TEHRAN -- Iran’s top security official said Tehran did not deploy all its military capabilities in the previous wars and has new assets ready for any fresh aggression, as Iranian authorities declared the Strait of Hormuz fully closed to violators, pushing oil prices past $117 a barrel and fueling a wave of global unrest over energy and living costs.
“We did not deploy all our capabilities in the previous stages. We brought more capabilities into operation in proportion to the intensity of the war, and we are also prepared for the next stage,” Major General Mohsen Rezaei, secretary of the Supreme National Security Council, told the U.S.-based investigative outlet Drop Site News in an interview published Thursday. 
Rezaei said Iran has spent decades preparing for a broader U.S. war, focusing on dispersed production, underground facilities, different launch systems and the ability to repair damage and replace losses. 
“In a prolonged war, the central question is whether a country can sustain a continuous cycle of production, deployment and response. We have shown that, even

 months after the war began, we can still impose costs on the other side,” he said. 
“Our goal is not to make it to 2029. Our goal is to end the war on terms that reduce the likelihood of another war.”
He warned that governments should not assume they can wage economic warfare against Iran without risk. 
“There can be no arrangement in which Iran’s economic lifelines come under attack while the economic architecture enabling those attacks is considered untouched and immune,” he said. 
Rezaei said Iran will not reopen the strategic waterway or return to talks until seven new conditions conveyed to the U.S. through intermediaries are met, while insisting Tehran will not abandon diplomacy entirely.
A source close to the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps Navy said traffic by violating vessels has “completely stopped” after the destruction of navigation assistance systems serving rogue ships, the strike on three tankers the previous day and the destruction of another violating tanker overnight. 
The source warned that any resumption of oil smuggling would be met with “much more crushing” action, and that renewed U.S. aerial intervention in support of oil smuggling would draw a “more direct and decisive” response, with consequences falling on the “aggressor U.S. army.”
Separately, Iranian Army Commander-in-Chief Major General Amir Hatami said his forces are fully prepared for asymmetric warfare and have reached significant maturity in drones and unmanned systems. 
During a visit Thursday to a facility manufacturing combat and attack drones, Hatami said all four branches of the Army were ready, noting Iran used equipment in the previous war that caught the enemy off guard. 
“We know how the enemy will operate and have prepared ourselves to respond from the very same areas it uses,” he said.
IRGC Navy Commander Rear Admiral Ali Ozmaei, visiting families of martyrs of the Strait of Hormuz in Bandar Abbas, said U.S. forces no longer have a presence in the Persian Gulf and have withdrawn 600 to 700 kilometers from the strait. 
“America has no place in the Strait of Hormuz anymore,” he said.
The closure has sent energy prices soaring worldwide, with oil crossing $117 a barrel and driving up fuel, heating and transport costs across the US and Europe. 
The economic strain has sparked massive protests, from nationwide demonstrations in France over the cost-of-living crisis and fuel prices to rallies in Italy, Spain, Portugal, Albania and Belgium, as well as anti-Trump demonstrations across the United States.
Iranian Parliament Speaker Muhammad Bagher Ghalibaf on Friday urged protesters in Western countries to remain focused on accountability and resist attempts to divide them over identity politics, linking the Jeffrey Epstein scandal, Gaza, the war on Iran and corruption to the same “top cabal.”
In a post on X, Ghalibaf outlined the “playbook” used to redirect public discontent: “shift protest from vertical to horizontal, then shame you for waking up.” 
He wrote: “Hold the line. Signal: Epstein, Gaza, Iran war, corruption, all from same top cabal. Noise: native vs. non-native. Don’t let them change the subject to dodge accountability.”
The remarks come as French President Emmanuel Macron criticized Trump and other foreign leaders for comments about the French protests, saying “manipulation of information” had led to “comments that are as unacceptable as they are stupid, from many people, including foreign leaders.” 
Trump had described the French demonstrations as a “full on revolution” driven “mostly” by immigration.