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Air raid sirens have blared over Gulf nations as the United States and Iran have launched expansive attacks against each other again, escalating tensions as their fragile ceasefire has unravelled over the past week.
Oil prices have spiked, and markets have plunged after Tehran shut down the Strait of Hormuz, the global energy kill switch and the biggest flashpoint in the ongoing conflict.
After US President Donald Trump said the April ceasefire struck by the warring nations was “over”, Iranian Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei said, “Revenge is the will of the nation.”
So are the US and Iran back to full-fledged war?
How did the US-Iran ceasefire unravel?
On July ۶, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) struck three commercial vessels, including a Qatari liquefied natural gas tanker, off Oman.
The following day, the US said it carried out retaliatory strikes on Iranian military targets, leading Tehran to respond with missile and drone attacks on military bases across the Gulf where US forces are deployed.
On Wednesday, Trump said the ceasefire was over. The IRGC shut down the Strait of Hormuz, saying the US was interfering in the waterway’s management by facilitating alternative transit routes.
It triggered tit-for-tat attacks between the US and Iran with Washington carrying out deadly strikes on multiple Iranian cities, most of them along the Strait of Hormuz in southern Iran.
Iran has attacked Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Jordan and Qatar and has conducted more attacks on ships in the Strait of Hormuz.
Are the US and Iran back to all-out war?
Analysts told Al Jazeera that the conflict is currently evolving from tit-for-tat attacks to sustained combat – but with limited areas of engagement.
In the first round of attacks on Iran that began on February ۲۸, the US and Israel conducted a broad, sustained air campaign across Iranian cities. The attacks killed Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei in Tehran on the first day of the war.
The latest round of US strikes, by contrast, is largely concentrated around the Strait of Hormuz. Iranian counterattacks have so far been focused on military bases in the Gulf that are used by US soldiers although debris from intercepted missiles and drones has fallen elsewhere, causing injuries.
Unlike the relentless air attacks on Iran in March and Tehran’s own blistering response through attacks on its Gulf neighbours, the latest round of attacks comes at a time when the US and Iran are still not ruling out talks completely. In fact, in his post announcing that the ceasefire was over, Trump noted that both sides would continue to hold talks.
Qatar and Pakistan are working behind the scenes to contain the conflict.
More questions linger for Trump at home, especially if his administration must now secure congressional authorisation for the war on Iran.
The War Powers Act states that a war must be authorised by Congress ۶۰ days after hostilities have started. Trump dodged this requirement by claiming that the war was already “terminated” when the ceasefire began on April ۷- before the ۶۰-day timeline on the first phase of the war was over.
The war on Iran has been widely unpopular in the US. Trump’s approval ratings have dropped as a result as polls indicated that voters are also dissatisfied with his administration’s handling of inflation and soaring oil prices.
What’s different from March?
Late February and March saw the most intense fighting between the two sides. The conflict shattered the long-held perception that the region’s commercial hubs were insulated from major conflict.
Targets – difference in scale and type
A US strike on a school in the southern Iranian city of Minab killed ۱۶۸ children on the first day of the war. Iranian missiles and drones came for Dubai’s skylines, setting the Fairmont The Palm luxury hotel ablaze, while debris from intercepted projectiles fell near the Burj Khalifa, the world’s tallest building, and Dubai Marina.
The US and Israel struck Iran’s energy facilities, and Iran responded by bombing oil and gas installations across the Gulf. Several international airports in the region were forced to suspend operations.
So far in the ongoing round of fighting, the US and Iran have been more restrained in the nature of targets they have chosen, avoiding civilian or energy infrastructure for the most part.
Earlier, the US and Israel claimed that their strategic objectives in the war included degrading Iran’s military and command structure and denuclearising Tehran. The current fighting appears focused on each side coercing the other into backing down on the Strait of Hormuz.
Israel
Another major difference in the current phase of the conflict is that Israel has not openly joined the US in the latest attacks on Iran.
When the war started, Israel was a main party to the conflict. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said at one point that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government had forced Washington’s hand on starting the war. Trump denied this.
The memorandum of understanding (MoU) reached in June between the US and Iran mandated the end of hostilities on all fronts, including in Lebanon. Beirut also entered into a separate ceasefire with Israel, which demands that the Israeli military withdraw from swaths of land it occupies in southern Lebanon.
Israel has not stood by any of the agreements and has continued to wage attacks in southern Lebanon, albeit less frequently.
The Islamabad MoU
Even though the MoU, mediated by Islamabad, has glaring gaps, the framework gave diplomacy a chance to take the talks forward to end the war in the region.
Current points of friction also include the different readings and interpretations by Washington and Tehran of the contents of the MoU. They have accused each other of violating the agreement.
Despite attacks between Iran and the US, it is still likely that diplomacy is continuing, Paul Musgrave, associate professor of government at Georgetown University in Qatar, told Al Jazeera.
Currently, both countries are trying to figure out where the other’s “red lines” stand, he added.
Iran’s objectives seem to have grown over the course of the conflict while the US’s have “amazingly” shrunk, Musgrave said. “The US is no longer talking about regime change, but people in Tehran are starting to talk about something that looks like hegemony over the Gulf,” he noted.
That means it’s going to be extremely difficult to get back to diplomacy, Musgrave warned.
