The renewed US-Iran conflict is escalating and threatening to spin out of control

Over the past week, the conflict between the United States and Iran has gone from a simmering tit-for-tat to something that much more resembles all-out war.

US President Donald Trump last week threatened to broaden the war unless Iran stops attacking ships transiting the Strait of Hormuz.

In recent days, the US has expanded its targets beyond Iranian coastal sites housing radar and drone facilities to include roads, tunnels, railways, port infrastructure and, according to Iranian media, a desalination plant.

Iran has, in turn, expanded its target list across seven countries in the region, and official media outlets have suggested that major ports in Gulf Arab states may soon be added. Kuwait has borne the brunt of Iranian strikes, with a desalination plant and oil refinery damaged. Jordan too has seen regular barrages.

The conflict is at an inflection point. It might give way to yet another round of mediation and negotiation. But to most analysts, that seems unlikely. Neither side seems in the mood to talk; both have said that the memorandum of understanding (MoU) agreed in June after weeks of tortuous negotiation is no longer in effect.

After the deaths Friday of two US service members in Jordan amid a barrage of Iranian missile strikes, the “coming days (are) among the most dangerous in the war,” said Ian Bremmer, founder of the Eurasia Group, a geopolitical risk analysis firm.

The US, which announced the death of another service member in northern Iraq on Sunday, said it would “swiftly punish” Tehran for the strikes – and Iran again targeted Jordan on Sunday.

“It is becoming increasingly clear that events are beginning to slip beyond anyone’s control,” said Danny Citrinowicz, an analyst with the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv.

“Although both Washington and Tehran initially appeared interested in keeping the confrontation within certain limits, the conflict is now moving alarmingly close to a point where those limits could collapse,” Citrinowicz said on X. 

“The confrontation could expand well beyond its current scope, drawing Gulf states more directly into the conflict and placing additional strategic targets and critical infrastructure at risk,” he added.

The Iranian missile strike targeting Aqaba in Jordan on Sunday was ample evidence of that risk, with Israel saying that shrapnel fell on its territory. Israel has so far stayed out of the conflict, reportedly at the request of the Trump administration but the government’s unhappiness at the Iran agreement is no secret. Israeli defense officials warned Sunday that the country will hit back strongly if Iran attacks Israel.

The view from Tehran

The enemy has a vote, as military historians like to say, and Iran appears confident of its ability to inflict damage.

“Iran is adapting to US defenses by firing high-speed, maneuverable missiles at US bases in the region,” wrote the Institute for Study of War on Saturday, adding that Iran has deployed cluster munitions at a greater scale in order to maximize damage.

The US casualties in Jordan are testament to that adaptation.

The signs are that the regime in Tehran believes it can outlast Trump, having mobilized public support around the funeral ceremonies for Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The collective leadership that has emerged in the absence of Khamenei’s son Mojtaba, the new supreme leader, appears to believe that resistance is the only option for now.

“Iran’s current rulers believe that any display of restraint will only invite further American pressure,” Iran analyst Vali Nasr wrote in the Financial Times. 

While the Iranian economy is in dire straits, with rampant inflation, chronic shortages of medicines and a crumbling economy, “Tehran will accept the inevitable economic hardship that another US naval blockade will entail, believing that its own pressure on the global economy by closing the Strait of Hormuz… will force Trump to blink first,” Nasr added.

All about Hormuz

There is certainly no evidence for Trump’s assertion that Iran is desperate for a deal – and the issue that started the conflict, Iran’s nuclear program, has retreated almost out of sight as the focus has switched to a tussle over the Strait of Hormuz.

Essentially a rock has met a hard place – at the mouth of the Persian Gulf.

Vague language in the MoU sought to disguise irreconcilable differences between the US demand – supported by much of the international community – for freedom of navigation in and out of the Gulf, and Iran’s insistence on managing shipping.

Indeed, in his first message as supreme leader in March, Mojtaba Khamanei insisted that the closure of the strait was a strategic lever, and that “the lever of blocking the Strait of Hormuz must continue to be used.”

To many analysts, the “Memorandum of Misunderstanding” was a toothless instrument.

Control of the strait gives Iran a “sword of Damocles over the head of the global economy” that Tehran sees as “essential” to getting anything from Washington, Nasr said.

If the conflict continues to expand, there is also the possibility that Iran will enlist Houthi allies in Yemen to increase the pressure on the world economy and on Saudi Arabia by interfering with shipping in the Red Sea around the critical chokepoint of Bab al-Mandeb – a sort of Hormuz mark-two.

Allied view

Washington’s allies in the Gulf have previously interceded with Trump on the conduct of the war and the management of Hormuz. Most recently, a flurry of appeals from several governments — including Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Qatar — dissuaded Trump from following through on a plan to collect fees from ships transiting the strait.

There are broader concerns that an expanding conflict will do deeper damage to their economies, defer any deal on Hormuz and leave them dealing with an intractable enemy across the Gulf after Washington decides it’s had enough.

The question now is whether they would reach out – individually or collectively – once again if Iran follows through on its threat to hit ports and other infrastructure across the Gulf. And whether such an appeal would be heeded.

Iran could target “a network of key ports” in Gulf states in response to US strikes on the Iranian port of Chabahar, the semi-official Fars news agency warned on Friday.

Military victory?

A decisive US military victory over Iran seems a distant prospect. It would likely demand the insertion of ground forces and a far more intensive and expansive campaign of strikes than has been evident over the past week. Anything less is unlikely to sway the regime in Tehran in what it sees as an existential struggle.

“I don’t want to do that,” Trump said of a ground war in an interview with Fox News last week. But he added: “Sometimes you need a ground campaign, but we have other people that will do the ground campaign for us.” CNN has reported that Trump is considering new options, with an attack on the strategic Kharg Island again being mulled.

Launching a ground campaign into southern Iran “in extreme summer heat against a fully mobilized military and a population that has largely rallied around the war effort would be an extraordinary gamble practically guaranteed to be a historic disaster,” says Sina Toosi at the Center for International Policy.

Such a campaign would be more challenging if allies such as Saudi Arabia are unwilling to allow their territory and airspace to be used for attacks on Iran. Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman told the Iranian president in January that the kingdom would not allow its airspace or territory to be used for any attack on Iran.

Mediation efforts

Both Pakistan and Qatar, who mediated the Lucerne, Switzerland, meeting between the US and Iran in June, have been very quiet in recent days. The last time a Qatari delegation was in Tehran was July 10, according to Iran’s semi-official Tasnim news agency.

Mediation may yet come back into focus if oil markets panic and the price of crude returns above $100 on the back of shrinking reserves worldwide.

There is also the election factor as the US midterms approach. CNN has reported that Trump’s advisers have argued that new restrictions on Hormuz would only push oil and gas prices higher, adding to the political pressure on Republicans.

Many analysts expect that neither all-out war nor the diplomatic path will prevail in coming weeks. Rather, a messy conflict oscillating between bouts of strikes and periods of relative calm beckons, while mediators look for new avenues to revive negotiations.

Much depends on the mood of the US president.

But as one Gulf diplomat put it, “It’s likely to get worse before it gets better.”

~ CNN