Iranian army says its military doctrine shifting from 'defensive to offensive'

The Iranian army said Saturday that its military doctrine is shifting from a “defensive to an offensive” posture, citing lessons from the country’s recent wars. Brig. Gen. Mohammad Akraminia, spokesman for the Iranian army, told state news agency IRNA that the shift had gradually taken place during what he described as the 12-day and 40-day wars. “Our country’s military doctrine was defensive in the past, but gradually during these two wars, we witnessed the military doctrine moving from a defensive posture toward an offensive one,” Akraminia said. He said the shift was reflected in rapid and broader responses to attacks as well as preemptive operations. Akraminia said the army had devised a plan offering rewards for killing or capturing US troops in the event of a ground incursion into Iranian territory. Under the plan, members of the armed forces or civilians legally possessing hunting weapons would receive 5 billion tomans (about $26,000) for killing or capturing US troops entering Iran, he said. Read: Iran weighs strikes on US military targets in Europe if war escalates: Financial Times The reward would be doubled to 10 billion tomans (about $53,000) if the action were carried out by a woman, Akraminia added. He said the army would also purchase the weapon used for twice its value, preserve it in a military museum under the owner’s name and provide the individual with a similar replacement weapon. Akraminia also claimed that US influence in the region had declined sharply, pointing to the Makkah Joint Defence Agreement. He said that regardless of its future effectiveness, the mechanism demonstrated what he called the decline of the US position in the region and described it as the first regional defence and security mechanism without US participation. Trump says Iran not ready to make the 'right deal'  US President Donald Trump said on Friday he thought Tehran was not ready to make the "right deal" and that Washington was observing "what happens" in the US-Israel war on Iran. Trump, who has warned of economic consequences against any country that provides "any type of lifeline to Iran," said on Friday that Washington was observing "what happens" in the conflict. "They would love to make a deal, but they're not ready to make the right deal, in my opinion," Trump said of Iran. As the war neared six months old, the two sides were not exchanging fire but also not pursuing peace talks. All the while, oil shipments through the Strait of Hormuz have virtually halted as Tehran clings to its leverage by threatening to strike any unauthorised oil tankers that attempt to transit the narrow waterway. US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent will hold a press conference at 2pm EDT (2300 PKT) on Monday amid promises to reveal "the toughest sanctions in history" on Iran while also urging China to cooperate with Washington. China buys more than 80% of Iran's shipped oil, according to 2025 data from analytics firm Kpler. Beijing urged diplomacy. Read more: Trump warns of economic consequences for any country that supports Iran Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei said on Saturday that the imminent US announcement of new economic sanctions on Iran was an "assertion of extraterritorial sovereignty over every independent member state of the United Nations." "Such secondary sanctions find no foundation in international law," he said in a post on X. The United States’ declaration of new economic sanctions on Iran is far more than continued unlawful “economic warfare” against a single country. It is an assertion of extraterritorial sovereignty over every independent Member State of the United Nations. No State may lawfully… — Esmaeil Baqaei (@IRIMFA_SPOX) August 22, 2026 Hormuz traffic halted While the US has effectively blockaded Iranian vessels in their ports, the Strait of Hormuz remained bottled up with thousands of seafarers stranded on hundreds of vessels. Only four commodity ships sailed along the strait on Thursday, none of them large crude carriers or liquefied natural gas tankers, ship-tracking data showed. US Energy Secretary Chris Wright said the US military helped move a seven-day average of 8 million barrels a day of oil through the strait. That's down from more than 20 million per day before the war, or about one of every five barrels consumed worldwide. US attacks have severely diminished Iran's economy and devastated its navy and air force, but Tehran maintains enough missile and drone capability to impede oil tanker traffic and attack regional rivals. Trump, meanwhile, has yet to achieve objectives he set at the start of the war, such as dismantling Iran's nuclear programme - the state of which remains uncertain given that UN inspectors have been shut out since 2025 - and creating conditions for Iranians to overthrow their clerical rulers. Thousands of civilians have been killed by the US and Israel, including 168 Iranian school children on the first day of the war. The US has reported more than 750 military personnel wounded and 18 killed. Iranian economy under strain The chief of staff of Iran's armed forces, Major General Ali Abdollahi, promised on Friday that Iran would respond to enemy threats militarily with "crushing, punishing and devastating responses.” Still, President Masoud Pezeshkian called for a diplomatic solution. "It would be better to end the war today, when we are powerful and have dignity, and the whole world acknowledges our victory and emphasises that America, contrary to all regulations, attacked our schools, hospitals, and infrastructure and is hated in the world," Pezeshkian said, according to the ISNA news agency. Iran's parliament speaker, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, the country's main negotiator in mediated talks with the US, acknowledged the strain on Iran's economy in comments to Iranian and Iraqi businesspeople late on Thursday. "No matter how much military power we have, we won't survive if people are hungry and we don't have financial turnover, economic growth and national production," Ghalibaf said, according to official news agency IRNA.