two sides last month was “dead”. On Wednesday, he told Fox Business News that Iranian officials want to meet with US representatives for fresh talks.
Oil prices surge this week due to renewed hostilities
Hostilities face a possible stalemate
Oil prices fell on Thursday morning brent crude futures Oil for September delivery was trading down 0.5% at $84.42 a barrel as of 4:30 a.m. ET. Front-month US West Texas Intermediate Crude Futures were down about 0.2% at $79.47 a barrel.
Clark H. Summers, an assistant professor of government and political philosophy at Belmont Abbey College in North Carolina, told CNBC that he believes the current situation is likely to result in a standoff.
“As Iran launches, the US will continue to conduct precision air strikes to destroy (drone) and surface-to-surface missile launch sites,” he said in an email. “In addition, the United States will take action to defeat air strikes launched against neutral shipping in the Persian Gulf. I expect that these actions … will be very effective at the tactical level, but strategically ineffective as long as Iran can continue to produce drones and missiles (or has stockpiled them).
Summers said Trump’s recent proposal to impose a 20% tariff on shipping through the Strait of Hormuz – which the president has since walked back – strongly suggests that the Trump administration is aware that the costs of war are eroding public support for the president.
Summers said, “They have worked carefully around the War Powers Act, and are well aware that current US industrial and logistics capabilities are not capable of sustaining this conflict on an open basis (probably not through the midterm elections, and certainly not through ’28).
However, he said that as long as the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps remained in power in Iran and could “come out of the wreckage alive,” they would be able to claim victory.
“Only a serious ground threat would destroy the IRGC as a governing body and force it to accept surrender,” Summers told CNBC. “Such a threat is extremely unlikely to come from conventional US forces; such an operation is beyond the combined capabilities of the US Army and USMC.”
A raid on Kharg Island, critical to tightening the blockade on Iranian oil exports, could help achieve a negotiated peace deal, Summers said, “but it is unlikely that the IRGC will honor any agreement.”
Richard De Meo, founder and CEO of Attara, a London-based brokerage firm that specializes in commodity hedging, told CNBC that markets have become increasingly insensitive to developments in the US-Iran war.
“Across the corporate sector, there is a growing sense of fatigue in response to the sheer volume of geopolitical risks, with some businesses taking false comfort from relatively range-bound market conditions and ignoring sharp periods of volatility, particularly in energy markets,” he said.
“Nonetheless, treasury teams are showing strong discipline in their approach to risk management. Where policy flexibility allows, many are increasing hedge ratios and extending hedge durations, taking steps to secure greater protection and flexibility against future market uncertainty.”