Iran warns US Navy their ships in Strait of Hormuz are within missile range

Iranian military personnel took part in the “Smart Control of the Strait of Hormuz” exercise in the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz on February 16, 2026. (Press Office Of The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps/Handout/Anadolu via Getty Images)

A senior Iranian official has issued a stark warning: American warships now sailing through the Strait of Hormuz lie within easy striking range of Iranian missiles. The United States Navy, he declared, is “under our missile launchers.” 

Try not to chuckle.

According to Iran International, Mohsen Rezai, a military adviser to the now deceased Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, delivered the threat in a video that does nothing to calm the rising tensions in one of the world’s most vital waterways.

“The launchers have most likely been moved by our brothers and are now aimed at the Abraham Lincoln and all American warships,” Rezai said. “They are all under our launchers now and we will sink them all. We will not allow a single one to escape us.”

Such language is not new from Tehran, yet it carries the familiar blend of bluster and menace that has long defined the regime’s posture toward the West. 

The Islamic Republic delights in painting itself as the bold David to America’s lumbering Goliath, even as its own economy buckles under sanctions and its people grow restive under clerical rule. One wonders how many times the mullahs must issue these theatrical threats before the world ceases to treat them as serious statements of policy and begins to recognize them for what they are: the desperate posturing of a regime that senses its own fragility.

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What's going on with Iran's Ayatollah?

Is Ayatollah Ali Khamenei really sick or is he worried that Israel has a target on his back and he plans to go into hiding to avoid getting himself 'droned.'

Tehran’s top clerics are supposedly ready to choose a new supreme leader to replace the allegedly ailing Ayatollah, as per a recently published report by Iran International, a British-based, Saudi-sponsored dissident Farsi tv network. 

The report claims that Khamenei, 85,  who has ruled since 1989, is suffering from a medical condition which is increasingly impairing his ability to lead the country.

The 60-member Assembly of Experts, a council of Tehran’s top state Shi’ite clerics, met on September 26th at the behest of Khamenei to select his successor, the report claimed. They debated, evaluated, micturated and deliberated and eventually voted unanimously [under penalty of death, one supposes] to designate Khamenei's loyal son, Mojtaba Khamenei, 55, as Iran's next terrorist leader.

Mojtaba [let's call him Mo] teaches Islamic theology [e.g., jihad, sharia, anti-Semitism] for Qom Seminary, which is Iran's largest hawza school. Mo is a hardline Islamic terrorist supporter, which means that he's on board with the total annihilation of the world's Jews and eventually Christians.

Mo backed Holocaust denier, the then-President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and is thought to have a strong influence on his father’s anti-Zionist/anti-Semitic politics.

The report also suggests that Mo may have been in the camel's seat even before his father's death, due to Ali Khamenei's deteriorating physical condition and diminishing capabilities. It was also said that his father groomed Mo to replace him during his own lifetime and had considered stepping down to make way for the transition of power.

But the possibility also exists that Ali is planning to hide out from the IDF and their aircraft.

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