Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has claimed that US President Donald Trump’s military campaign against Iran has failed, in a statement read out at a Tehran press conference on September 29.

IRGC spokesman General Hossein Mohebbi read a “letter to the American people” saying the war would only end if Washington admitted defeat and withdrew. He urged Americans to protest and “revise their decision”, and accused the US of using Iran’s nuclear programme as a ruse to “plunder Iran’s wealth” and turn the country “back into a colony”.

The remarks came ahead of the November 3 US midterm elections and as Iran’s rial hit a record low of 2.5 million to the dollar, down from 2.2 million on September 2.

The US Treasury separately sanctioned 10 individuals and entities in Iran, Hong Kong and Pakistan under an action dubbed “Operation Economic Outcast”. The exchange of claims and sanctions underlines how the confrontation is now being fought as much through economics and messaging as through force.