Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said on Monday they struck US military facilities in Bahrain and Kuwait, destroyed radar systems in Oman, and hit fuel tanks and ammunition depots at Prince Hassan Air Base in Jordan. Tehran called the attacks a response to a third round of US strikes in a week on its southern coast.
The US strikes reportedly targeted military sites in Qeshm, Bandar Abbas and Abadan, along with a submarine and ship maintenance facility. Two people were reportedly killed in the Abadan strike. The exchanges mark the sharpest escalation in both pace and geographic reach since the conflict began.
President Trump announced the US was reinstating a blockade of Iranian shipping and proposed a 20% fee on all cargo transiting the Strait of Hormuz, declaring the waterway open under US guard. Iran, which had earlier declared the strait closed, rejected the fee as excessive. Brent crude rose more than 5% as traffic through Hormuz fell around 52% over three days. The interim US-Iranian ceasefire signed last month has effectively collapsed.
Source: Reuters, Al Jazeera, Al-Monitor.
So What
The ceasefire is almost certainly finished, even as Trump keeps trying to push it forward. The strikes on Gulf bases cross a line that is hard to walk back, and Tehran appears to be betting Washington has little appetite for a wider war. From here Trump likely faces two paths. He can rally domestic political support to renew a direct conflict with Iran, which is costly and far from guaranteed at home. Or he can walk away entirely. Walking away would mark a massive shift in US Middle East policy and, likely, the beginning of the end of American dominance in the region. It would also hand Iran, and by extension Russia and China, a strategic opening they have wanted for years. Neither path is clean, which is why the next move is far from settled and worth watching closely.
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