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Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf mocked Israel's Iron Dome air defense system as "an irony" on Wednesday, claiming that Tehran's missile capability remains fully intact and that its early barrages were a deliberate strategy to overwhelm and blind enemy radar and defense networks.
"US claims that has destroyed Iran's missile capabilities," Ghalibaf wrote on X. "The initial waves of large-scale missile launches were intended to blind enemy radars and defense systems. Now, Iran can target any location it chooses with fewer missiles."
The pointed taunt from one of Iran's most powerful political figures came as the US-Israeli war on Iran entered its twelfth day, with no clear path to de-escalation in sight and mounting questions in Washington about the administration's endgame.
His assertion offers a direct counter-narrative to US claims that Tehran's arsenal has been significantly degraded. Analysts had previously noted a declining rate of Iranian ballistic missile launches during the first week of the conflict, pointing to possible depletion of missile and launcher stocks alongside a strategy of rationing for a longer war. By March 5, a military source told Iran's Fars News Agency that the country had fired over 500 ballistic and naval missiles and nearly 2,000 drones since the conflict began on February 28.
Whether Ghalibaf's framing reflects operational reality or wartime propaganda remains impossible to independently verify. But his claim that Iran can now achieve precision strikes with fewer missiles, having allegedly degraded enemy detection systems, is clearly designed to counter the narrative of a weakened Iran that the Trump administration has sought to promote.
Hours before Ghalibaf's post, Iran's armed forces issued a separate and pointed warning through state television: any attack on Iranian ports and docks would trigger retaliatory strikes against port infrastructure across the wider region.
"If our ports and docks are threatened, all ports and docks in the region will be our legitimate targets," an unnamed armed forces spokesman said in the broadcast, without specifying which countries' facilities would be in the crosshairs.
The threat represents an expansion of Iran's already broad retaliatory posture. Since the conflict began, Tehran has launched waves of missiles and drones at targets in Israel as well as US assets and infrastructure across the Gulf, including in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, and the UAE. Iran's military said it launched its most intense operation since the start of the war overnight into Wednesday, targeting locations in Israel and US positions in the region.
The port warning adds a new dimension to what has already become a multi-front crisis. The IRGC effectively shut the Strait of Hormuz early in the conflict, and commercial shipping traffic through the waterway has collapsed, with international tanker transit dropping to near zero. The International Energy Agency agreed to release a record 400 million barrels of crude oil in response to the supply disruption.
Speaking to reporters at the White House, President Donald Trump struck a characteristically bullish tone, saying the US was "leaving certain things in Iran that we could take out" and claiming the military had destroyed "just about all of Iran's mine ships." He also dismissed concerns about potential Iran-backed domestic terrorism on US soil.
But behind the projections of strength, a starkly different picture has emerged inside the administration. According to The New York Times, some officials are growing pessimistic about the lack of a clear strategy to finish the war, though they have been careful not to express that directly to the president, who has repeatedly declared that the military operation is a complete success.
Trump has laid out maximalist goals such as insisting that Iran name a leader who will submit to him, while Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth have described narrower and more tactical objectives that could provide an exit in the near term. The disconnect between the president's sweeping rhetoric and the more limited aims articulated by his senior officials has fueled criticism from lawmakers on both sides of the aisle.
The conflict is now impacting nearly every corner of the Middle East and causing economic tremors around the globe, with neither side budging and a credible endgame still unclear.
Ghalibaf's taunts are not those of a marginal figure. A former Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps commander and ex-mayor of Tehran, he has emerged as one of the most prominent voices of the Iranian establishment since the assassination of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei in the opening wave of US-Israeli strikes on February 28. He served on the interim leadership council that governed Iran in the days before Mojtaba Khamenei, the late supreme leader's son, was named successor on March 8.
Throughout the conflict, Ghalibaf has used social media to project Iranian resolve. Earlier in the week he declared that Iran was "definitely not looking for a ceasefire" and that "the aggressor should be punched in the mouth so that he learns a lesson." He also warned that any attack on Iranian infrastructure would be met with proportionate retaliation, invoking the principle of "an eye for an eye, without exception."
As of Wednesday, more than 1,300 civilians have been killed in Iran, over 570 in Lebanon, and 12 in Israel, according to figures from the respective governments. Seven US service members have died and 140 others have been wounded.
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