The fragile ceasefire between the US and Iran lasted about a month. It didn't survive the weekend.
On Friday at 3 p.m. Eastern, US Central Command started a new round of airstrikes with the goal of "degrading Iranian military capabilities." No other details were provided. Earlier, Centcom acknowledged that on Thursday, its forces demolished a lookout structure at Chabahar, a port in Iran, describing it as one of a series of sea-based facilities Tehran utilized to monitor and attack merchant ships.
In addition to the port tower, American forces destroyed six highway bridges during the night, as reported by Iranian state outlets. Independent accounts also mentioned strikes on Bushehr, a southern city that hosts Iran's sole nuclear reactor, and on Lorestan province in the west. Moreover, an unloaded crude carrier at Kharg Island was hit by the US for a second time in days, per Iranian news sources.
Iran answered by hitting US bases in Kuwait, Jordan, Bahrain, and on Oman's As Salamah Archipelago. Additionally, Iran targeted American radar installations and planes in Qatar, the Tasnim news agency reported.
Furthermore, a ballistic missile was fired at a US base in Saudi Arabia, as Axios noted on Friday. Kuwaiti authorities reported attacks on a facility that desalinates water and generates electricity, damaging numerous power units.
Mehran Kamrava, a political science professor at Georgetown University's campus in Qatar, put it bluntly: "An ominous sign of more to come, worse to come."
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He added that both sides got stuck. "Neither side wants to see this escalation but both have become dependent on the path of an escalatory cycle from which they cannot back out."
For investors, this conflict is showing up in one clear place: the oil market.
And it is not just about one Friday. Since March, at least 35 vessels that have been struck were transporting petroleum or natural gas.
The big risk is the Strait of Hormuz. That is a narrow strip of water where a giant chunk of the world's oil passes through. If that route gets cut, prices could move much higher.
Becca Wasser and Dina Esfandiary of Bloomberg Economics said, "Iran and the US are now locked in an escalation spiral, with neither side willing to back down. "The war has been costly for Tehran. But its leverage in the strait is valuable - too valuable to give up"."
Both sides are also expanding what they are willing to hit. First it was strictly military targets. Now it is bridges, utilities, and port facilities. The attacks are getting broader, which makes the situation harder to control.
The US has already notified Israel that it will provide additional aerial refueling aircraft, Axios reported, a move that hints at military activity expanding rather than contracting.
Donald Trump told the nation Thursday night that the US is "winning big in Iran, and you will see the fruits of that labor very, very shortly." Beijing and Islamabad voiced alarm at the events, urging Washington and Tehran to stop fighting and restart negotiations.
The rising tensions have raised fears that the truce, which aimed to restore normal traffic in the Strait of Hormuz and lay groundwork for lasting peace negotiations, may be beyond saving.
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