Tehran's Houthi Proxies Attack Saudi Aramco Again, Crude Spikes, As Iran's Military Command To Be 'More Aggressive'

Summary

• Saudi Aramco attacked again: Houthi drone strikes on a Saudi refinery sent oil prices higher.
• Hormuz stalemate & standoff: US says it can sustain the Iranian port blockade indefinitely.
• Iran digs in: Tehran appears prepared for a prolonged war of attrition.
• Hard-liners rise: Iran reshuffled senior security leadership toward a more aggressive posture.
• Diplomacy dead-end: Iran says the U.S. has miscalculated, while talks remain deadlocked.

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Attack on Saudi Aramco Facility Sees Crude Spike

Oil prices have spiked Thursday on emerging reports that the Houthis have freshly targeted an Aramco refinery in Saudi Arabia's Jizan with two drones, according to regional Saba News Agency.

It seems this is part of Iran's 'counter-pressure' playing book against Washington and its Gulf allies, given the Houthis have long been a proxy arm of Iran. The Houthi group is in the midst of a 'siege for siege' war on Saudi shipping and energy. 

The Hormuz stalemate is meanwhile continuing, given War Secretary Pete Hegseth now says that the US military can maintain a blockade on Iranian ports for as long as needed.

“Indefinitely the United States Navy can maintain a blockade like that because we’ll rotate ships in and out, as we have, and we’ll continue to,” Hegseth told reporters. But Iran is also vowing to outlast and keep up the military pressure, enforcing its own strait management protocol based on the Oman deal.

Attrition Game Outlasting US Politics

Top adviser to the commander of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Mohammad Reza Naqdi, has been signaling Iran's more aggressive stance in media appearances this week, also following a significant reshuffling of top military leadership.

"Look, we have to attain deterrence so that the enemy never dares to attack us, so we can live with security," Naqdi said in an interview with PBS. "One way is to prolong this war until we get to the next term of the presidency and cause attrition, so that if anyone else wants to attack Iran, they will know there is a cost."

Alluding to the recent military reorganization, he described: "Whenever the conditions are favorable and the order is issued, we must be able to take the operation into enemy territory" - while contrasting the approach with a pre-war doctrine "primarily based on defense and the preservation of the country."

Military.com underscores that "Iran has reorganized its military to be more aggressive abroad as talks on ending the war with the U.S. remain mired in stalemate, a sign that Tehran is preparing for a protracted era of regional conflict."

As a reminder, this is after Tehran's obvious pivot away from negotiations, and toward a more permanent state of military resistance. The Wall Street Journal previously pointed out: "Now, the new supreme leader, Khamenei’s son Mojtaba, is putting his own stamp on the country’s national-security policy amid a confrontation with the U.S. that could last months or even years."

"Seasoned Hardliners" in Command

According to more of the analysis:

In a sweeping overhaul of the government’s top echelon on Sunday and Monday, Iran named seasoned hard-liners to run the country’s security policies and institutions of repression.

It marked the most significant government reshuffle under Mojtaba Khamenei, who hasn’t been seen in public since the war began. U.S. intelligence agencies say he is alive but severely injured, and top Iranian cabinet members say they have never met him since he took office. Iranian officials say he was injured but in good health.

Analysts said the appointments signaled Khamenei’s determination to hold fast in a showdown with President Trump, who is seeking concessions on Iran’s nuclear program and the Strait of Hormuz. 

“The regime is preparing for a more confrontational posture at home and abroad,” said Kasra Aarabi, an expert on the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, a powerful paramilitary force, at United Against Nuclear Iran, a policy organization that opposes Iran’s government.  

And some fresh insight from Michael Stephens, a senior associate fellow at the UK-based Royal United Services Institute (RUSI):

Nearly six months since the beginning of the war, Iran is now convinced that the US is not willing to conduct a ground invasion. “That existential threat is gone,” Stephens said. “So they want to up the tempo and maybe make the pain a little bit more acute for President Trump. And the best way to do that is to drag this out.”

Prior to the US-Israeli attack on February 28, the widely held belief was that the Iranian government would readily collapse, after enduring months of civil disobedience and unrest during major demonstrations in late December and January.

“That doesn’t seem to be the case now, and I’m not really sure the US has any tools in the bag to force the regime to do what they want,” the analyst said. Iranians can “live in this stalemate at the moment – it hurts them, but it’s not existential, and I think that’s the problem the US has now”.

Iranian leadership continues boasting of squaring up against the much larger American foe...

❗️ Iran says the US military is weaker than expected

“The longer this war continues, the more experience we gain.

We have never had a war like this to gain real experience and learn how to fight America.

Over these five months, we have learned this. We have also seen that the… pic.twitter.com/Yfz5T2pIkj

— NEXTA (@nexta_tv) August 12, 2026

Iran: US Has "Long Miscalculated"

In follow-up, and as if confirming all of the above, Iranian Brigadier General Rasoul Sanaei-Rad has on Thursday said Iran will act more aggressively in the future, the Fars news agency reported.

"We stood firm in the recent war and, God willing, we will stand firmer and more aggressively in a possible future war," said Sanaei-Rad, a political adviser in the office of the supreme leader. He noted that Iran’s "enemy" is seeking to fracture the country through economic pressure, but that its plan did not succeed.

Below: Mohsen Rezaei, one of the longest-serving figures in Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, has returned to the heart of Tehran’s national security establishment, after Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei appointed him secretary of the Supreme National Security Council.

Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi also chimed on in on Thursday with a similar theme of Washington miscalculation. He asserted that the United States has "has long miscalculated due to intelligence failures," especially when launching its war on Iran.

American military actions in the Strait of Hormuz were "an even bigger miscalculation," Araghchi stated on X. "Worse than fake news is fake intelligence," the foreign minister said, perhaps in mockery of Trump.