Iran’s new supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, issued a fiery first public statement Thursday, vowing to keep blocking the vital Strait of Hormuz oil trade route and attacking neighboring countries that host U.S. military bases.
The written statement was one of defiance, even as President Donald Trump indicates that he would like to wrap up the conflict soon as global energy markets face an economic shock from the strait's closure.
The health and current whereabouts of the new leader, 56, are still both unclear, after Iranian state TV previously indicated he had been wounded in the wave of U.S. and Israeli strikes that killed his father and predecessor, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, 86, and several of their relatives.
Even on Thursday, state TV offered no explanation for why Khamenei did not appear in person, with only a written statement attributed to him read out by an announcer.
Israel has previously indicated it would target anyone appointed to succeed the slain elder Khamenei, and experts suggest the written statement poses less security risk to the new supreme leader than a public appearance or a video message from a potentially identifiable location.
"He obviously has to take extreme measures to protect himself physically," said Alex Vatanka, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute, a think tank in Washington. "He's being hunted down, essentially."
Suzanne Maloney, vice president and director of the foreign policy program at the Brookings Institution, a leading think tank, said the Iranian regime was most likely feeling pressure to reassure the nation.
"The longer he remains absent from public view, the more concerns there will be about the stability of this new leadership and the regime as a whole," Maloney said. "My sense is that a written statement read by others does not quell those concerns or speculation. We'll see if they decide to deploy him in a more public-facing way."
In his statement, Khamenei stuck by Iran's threats to shipping, saying that “the lever of blocking the Strait of Hormuz should still be used.”
Iran has repeatedly struck vessels attempting to cross the 24-mile strait, through which one-fifth of the world's oil passes each year. That has created a huge backlog in the global oil pipeline, causing crude prices to rocket and threatening a wider period of worldwide inflation.
The statement added that “if necessary,” Iran would continue to attack Western military bases hosted by its Gulf neighbors, with whom Iran wants “friendly and sincere relations.” It urged that they “close those bases as soon as possible.”
Though Iran has maintained it is only targeting U.S. bases across the Gulf, attacks have hit civilian targets, including residential buildings and oil facilities.
The new leader also vowed vengeance for “the blood of your martyrs” and particularly “the blood of our children” after a strike on an elementary school, which Iranian officials said killed more than 170 people, mostly children.
The preliminary findings of a U.S. military investigation into the strike indicate that the U.S. was likely responsible, sources familiar with the findings have told NBC News, with outdated intelligence likely to blame.
The younger Khamenei was seen as a contender even before his father’s death, despite having never been elected or appointed to a government position. He is Iran's third supreme leader since the Iranian Revolution of 1979, which overthrew a hereditary monarchy.
A relatively secretive figure, he is known as a hard-liner who has links to the powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, a paramilitary organization that holds huge political and economic sway within the Islamic Republic.
He was among nine members of the supreme leader’s inner circle sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury Department in 2019 and is viewed as having played a role in past violent crackdowns.
Before the selection last week, Trump said Khamenei’s candidacy was “unacceptable to me,” saying that “we want someone that will bring harmony and peace to Iran.”
