Iran's Threat to Cut Gulf Oil Is a Gamble on Global Panic

The ultimatum no one saw coming

Mohsen Rezaei did not mince words. On Saturday, speaking on state television, the secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council told the world that any country joining the United States in what he called an economic war against Tehran would be treated as an enemy. And then he escalated.

If neighbors cooperated with Washington, he warned, not even a drop of oil would leave the Gulf region — including through alternative export routes that bypass the Strait of Hormuz.

That is a threat aimed as much at Riyadh and Abu Dhabi as it is at Donald Trump. It is also a gamble that could backfire spectacularly.

What Rezaei actually said

The full statement, delivered to IRIB, was carefully structured as a three-stage strategy. First, Tehran would negotiate with countries cooperating with the US and ask them to step aside. Second, if they refused, Iran would strike their interests. Third, and most dramatically, it would cut off all Gulf energy exports — including through the Bab al-Mandeb corridor across the Red Sea, which Saudi Arabia has been using as a workaround since the Hormuz blockade began.

The message was explicit: Iran is prepared to weaponize geography itself.

This came hours after President Donald Trump announced plans for what he called the most crushing economic operation yet against Iran, with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent adding that nations must choose sides — you are either with Washington or against it. Bessent also singled out China, which purchases more than 80 percent of Iran’s oil shipments, implying that even that lifeline could face new consequences.

Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian framed the conflict on Sunday as a full-scale economic, military, and security war, arguing that the US had wrongly predicted Iran would collapse like Venezuela. It did not happen, he said. Instead, Iran became a power that amazed the world with its resistance.

The historical record complicates that narrative. Iran has faced sanctions intermittently since 1979. The UN reimposed them last September after the sunset clause on the JCPOA expired. But the current escalation differs in one crucial way: secondary sanctions now target third countries, not just Iranian entities. That turns economic warfare into a test of sovereignty for every nation on Earth.

Who is being asked to choose?

The Gulf states are the most exposed. Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE host US military facilities and station thousands of American troops on their soil. They are also Iran’s immediate neighbors — a fact no treaty can erase.

The UAE restored diplomatic ties with Iran in 2022, only to impose a trade embargo last week after accusing Tehran of a missile attack. Iran denies responsibility. Saudi Arabia and Iran agreed to normalize relations in 2023 under a China-brokered deal. Both moves suggest that regional actors are trying to hedge between Washington’s demands and their own survival.

Simon Mabon, a professor of international relations at Lancaster University, put it bluntly: Gulf countries cannot change geography. They have to live with Iran. Some may push for harder strikes against Tehran, Mabon noted, but primarily to weaken hardline elements within the IRGC — not to precipitate the Islamic Republic’s collapse, which would unleash chaos on their doorstep.

Trita Parsi of the Quincy Institute agreed, telling Al Jazeera that no nation in the region can afford another long war. Depleted global oil inventories make prolonged confrontation unattractive for everyone involved. That constraint, Parsi argued, is what keeps the situation from spiraling into total escalation.

The doctrine of disproportionate retaliation

Hamidreza Azizi, a researcher on Iran at the Clingendael Institute, identified two emerging elements in Tehran’s new offensive doctrine: preemption and disproportionate retaliation. The idea is to signal early that even preparations for an attack will trigger a response — a form of deterrence through intimidation.

Rezaei’s warning about Gulf oil routes fits that pattern precisely. It is not necessarily a credible threat to execute — closing the Bab al-Mandeb would hurt Saudi Arabia and the UAE as much as it hurts the US. But credibility is not the point. The point is to raise the cost of alignment with Washington so high that neutral countries simply walk away.

Azizi described the warning as essentially an ultimatum to the Gulf states. He added that Iran’s military-security establishment appears to be preparing for another round of escalation.

The Strait as a lever

The Strait of Hormuz handles roughly a fifth of global oil and gas exports in peacetime. Iran has already imposed a blockade there in response to the US war, using it as leverage in negotiations with Washington. The US has responded by blockading Iranian ports, disrupting Tehran’s own trade.

If Iran follows through on its threat to target alternative routes through Bab al-Mandeb, it would close the Red Sea corridor entirely — a waterway through which Saudi Arabia has been rerouting oil since Hormuz became unreliable. The economic impact would be immediate and severe, hitting not just Iran’s enemies but every economy dependent on Gulf energy.

That is the paradox of Rezaei’s strategy: threatening the global economy is a way to protect Iran from economic war. But if the threat is taken seriously, it could trigger the collapse Iran fears — not from sanctions, but from the chaos of a regional war that pulls in every major power.

What happens next

Diplomatic efforts to end the months-long conflict have stalled. The US plans to announce new sanctions on Monday. Iran’s leadership has signaled that it will not bend. The question is whether Gulf states will resist Washington’s pressure or capitulate — and whether Tehran’s threats are bluster or genuine intent.

For now, the answer remains unclear. But one thing is certain: the era of neutral trade with Iran is over. Every country that does business with Tehran is now, in Washington’s framing, a participant in an economic war. And Iran is making it dangerously clear that it will treat that participation as an act of hostility.

The fault lines are forming. Who stands where will determine not just the fate of Iran but the future of global energy flows.