Senior Iranian officials believe the United States is preparing either new military strikes or an ever tighter economic squeeze that would push Tehran to hit back. That is what The Guardian reported on 11 November 2026, and what La Tercera carried from that account. The assessment comes from Mehdi Mohammadi, an adviser to Iran’s chief negotiator with the US, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf. The Guardian treats him as a reliable guide to Ghalibaf’s thinking.

On his Telegram channel, Mohammadi said the Americans had proposed a window of about two weeks, after which Donald Trump would decide on military action. He cast doubt on the president’s claim that the military option is off the table. La Tercera adds that on Monday Trump had said he was holding off on escalation for now because Tehran’s naval and air capacity had been destroyed. Mohammadi claimed Washington was preparing a limited strike and that Iran was already preparing a response.

If the US sanctions continued, he said, a comprehensive pre-emptive war would be needed “to increase the cost of sanctions for the enemy”. He called the US reply to Iran’s latest proposals for reopening the Strait of Hormuz “not only unsatisfactory but completely deceptive”. “They do not want to release the frozen funds. They do not want to lift the sanctions and they do not want to stop the war in Lebanon.”

Mohammadi also said Iran had rejected a request from Vice-President JD Vance for a direct meeting with the negotiators before an answer to Tehran’s conditions for lifting the blockade of the strait. For now, the Guardian writes, Trump has chosen to suffocate Iran through economic pressure and a tighter blockade on its oil exports, while making it easier for the other Gulf states to export through Hormuz.

Mohammadi’s reading suggests, in the Guardian’s account, that some officials fear the strategy might work by destabilising the country. Economic turmoil might set off street protests, possibly around the anniversary of the nationwide demonstrations that began in late December last year. On that basis the leadership might conclude that the status quo — a “no peace, no war” impasse — cannot hold and that pre-emptive action is required. Despite claims that the blockade of the strait is working, Brent is at $93 a barrel and Saudi oil output is near its pre-war level of 9.3 million barrels a day. The Guardian also writes that Iran said it had bombed a US radar post on the Omani island of Didamar three days earlier.

Mohsen Rezaei, secretary of the National Security Council, told Russia that Iran was not prepared for even a particle of its highly enriched uranium stockpile to leave the country, because it might be needed for the nuclear-powered submarines it plans to build. Mohammad Mokhber, an adviser to supreme leader Mojtaba Khamenei, warned Europe that any complicity in the US blockade would be “an act of war that will be etched in the nation’s historical memory”. Rezaei said that if American planes take off from a distant base to bomb Iran, Iran will hit that base too: “We are announcing this now so they have no excuse tomorrow.” Tehran has been increasingly clear that US bases in Europe will be targets if the fighting resumes.

Marco Rubio, the secretary of state, gave the impression this week that economic strangulation was enough and called Iran’s demands unrealistic. Trump is nevertheless under pressure to close the crisis before the Democrats take charge of Congress on 3 January. A Reuters Ipsos poll shows that 71% of Americans want Congress to pass a law to end the war in Iran. The Guardian writes that the message of the midterm elections was that the conflict is highly unpopular, but that the Democrats do not have a strategy to end it and open Hormuz, which risks leaving the initiative with the White House and with an increasingly hardline Iranian leadership.

Image: Wikimedia Commons — four US Coast Guard cutters in the Strait of Hormuz, 22 August 2022 (Spc. Noah Martin, public domain). The photo is not from the November 2026 talks.

Sources consulted: Iranian officials: Trump is planning a new attack or harsher sanctions — La Tercera; Trump planning a new assault or tighter sanctions, say Iranian officials — The Guardian.