U.S. forces launched a fresh wave of strikes against Iran on Wednesday morning, hours after President Donald Trump warned that the military campaign would intensify over the coming days unless Tehran returned to negotiations.
“At 6 a.m. ET today, U.S. Central Command forces began launching a wave of strikes against Iran,” CENTCOM said in a post on X. “The strikes are designed to further degrade military capabilities Iranian forces have used to attack commercial shipping in the Strait of Hormuz.”
The new operation followed additional U.S. strikes on Tuesday and renewed Iranian attacks against several Gulf states, as the fragile ceasefire agreed last month continued to unravel.
In an interview with Fox News on Tuesday evening, Trump indicated that the conflict was more likely to escalate than ease.
US President Donald Trump
(Photo: Saul Loeb/ AFP)
“We’re going to hit them very hard tonight,” he said. “We’re going to hit them hard tomorrow night. We’re going to hit them really hard the night after.”
Trump also threatened to expand the target list next week if Iran refused to return to the negotiating table.
“Next week it gets really bad for them because next week comes the power plants,” he said. “Next week comes the bridges. We’re going to knock out all their power plants. We’re going to knock out all their bridges unless they get to the table and negotiate.”
US strikes on Iran overnight
(Photo: CENTCOM)
The escalation came after the United States struck dozens of Iranian targets last week in retaliation for attacks on commercial vessels transiting the Strait of Hormuz. Trump subsequently declared that the ceasefire between Washington and Tehran was “over.”
Earlier this week, Trump threatened to impose a 20% charge on cargo passing through the strait before abandoning the proposal on Tuesday. He instead said Gulf states would compensate the United States through trade and investment agreements.
The reversal added another layer of uncertainty for global shipping companies already struggling to assess the risks of operating through one of the world’s most important energy corridors.
(Photo: CENTCOM)
“All these messages going back and forth and changing direction completely just adds to the confusion and the complexity of the whole situation,” Jakob Larsen, chief safety and security officer at international shipping organization BIMCO, told CNBC.
“If you take a step away and look at it from above, then the overall environment we’re looking at is increased uncertainty, increased risks, and with that comes higher prices.”
Oil prices moved higher Wednesday morning as concerns persisted over safe passage through the Strait of Hormuz. Brent crude futures remained above $85 a barrel.
Analysts warned that the renewed fighting could become a prolonged conflict with no clear military or diplomatic end.
Mike Rosenberg, a management professor at IESE Business School, said the sides appeared no closer to a settlement.
“The current return to war makes it clear that the terms of the Islamabad Memorandum, signed by Trump on 14 June, were unrealistic at the time,” he said. “As long as both sides seek an agreement that allows them to claim victory, I cannot see a positive outcome any time soon.”
Rosenberg said the best outcome Washington could now hope for would resemble the nuclear agreement developed under former President Barack Obama, though he said Trump would have difficulty accepting such a result.
“The Trump administration underestimated Iranian resolve and has no easy way out,” he said. “The most likely outcome is some kind of permanent ceasefire negotiated by Pakistan without any nuclear guarantees, and it is likely that the administration will avoid making that agreement before the mid-term elections.”
Andreas Böhm, a lecturer in international affairs at the University of St. Gallen in Switzerland, said the confrontation risked becoming a years-long war.
“Trump is stuck in a mess of his own (and Israel’s) making and can’t find a face-saving way out of it, while the Iranians assume they are still in conflict and are therefore trying to maximize their gains and risk overplaying their hand,” he said.
“This might result in a long-time low-level conflict and therefore one of the forever-wars Trump pledged to end. Each side will try to raise the costs for the respective other until it will become prohibitive.”
Böhm argued that Trump had entered the conflict without a clearly defined objective, making the next phase difficult to predict.
“Without a strategy, it is not clear what he aims to achieve,” he said. “[Trump] can’t open the Strait of Hormuz by force other than an operation of a scale that he will be unable sell to the American public. If he starts a broader war on infrastructure in Iran, the retribution will hit energy infrastructure in the Gulf.”
He said diplomacy remained the only plausible way out, though the escalation had made negotiations significantly harder.
“There might be some narrow runway where negotiations regarding Hormuz might land, but broader arrangements must come to terms with the fact that there is now a different reality,” he said. “We can’t go back to before to this war.”