Iranian Army spokesperson says Iran will launch pre-emptive attacks if needed and used new offensive and defensive equipment during the 40-day war, Fars reports

Pronouncements of pre-emption rights from Iranian military spokespeople are a recurring feature of escalation cycles in the region and have historically functioned more as deterrence signalling than as advance notice of action; the usual sequence is rhetorical elevation, force posture adjustments, and only then kinetic moves, if any. The reference to new offensive and defensive equipment used in a recent conflict fits a standard post-conflict pattern in which Tehran advertises capabilities through state-aligned outlets to rebuild deterrence after hostilities, and such disclosures are typically calibrated for domestic and regional audiences rather than verified independently. The actors to track are the army versus the IRGC, whose messaging often diverges, and whether the leadership above the spokesperson level adopts the same pre-emption framing, since statements from uniformed spokespeople alone have rarely repriced risk sustainably. The established transmission channels are crude through the supply risk premium and freight and insurance costs in the Gulf, with regional FX and Gulf sovereign spreads as secondary expressions. The tells worth following are any change in force posture, shipping advisories in the Strait of Hormuz, and whether counterparts respond in kind, which historically separates durable escalation from headline noise.