According to a video posted on Channel 4 News, on Thursday July 9, 2026, Professor Mohammad Marandi said Iran was ready for a full-scale war with the United States and would close the Strait of Hormuz once again if the conflict escalated further.

Marandi’s comments followed renewed American strikes on Iranian territory and Iranian missile fire on US bases in Bahrain and Kuwait.

Speaking to Channel 4 News, he said Iran’s leadership viewed the ceasefire as effectively broken and was prepared to match any further American action with an equally strong response.

He pointed to the earlier closure of the strait during the previous 39-day war as proof that Iran had both the willingness and the capability to disrupt global shipping through the waterway if it judged this necessary to defend its position.

In his words, Professor Mohammad Marandi said, “Well, if Trump strikes tonight, the Iranians will hit back very hard. And the Iranians are quite prepared to go for an all-out war and shut down the Strait of Hormuz like it was shut before.

“And the responsibility for the global economic crisis that will subsequently uh destroy uh the US economy as well is uh is Trump’s. He’s responsible,” he said.

Marandi argued that any economic fallout from a closure of the strait, including rising oil prices and disruption to world trade, would be the result of American actions rather than Iranian ones.

He said Iran had already demonstrated during the earlier war that it could sustain a prolonged confrontation, and suggested Tehran was not concerned about the economic costs of another closure, given what he described as the outcome of the previous conflict.

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