More countries pulled into spiraling Iran war

What happened

The Iran war expanded further across the Middle East last week, as Saudi Arabia joined the U.S. in striking Iran-backed militias in Iraq, Yemen’s Iran-allied Houthi militant group hit Saudi tankers in the Red Sea, and a U.S.-owned natural gas storage tanker at an Egyptian port was set ablaze in a drone attack. In Riyadh’s first acknowledged involvement in the conflict, Saudi and American fighter jets attacked the Iraq-based Popular Mobilization Forces, an umbrella group of Iraqi militants, in retaliation for more than 30 drone attacks on Saudi oil facilities, which the U.S. accused Iran of directing. The U.S.-Saudi operation, which killed at least 20 fighters, came hours after Iran launched a surprise ballistic missile attack at American military sites in Jordan, shattering a days-long pause in fighting. The missiles were all intercepted, but the assault marked a shift in strategy for Iran, showing it was willing to go on the offensive and not simply respond to U.S. strikes. After the drone strike at Egypt’s Mediterranean port of Damietta, President Trump vowed to retaliate against Tehran, saying, “It’s our turn to hit them.”

In the southern Red Sea, the Houthis claimed at least four attacks on Saudi-linked tankers since announcing a maritime blockade of Saudi ports last month. Iran fired on three tankers it said were using an “illegal” route through the Strait of Hormuz—Saudi Arabia’s other major shipping route—and reportedly rejected a proposal from Oman to divide control of the strait and solicit voluntary fees.

Iran’s escalating attacks “illustrate a fundamental shift” in the war, said Jared Malsin and Suha Ma’ayeh in The Wall Street Journal. The hard-line Revolutionary Guard “exerts more power than ever in Tehran,” and “has grown more assertive and more comfortable with a state of war that could continue for months.” It suits them better than a peace in which they’d have to confront public anger over Iran’s “struggling economy.” Their “zero sum” stance makes any agreement to end the war even more remote, and “heightens the risk of more-frequent rounds of escalation.”

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Trump has been told that “a return to major combat operations would be a hugely risky endeavor,” said Eric Schmitt and Jonathan Swan in The New York Times. At a meeting with Cabinet members and top advisers last month, Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman Gen. Dan Caine warned such an offensive would “dangerously deplete” the military’s stockpile of air defense munitions. Trump and aides “are also uneasy” about a widening war alienating Gulf allies vulnerable to Iranian attack, and a “growing energy crisis.” Sources say “few if any in Trump’s inner circle” believed “escalation was wise.”

That interceptor shortage could put “American troops at more risk,” said Ben Finley in the Associated Press. Our stockpile of Patriot interceptors has fallen from 2,330 before the war to as low as 759, according to the Center for Strategic and International Studies. And our stash of 452 THAAD interceptors has dropped by nearly 40%. To conserve inventories, the U.S. could “take more risks,” such as firing two rather than the standard three interceptors at incoming missiles. That might prove fatal for soldiers on the ground: Last month, three U.S. soldiers were killed in Jordan after an Iranian missile slipped through air defenses.

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Meanwhile, growing hostilities between Iran and Ukraine show the war’s potential to “go global,” said Gideon Rachman in the Financial Times. Ukraine recently sank an Iranian vessel in the Caspian Sea it said was ferrying military cargo to Russia, drawing threats of retaliation from Tehran. Iran has supplied Russia with drones that have “killed a great many Ukrainians”; Ukraine says Russia in turn has given Iran intelligence to target American military assets. That “Ukrainians are clashing directly with Iran” is an ominous step toward a wider conflagration.

Trump is in a bind, said Andrew Egger in The Bulwark. Through months of negotiation, Iran has offered “a steady, ironclad” position, insisting on an end to sanctions, no nuclear concessions, and control of the Strait of Hormuz. Our flailing president has toggled between “two demonstrably failed positions: If we bomb the hell out of them, they’ll give us what we want. If we stop bombing them, they’ll give us what we want.” While he vacillates in the vain search for an exit strategy, the damage mounts. “Petroleum reserves, missile stockpiles, global trust in the U.S.-led world order—these are finite resources that are all being spent down at alarming rates.”

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