Ali Khazraeyan, a member of the Parliament’s National Security Commission, told Mehr House news agency: “Those who want to create a false binary of resistance and surrender must understand that if we go in the direction of issues such as the Strait of Hormuz and back down, the enemy will assume that we retreated under pressure, and this will lead to an intensification of pressure on our country.”

Khazraeyan added: “We cannot say that we opened the Strait of Hormuz so that the world’s economy could be run, and expect the enemy to have the same understanding.”

This lawmaker added: “The interpretation of this behavior and words from the perspective of international relations is that it means we reached such weakness that we had to open the Strait of Hormuz, and when this is seen that way, the enemy will assume that we have retreated and, now, with pressure, it can push us back several more steps.”