One Chain, One War: Rezaei's Al-Manar Interview and Iran's Claim on Lebanon and Gaza

Speaking to Hezbollah’s own network, Iran’s new Supreme National Security Council secretary laid out a single, connected claim: Lebanon, Gaza, Syria, and the Strait of Hormuz are one file, and Iran holds it. Mohsen Rezaei made an American declaration ending the war on every front, particularly in Lebanon, a stated condition for reopening the strait, confirmed a strategic and comprehensive relationship with Hezbollah’s leadership, and announced that the seven-kilometer limit Hezbollah observed under Nasrallah will not apply in any future round. The interview, published August 28 on Rezaei’s official site, functions as a public assertion that Iran’s stake in Lebanon is a fixed commitment backed by an explicit threat of escalation against both Israel and the United States. This post analyzes the interview and its context; the full report is available as a PDF.

Background: Beirut’s Complaint and a New Man at the SNSC

The interview lands on a record Lebanon has already made international. In an April 21 letter to the UN Security Council and General Assembly, Beirut accused the IRGC of operating under diplomatic cover without Lebanese state consent and of running joint IRGC-Hezbollah offensive operations from Lebanese territory in defiance of cabinet decisions taken in early March. Beirut declared Iran’s ambassador persona non grata; Tehran confirmed he would stay. Lebanon’s Foreign Ministry later softened the register by calling the document a response to Iranian letters rather than a formal complaint, but it did not withdraw the underlying allegations.

Rezaei himself is new to the post. His arrival at the Supreme National Security Council, replacing Mohammad Bagher Zolghadr after only five months, put the Hormuz file under a figure with independent standing in the security establishment: a former IRGC commander and Expediency Council secretary, not a caretaker appointee. Hormuz had already become an intra-Iranian fault line, with heavy presidential-office presence on the file in early August and visible friction over who sets the terms for reopening, a dynamic covered in today’s Hormuz-axis update.

Lebanon: The Interconnected Chain

Rezaei’s central claim is that no arena of the resistance axis can be treated on its own. In his framing, West Asia is an interconnected chain: a breach of security anywhere affects the whole region, so ending the war in one theater while it continues in another is not a real end to the war at all. He stated directly that Iran’s memorandum with the United States conditions any settlement on Washington ending the war throughout West Asia, particularly in Lebanon, with Israeli withdrawal from occupied territory, an end to the war in Gaza, and an end to Israeli strikes on Damascus.

He set Beirut’s southern suburb as a red line no one may approach, argued that Lebanon cannot be besieged the way Gaza was and that Israel will eventually be forced out of the south, and predicted that within a decade no trace of American bases will remain in the region. He closed with a direct address to the Lebanese public, invoking a historical bond running back to the scholars of Jabal Amel and promising Iranian help in rebuilding destroyed homes.

Hezbollah: Non-Interference in Name Only

Asked to characterize the relationship, Rezaei used the formula Tehran has relied on throughout the post-Nasrallah period: non-interference in Lebanon’s internal affairs paired with a strategic and comprehensive relationship with Hezbollah’s leadership. He acknowledged past military training and capabilities provided to Hezbollah’s fronts while insisting Iran stays out of the party’s internal military decisions, which he said now rest with a capable second and third generation of commanders.

Pressed on whether those younger commanders can fill the void left by Hezbollah’s slain leadership, he reached for his own biography: command of the IRGC at twenty-seven, and his selection of Qasem Soleimani, Hossein Kharrazi, Ahmad Kazemi, and Ahmad Motevaselian as battalion commanders in their early twenties. The message is generational continuity: decapitation has not broken the chain of command or the mission.

Hormuz: Iran Sets the Sequence

On the strait, Rezaei confirmed that the recent visits by Pakistani and Omani officials were to collect Iran’s conditions for conveyance to Washington, not to negotiate on its behalf, and that Tehran is preparing a formal list. The first condition is an American declaration ending the war in all areas of West Asia, particularly Lebanon. He was explicit that Iran, not the United States, dictates the order of steps, saying Washington must accept and implement Iran’s conditions before the strait opens.

On mechanics, he described a temporary corridor through the middle of the strait, part in Iranian waters and part in Omani waters, jointly managed by the two countries, with its location already specified. That matches the corridor framework Qatar pressed in Tehran on August 27, analyzed in the latest Qatar Watch. Everything, he said, depends on American implementation, given the deep mistrust between the two sides.

Washington and Israel: A Ladder with the Restraints Removed

Rezaei presented Iran’s conduct across the last three rounds of conflict as deliberate, calibrated escalation: no strikes on American bases in the twelve-day war, strikes on them in the forty-day war, and heavy bombardment of American bases in Jordan in the seventeen-day Muharram war, which he claimed forced CENTCOM to relocate from Qatar to Jordan and from Jordan to Israel. The pacing, in his telling, was designed to keep world opinion on Iran’s side and pin responsibility for the war on President Trump. On the next round he was vague on detail but explicit on intent, promising stunning blows and threatening economic countermeasures against American commercial interests in the region if Washington pursues new sanctions. He dismissed the naval blockade as manageable, claiming Iran exported roughly seventy to eighty million barrels of stored oil during the ceasefire and is developing an additional export route, and expressed confidence that neither China nor Turkey will join an American economic campaign. These are official claims with political value, not independently verified figures.

