The man who now speaks for Iran on the strait chose his audience carefully. Mohsen Rezaei, named this week as Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei's representative on the Supreme National Security Council, told China's ambassador to Tehran, Cong Peiwu: "As long as America does not change its behaviour and does not accept Iran's conditions, the Strait of Hormuz will not be opened." [1] The semi-official Tasnim agency carried the readout. The message inside the message is that Tehran wants Beijing, the largest customer for Gulf energy, to hear the closing terms directly rather than through American translations.
The paper's Tuesday brief recorded that Rezaei still holds the security council file. Wednesday is his first public close since taking it.
The terms he attached are broader than a toll dispute. On X, Rezaei demanded an end to the American naval blockade of Iranian ports and a region-wide ceasefire reaching Gaza and Lebanon. In remarks carried by The Week he put numbers and sequence on it: "America must end the war, pay Iran's frozen assets, the war must end throughout the region." Then came the lawyer's clause that matters most to shippers: if Iran and Oman agree on a transit route through the strait, that agreement "will be a matter separate from the closure of the Strait of Hormuz." [2] The lane may be negotiable. The closure is collateral, held until the principal is paid.
Who is delivering this? CBS's profile of the appointment reads like a warning label. Rezaei ran the Revolutionary Guard through eight years of war with Iraq in the 1980s, retired into serial losing presidential campaigns, returned to decision-making ranks last year, and became an adviser to the new supreme leader in March. He is wanted by Argentine police for his alleged role in the 1994 bombing of the Jewish community center in Buenos Aires, and made his presidential campaigns memorable by suggesting Iran take American soldiers hostage and bill for their return. [3] Mojtaba Khamenei has spent this week installing six hard-line commanders; Rezaei is the civilian-facing one, which tells you what the face is for.
The reshuffle around him frames the message. Ahmad Vahidi, another veteran accused in the Buenos Aires bombing, takes the Guard itself; Hossein Taeb, the supreme leader's mentor and former intelligence chief, takes the Basij. [3] What the council secretary says about the strait is therefore not an improvisation but a coordinated line, delivered by the one appointee accustomed to cameras.
The visibility gap is deliberate too. Parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf has been the most visible Iranian civilian of the war; Vahidi keeps a low profile by reputation. [3] Rezaei splits the difference: famous enough to be a signal, official enough to be policy. When he tells an ambassador that behavior change precedes opening, the sentence carries council authority rather than factional noise.
Why hand him China? Because the closure's real creditors are Asian. A fifth of the world's oil moved through Hormuz in peacetime, much of it eastward. By receiving Cong and briefing him through state media, Rezaei is telling the buyers that the seller's conditions are stable, formal, and priced, and that patience has an address in Tehran. It also signals that Iran's economic rearguard, battered by inflation and blocked ports, expects Beijing's silence to hold.
The gap between the two capitals' language remains total. Washington offers control and a wall of steel; the council secretary offers conditions and a calendar. Between them, Kpler counted eight moving hulls on Tuesday. [3] One of these positions will eventually have to produce a document. This week, only one side is even claiming to want the pen.
Wednesday is his first public close.
-- YOSEF STERN, Jerusalem