Iranian officials fired back at President Donald Trump on Tuesday, calling him “delusional” and declaring a “post-American order” in the Persian Gulf after the president posted a map labeling the Strait of Hormuz “New U.S. Territory” and insisted the strategic waterway is “open and operating.”
Trump posted the map to Truth Social without comment Tuesday, following up on a claim he first floated last week and embraced again Monday when asked about the prospect of declaring the strait American territory.“I mean we control it,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office. “We control it with the blockade, and I like the idea of declaring it a territory.” Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi responded directly to Trump’s map, warning that Tehran would correct what he called the president’s “delusion.” “Just as Trump correctly referred to the Persian Gulf by its proper name, his delusion about the Strait of Hormuz will soon either be dispelled, or we will set this deluded man straight,” Gharibabadi wrote on X.
Mohsen Rezaei, the newly appointed secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council and a former commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), followed with a taunt of his own, posting an image depicting the roughly 7,000-mile distance between Washington and Hormuz beneath the words, “Some Dreams Are Too Far From Reality.” “The gap between America’s inability to reopen the Strait of Hormuz and its claim to own it is greater than the 7,000-mile distance between Washington and the Strait itself,” Rezaei wrote.“Welcome to the post-American order in the Persian Gulf,” he added. (Read More)