The interview’s sharpest passage concerned Israel. Rezaei said Nasrallah’s seven-kilometer limit, a restraint he attributed to a refusal to kill large numbers of civilians, belonged to an era that has ended: the next round will recognize no such bounds, and new Sinwars and new Nasrallahs will carry a wrath without limit. He vowed that Iran “will send Netanyahu to hell,” and accused Netanyahu of fabricating an Iranian assassination plot in Turkey to frighten President Trump and turn him against Tehran, a claim for which he offered no evidence.

The Mecca Pact and Syria

On the Mecca Joint Defence Agreement signed August 7 by Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Pakistan, Rezaei welcomed Islamic unity in principle but rejected the idea of Iran joining a structure others founded. His conditions: founding-member status for Iran and Egypt, and a declaration against Israel demanding withdrawal from Gaza, southern Lebanon, and southern Syria. Demanding them publicly on Al-Manar makes the case to a Hezbollah-aligned audience that Iran is not being left behind, and puts the onus on Ankara and Riyadh to meet Iranian terms or take the blame for excluding it.

On Syria, he rejected the notion that Damascus would move against Hezbollah at Israel’s behest, blaming Israel for violating its understandings with the new government and arguing that an equation putting Syria against Lebanon is not practical.

Assessment: The Audience Is Hezbollah

Rezaei’s formula of non-interference paired with strategic partnership does not answer Beirut’s April record; it defies it. The interview does not treat Lebanon and Iran as separate files. Hezbollah’s own letters to Mojtaba Khamenei renew the pledge of allegiance and place the party under his leadership, and Naim Qassem has personally thanked Tehran’s negotiators for keeping Lebanon inside the ceasefire framework with Washington. Read against that record, Rezaei’s praise for the second and third generation is not a pep talk but a statement of intent: Iran still expects that generation, under Qassem, to finish what Nasrallah started, this time without the seven-kilometer limit. It also explains Iran’s opposition to Hezbollah’s disarmament: a disarmed Hezbollah cannot finish the job, so the standoff between Beirut’s peace process and the party’s refusal to disarm is at bottom an Iranian standoff, paced by Iran’s own memorandum with Washington.

The Hormuz linkage is the more consequential move. By making an American declaration ending the war in Lebanon and Gaza a stated condition for reopening the strait, Rezaei ties Tehran’s most valuable leverage against Washington to Hezbollah’s fate rather than treating Hormuz as a narrow bilateral file. Staking that linkage out personally, on Hezbollah’s own network, three weeks into the job, also reads as an attempt to settle the internal Iranian argument over who controls the reopening terms in his own favor.

Key Points

We assess with high confidence that the interview signals a fixed Iranian commitment to the Lebanon file: Rezaei publicly conditioned any settlement with Washington, including Hormuz reopening, on the war ending in Lebanon and Gaza, and confirmed a strategic and comprehensive relationship with Hezbollah’s leadership.
We assess with high confidence that the removal of the seven-kilometer restraint doctrine is deliberate signaling, aimed at Israel as deterrence ahead of any next round and at hardline audiences in Iran and Hezbollah as reassurance that the old restraint will not recur. Whether capability matches the rhetoric is a separate question the interview does not settle.
We assess with moderate confidence that Iran’s opposition to Hezbollah’s disarmament is structural, not tactical: as long as the war has not ended on Iran’s terms everywhere, disarmament stays off the table, whatever Beirut negotiates.
We assess with moderate confidence that Rezaei is using the Hormuz-Lebanon linkage to consolidate his own control of the reopening file inside the Iranian system, three weeks after replacing Zolghadr at the SNSC.
Rezaei’s specific claims, among them the CENTCOM relocation chain, the seventy to eighty million barrels exported during the ceasefire, and the fabricated-assassination-plot story, are unverified official assertions and should be treated as messaging until corroborated.

What to Watch

The promised list of Iranian conditions for reopening Hormuz: whether the Lebanon and Gaza war-termination demand appears in the formal text conveyed through Oman and Pakistan, and how Washington responds.
Movement on the Iran-Oman corridor: an activation date, published rules, and whether the United States accepts an arrangement that gives Iran a formal role in authorizing passage.
The Hezbollah disarmament track in Beirut: whether Lebanese cabinet decisions advance and whether Hezbollah’s refusal hardens along the lines Rezaei’s interview implies.
Responses from Riyadh, Ankara, and Islamabad to Iran’s stated conditions for joining the Mecca Pact, especially any movement toward an anti-Israel declaration or founding-member status for Iran and Egypt.
Iranian and Hezbollah messaging that repeats or operationalizes the end of the seven-kilometer limit, particularly from Naim Qassem or IRGC commanders.
Any Israeli operational activity toward Beirut’s southern suburb, the red line Rezaei drew explicitly.

This post analyzes an Iran Dossier special report on Major General Mohsen Rezaei’s interview with Hezbollah’s Al-Manar network, published 28 August 2026 (6 Shahrivar 1405) on Rezaei’s official site, rezaee.ir. Quotations in the underlying report are translated from the Persian original; this summary paraphrases them except where marked. The report’s evidentiary discipline is preserved: Rezaei’s operational and economic claims are unverified official assertions, and the assessment of Iranian intent draws on the interview text, Beirut’s April 2026 letter to the UN, and Hezbollah’s public correspondence with Mojtaba Khamenei. The full report is available here: Rezaei’s Al-Manar Interview: Analysis, 28 August 2026 (PDF).