Iran’s top security official struck a defiant tone on Monday, berating US President Donald Trump for harbouring “delusional fantasies” about the toll of a broadening war that has already impacted more than a half dozen countries across West Asia.

The official, Ali Larijani, denied news reports that Iran’s new leaders are seeking to negotiate with Washington.

“Trump plunged the region into chaos with his ‘delusional fantasies’ and now fears more American troop casualties,” Larijani wrote in a string of fiery posts on social media platform X. “Iran, unlike the United States, has prepared itself for a long war.”

He accused Trump of getting into a war that harmed US interests and served the aims of Israel, which has been striking hard at regional enemies ever since the
October 7 Hamas-led attacks on Israel.

“TRUMP HAS BETRAYED ‘AMERICA FIRST’ TO ADOPT ‘ISRAEL FIRST,’” he said in another post, mimicking Trump’s own style of social media posts in all capital letters. “It is indeed very sad that he is sacrificing American treasure and blood to advance Netanyahu’s illegitimate expansionist ambitions,” he added.

Larijani, the head of the National Security Council, was a trusted confidant of Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed in the opening salvos of the US-Israeli attack on Saturday. Larijani, 67, was said by some Iranian officials to have been effectively running the country behind the scenes in the lead-up to the war.

In January, Larijani was sanctioned by Washington over his leading role in the deadly crackdown on nationwide protests against the government. He oversaw the most recent US-Iranian nuclear negotiations, which abruptly ended when the US and Israel launched their joint attack on Iran on Saturday.

The US and Israel have struck more than 2,000 targets in Iran since then, including military bases and weaponry, while Iran has retaliated with barrages of missiles and drones that have hit Israel, an array of Gulf Arab states, neighbouring Iraq, Cyprus and a strategic waterway.

Larijani has been seen as a pragmatist who might be willing to strike a deal with Washington. But on Monday, he reposted a summary of a Wall Street Journal article that said he had proposed resuming talks with the comment: “We will not negotiate with the United States.”

Trump’s “wishful thinking” would drag the entire region into an unnecessary war, he said in his social media posts, adding that the American President “is rightly worried about more American casualties”.

Chinese dead

One Chinese national was killed in the US and Israeli airstrikes in Iran, the foreign ministry of China said on Monday, underlining that it was assisting people leaving the war-torn country.

Hormuz tanker hit

Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said a fuel tanker was burning in the Strait of Hormuz after being hit by two drones, Iranian news agencies reported on Monday.

A Guards statement named the vessel as Athen Nova, an apparent reference to Honduras-flagged asphalt tanker Athe Nova, which it said was acting “in unison with America”.

The statement did not explicitly state that the ship was hit by Iranian drones, although the incident was mentioned in a line of a report about the Guards’ military operations.

New York Times News Service, Reuters and PTI