Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) on March 10 pushed back publicly against U.S. President Donald Trump’s assessment that recent hostilities with Iran would be over “soon,” saying the “end of war” would be decided by Tehran. The IRGC spokesperson accused Trump of trying to apply psychological pressure through “lies and deception” and vowed Iran would resist what it called American and Israeli aggression with “courage and firm will.”
Trump, speaking at a March 9 press conference, linked recent U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran to disruptions in energy markets and said he would cancel some oil-related sanctions to calm prices. He added that the fighting would wrap up “soon,” though not within the week, signaling Washington’s desire to soothe markets while insisting the military phase was near its end.
Tehran countered with blunt deterrence. The IRGC warned it would not allow “the enemy and its allies” to export oil from the region if Iran were attacked, a statement that elevates the stakes beyond battlefield exchanges to potential interference with global energy flows. Iran’s foreign minister, identified in Iranian media as Araghchi, echoed the defiant tone, accusing the U.S. of plotting attacks on Iranian oil and nuclear infrastructure and saying Tehran had prepared “many surprises” in response.
Araghchi also framed U.S. plans — referenced by Washington under the codename “Epic Fury” — as a strategic error that has already pushed international energy and commodity prices to “unbearable levels.” By linking military pressure to economic pain, Tehran is signaling both the breadth of its retaliatory options and the asymmetric leverage it retains over global markets.
The exchange matters because it ties a bilateral security confrontation directly to global energy security. Threats to obstruct exports or to target oil and nuclear infrastructure raise the cost of shipping in the Gulf, could prompt higher insurance premiums and rerouting of tankers, and add an inflationary shock at a delicate moment for world markets. Markets have already reacted to similar risks in the past; renewed escalation would test resilience in supply chains and producer responses.
Strategically, Iran’s rhetoric serves multiple aims: to deter further strikes, to reassure domestic audiences that the regime can respond, and to complicate allied calculations by threatening broad economic consequences. For Washington and its partners the challenge is to calibrate punitive pressure without triggering Tehran to make good on threats to choke off regional oil exports or to expand proxy attacks, a dynamic that could entangle regional navies and commercial shipping for months.