An Iranian Revolutionary Guards spokesperson on Tuesday called US President Donald Trump a “big liar”, accusing him of concealing the truth from Americans about Iran’s nuclear programme and the effectiveness of Iran’s blockade of energy supplies from the Gulf.
Among his reasons for waging war on Iran, Trump has cited the need to ensure that it will never be able to build a nuclear weapon.
“The enemy (US) knows that Iran is not after nuclear weapons,” Hossein Mohebbi said. “Their issue with Iran is not its nuclear programme but rather its vastness, which they want to destroy.”
He also challenged US assertions that Iran has lost most of its leverage over the Strait of Hormuz, in part because the US military has been able to protect some of the tankers bringing oil out of the Gulf.
“The fact that the Americans might manage, at great expense, considerable trouble, and high risk to sneak a small vessel through the Strait of Hormuz under cover of darkness to export, say, 100 or 200 barrels of oil does not mean the Strait is open,” Mohebbi said.
According to Kpler data, September has seen a recovery of oil exports via the Strait of Hormuz, which are set to hit almost 10 million barrels per day, about half the pre-war volume.
(Reporting by Dubai Newsroom; Editing by Andrew Heavens and Kevin Liffey)