Escalation in the Gulf: US military attacks further targets in Iran

Die military tensions between the USA and Iran have changed drastically again tightened. After heavy mutual missile and drone attacks declared the government in Tehran, which strategically Important Strait of Hormuz closed again to have. This drove up oil prices.

Iran’s Revolutionary Guard said Monday it had targeted American military facilities in the Persian Gulf in response to recent U.S. attacks. We were talking about Bahrain and Kuwait. Radar systems in Oman were destroyed and fuel and ammunition depots at the Prince Hassan base in Jordan were shelled.

The US military, however, said that shipping through the Strait of Hormuz continued. During operations on Sunday, Iranian air defense systems, coastal radar stations, missile and drone positions as well as small boats were attacked from aircraft and warships, among other things.

The US regional command CENTCOM, which is responsible for the Middle East, had already announced on Saturday that it had attacked more than 300 Iranian targets within three nights in order to weaken Iran’s military effectiveness. The Revolutionary Guards, for their part, said they had also damaged a maintenance center for fighter jets in Qatar and American logistics bases in Oman over the weekend.

Two deaths reported in Iran

According to the Iranian news agency ISNA, one person was killed and another seven injured in a US strike in Isfahan province, Nain district. Iranian media reported further explosions on the southern coast on Monday night, including on the island of Qeshm and in Bandar Sirik near the Strait of Hormuz. Both places have been the target of bombings several times in the past few days. The industrial province of Khuzestan in southwestern Iran was also attacked. In the city of Mahshahr, a security guard who was stationed in front of an agricultural water pumping station was killed, the online portal “Hammihan” reported.

The online journalist known as Vahid reported violent explosions in a port city on the Persian Gulf. “In Bandar Abbas they are hitting nonstop and the 11th grade students have to be at school in an hour because they have an exam,” he quoted a resident as saying. “It’s the greatest injustice to the children in the south. They didn’t sleep a wink all night because of the sounds of explosions.”

Trump indirectly admits the failure of his diplomatic approach

The renewed violence calls into question the interim agreement reached last month between Washington and Tehran that was supposed to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, a key source of global oil and gas trade, and end the war that the United States and Israel launched against Iran on February 28. US President Donald Trump appeared confident of victory in a telephone interview with the Reuters news agency on Sunday afternoon. “We are giving them a hard time,” said Trump, referring to the attacks against Iran.

Last week, Trump declared the ceasefire to be over, but appeared open to further talks. Iran’s chief negotiator Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf wrote on the X platform on Sunday: “The era of unilateral agreements is over. We told you: keep your word or pay the price. Reality is catching up with you.” Iran has long been trying to impose a permanent toll on passage through the Strait of Hormuz, through which a fifth of the world’s oil and liquid gas was transported before the war.

Around 20 ships escorted through the strait

Iran’s newly created Strait Authority said on Sunday that passage was currently not possible due to “illegal activities” by the US military. The USA, on the other hand, emphasized that its armed forces ensure freedom of navigation. About 20 ships have been escorted through the strait in the past 24 hours, according to U.S. officials. The price of Brent crude oil rose 4.3 percent to $79.31 per barrel on Monday. Higher fuel prices are considered politically highly explosive for Trump ahead of the US congressional elections in November.

According to its own statements, Iran no longer sees itself bound by the agreement following the recent military events resulting from US violations of the framework agreement concluded between the two countries in mid-June. “Every time the other side has failed to fulfill its obligations, we have also failed to fulfill ours,” Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei told reporters in Tehran on Monday. “We will continue to do this,” he warned. According to Baghaei, Iran remains in contact with the mediating states of Qatar, Pakistan and Oman to prevent further escalation: “It is the role of the mediators to continue their efforts to prevent an escalation of tensions.” There had been contact with the three intermediaries “in the last few days,” he added.

Guterres worried

UN Secretary-General António Guterres said on Platform X that he was deeply concerned about the “significant escalation”. A return to full-scale hostilities would have catastrophic consequences for regional security and the global economy. “I urge Iran and the United States to immediately resume negotiations and resolve outstanding issues through diplomatic channels.”

Foreign Minister Beate Meinl-Reisinger (NEOS) was also concerned about the renewed escalation. “I think it is very important that we now try again to give priority to diplomacy,” she said at the EU Council of Foreign Ministers in Brussels. Europe is ready to take responsibility here. The EU will discuss this this Monday at a meeting with the representatives of the Gulf states that are directly affected. Meinl-Reisinger expressed her condolences to all states affected by Iranian attacks, saying the attacks were unacceptable. Her German counterpart Johann Wadephul (CDU) also said in Brussels that Iran and the USA should quickly return to the negotiating table.

Analyzes of current developments

“Iran views control of the Strait of Hormuz as a key strategic objective, and its leadership believes that ending the war without control of the strait would mean a major strategic defeat,” said an analysis by the Critical Threats Project (CTP), run by the Washington-based think tanks Institute for the Study of War (ISW) and American Enterprise Institute.

With the killing of influential generals and high-ranking politicians, the Revolutionary Guards, Iran’s powerful military organization, have, according to common experts’ assessment, further expanded their power in the Islamic Republic. The new leadership is aware that a certain degree of pragmatism is required towards the USA, wrote Israeli Iran expert Danny Citrinowicz in a guest article for the newspaper Israel Hayom.

Tehran is now more willing to consistently use military force, Citrinowicz wrote. It is a leadership that “takes a more pragmatic approach to dealing with the crisis, but is not ideologically more moderate.” Washington must decide: to intensify the confrontation in the Strait of Hormuz or to accept an agreement and focus on preventing Tehran from building a nuclear weapon.