On Tuesday at 12 pm ET, US Central Command posted on X: "US forces began striking Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps targets in Iran." Iran's state broadcaster reported explosions on Qeshm Island, Bandar Abbas, Chabahar, Jask and Sirik.
This quashes hopes that last weekend's exchange might not lead to wider renewal. It is now a rolling confrontation.
The sequence is precise. The US says it struck mine-laying launchers on Larak Island that threatened commercial shipping in the Strait of Hormuz. Iran responded by claiming strikes on US bases in Jordan and Al Minhad in UAE - which UAE denied. Trump then posted on Truth Social that Iran would be hit "at a much harder and higher level" if it retaliated.
On Tuesday, the harder level arrived. Tehran remained defiant. "If the enemy wants us not to export oil from the Persian Gulf, no one will be able to export oil," Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf was quoted as saying.
The legal and diplomatic scaffolding has collapsed. In June, a Memorandum of Understanding was intended to halt the conflict that began February 28 with US and Israeli strikes. It declared an end to fighting but deferred difficult issues and paved the way for a broader 60-day negotiation period - which passed without agreement. Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said in Bishkek that Tehran would reciprocate if Washington honoured its MOU commitments.
Iran's Foreign Ministry says Washington is "addicted to making excessive demands and has mistaken negotiations for dictating terms."
The US is shifting to economic asphyxiation. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Washington is likely to announce bank sanctions this week and next. At a G20 finance meeting in Asheville, North Carolina, he said the US was targeting entities doing business with the IRGC. "We have zero tolerance. We are going to economically asphyxiate this regime."
The US Embassy in Qatar has urged Americans in the Middle East to exercise heightened vigilance, aware of potential flight cancellations and airspace closures.
This is no longer deterrence. It is a cycle where kinetic strikes justify financial strangulation, and financial strangulation justifies kinetic retaliation, with commercial shipping and oil flows through Hormuz as hostage.