Bold Claim, Unlikely Enforcement * The Gateway Pundit * by Antonio Graceffo

Iran’s Supreme National Security Council secretary, Maj. Gen. Mohsen Rezaei, said Sunday that Iran will declare a restricted zone outside the Strait of Hormuz within days. The zone will extend from the beginning of the US naval blockade to the Strait and parts of the Persian Gulf. Ships entering without coordinating with Iran will be placed on Tehran’s sanctions list, affecting their insurance coverage and future passage through the waterway.

Rezaei said the strait is under Iranian control and called Trump’s claim that it remains open a “big lie.” Iran and Oman had reportedly agreed on a temporary maritime route through the strait, with ships entering through Iranian territorial waters.

The announcement capped a week of sharp escalation in the seven-month conflict. On September 1, US Central Command said its forces struck Iranian military targets, including IRGC air defense sites, radar systems, maritime assets, mine-laying capabilities, and communications sites, following attempted IRGC attacks on commercial shipping and American service members. The command said more than 50,000 US troops are operating across the Middle East.

The September 1 strikes followed a US attack two days earlier on two IRGC rocket launchers on Larak Island at the entrance to the strait. The command said the launchers were preparing to fire rockets carrying sea mines into the waterway. That strike came two days after Adm. Brad Cooper announced that US forces had cleared the shipping lanes of mines Iran had laid months earlier.

Hours after the September 1 strikes, Iran retaliated with a missile and drone operation against US-linked bases in Jordan and the UAE. Authorities in both countries disputed Iran’s damage claims. The UAE denied that its Al Minhad base had been targeted and said it intercepted a drone over its waters.

Hostilities escalated further on September 2, when a US strike hit a residential home during a wedding celebration in Kuhestak, Sirik County, in Iran’s Hormozgan province. The Hormozgan governor’s office reported four dead, while Iran’s Red Crescent put the number of wounded at 67.

Iran responded with a broader wave of claimed strikes on US-linked targets in Bahrain, Jordan, Kuwait, and Iraq’s Kurdish region. The Jordan Armed Forces said its air defenses intercepted 10 of 13 Iranian ballistic missiles that entered its airspace. The remaining three landed in remote areas, with no injuries or fatalities reported.

The exchange continued over the following days. On September 5, Iran launched ballistic missiles at a US aircraft carrier and a guided-missile destroyer. Both evaded the attack, and no American personnel were harmed. CENTCOM commander Adm. Brad Cooper said, “If you shoot at two of our ships, we will impose an even higher economic cost — taking out three of yours.”

US forces then permanently disabled two Iranian oil tankers, the M/T Downy off Kharg Island and the M/T Stark 1 near Jask, and destroyed a third, the M/T Kylo, in the Gulf of Oman. CENTCOM said the tankers were part of a multibillion-dollar shadow network funding the IRGC and its regional proxies.

The IRGC claimed it struck three additional oil tankers and three US-linked vessels in the strait that evening, warning other ships against using routes Tehran had not authorized. Rezaei cited this exchange when announcing the restricted zone on September 6.

Iran has made inconsistent statements about who is barred from the strait. Its envoy to the International Maritime Organization said it remains “closed only to Iran’s enemies.” Separately, Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi said late last month that Iran and Oman had agreed on a temporary maritime route through the Strait of Hormuz, with ships entering through Iranian territorial waters.

The restricted zone announced by Rezaei would supplement this patchwork of exceptions and blockade lines rather than replace it. Separate from Iran’s restrictions, CENTCOM’s blockade enforcement has redirected 82 commercial vessels since resuming on July 14. The operation is supported by more than 20 U.S. warships.

The FDD’s Center on Economic and Financial Power put Iran’s total economic damage at approximately $144 billion, roughly 40% of its pre-war GDP, with a plausible range of $50 billion to $300 billion. It attributed two-thirds of the damage to the US-Israeli air campaign and one-third to the US naval blockade imposed on April 13. The campaign’s most consequential strikes reportedly hit Iran’s petrochemical hubs at Mahshahr and Assaluyeh, including a March 18 strike on the South Pars complex, which accounted for more than 48% of Iran’s pre-war petrochemical output.

Iranian government spokesperson Fatemeh Mohajerani put total direct and indirect damage even higher, at approximately $270 billion, close to the IMF’s estimate of Iran’s total 2026 GDP of roughly $300 billion. The Institute for Economics and Peace separately estimated infrastructure damage at between $80 billion and $350 billion, depending on whether the conflict ends or continues, with Iran’s GDP contracting by 15% to 25%. In July, the IMF projected that Iran’s real GDP would contract by 5.4% year over year in 2026, marking the country’s worst economic contraction since 1988. This economic toll bears directly on whether Iran can enforce the new restricted zone.

Stephen Zunes, founding chair of Middle Eastern Studies at the University of San Francisco, said it is hard to see how Iran could enforce the zone because its ships and aircraft would be highly vulnerable to US attack. Tehran has demonstrated an ability to make passage through Hormuz dangerous. At least 19 seafarers have been killed and dozens of ships attacked since March. However, Zunes distinguished that from militarily enforcing a much broader zone against vessels protected by the US military. Enforcement may not have been Iran’s intent.

Zunes suggested Iran may instead be hoping to provoke a broader US military response, which could benefit Tehran politically by justifying further Iranian attacks on neighboring Gulf countries and US military facilities in the region. Such a response could also help the government rally domestic support amid economic hardship as US public opinion on the conflict reportedly turns negative.

Zunes also linked the zone to Iran’s pending shipping-route deal with Oman. If the deal proves workable and acceptable to Washington, Iran could pull back. If not, Tehran could use the zone as leverage to make it more difficult for Washington to reject the arrangement.