WASHINGTON
The US-Israel war on Iran entered Saturday its third week with no end in sight to the conflict which threatens to further worsen the energy crisis it has already sparked.
US President Donald Trump warned that he could order strikes on the petroleum infrastructure of Iran’s Kharg Island oil hub unless Tehran stopped attacking vessels in the vital Strait of Hormuz, a signal that could further roil markets already coping with a historic disruption in supply.
Trump paired his ultimatum with a social media post saying the United States had “totally obliterated” military targets on the island, the export terminal for 90% of Iran’s oil shipments, which lies about 300 miles (483 km) northwest of the strait.
US strikes did not target Kharg’s oil infrastructure, but “should Iran, or anyone else, do anything to interfere with the Free and Safe Passage of Ships through the Strait of Hormuz, I will immediately reconsider this decision,” Trump wrote.
Iran had no ability to defend against US attacks, the president added. “Iran’s Military, and all others involved with this Terrorist Regime, would be wise to lay down their arms, and save what’s left of their country, which isn’t much!”, he posted on Truth Social.
In response to Trump, Tehran hinted on Saturday at expanding the maelstrom of destruction to the Gulf region’s energy infrastructure.
Iran’s armed forces said any strike on their country’s oil and energy infrastructure would lead to strikes on facilities owned by oil companies cooperating with the United States in the region, Iranian media reported.
Iran’s semi-official Fars news agency reported, citing sources, that more than 15 explosions were heard on Kharg Island during the US attacks. The sources said the attacks targeted air defences, a naval base, and airport facilities, but caused no damage to oil infrastructure.
Markets were watching for any sign that US strikes had damaged the island’s intricate network of pipelines, terminals and storage tanks. Even minor disruptions could further tighten global supply, adding pressure to an already volatile market.
Some energy industry observers expressed doubts that Kharg’s oil facilities would stay intact.
On Friday, the Israeli military said its air force had struck more than 200 targets in western and central Iran over the past day, including ballistic missile launchers, air-defence systems and weapons production sites.
Oil prices have swung sharply on Trump’s changing comments about the likely duration of the war, which began on February 28 with massive US and Israeli bombardments of Iran and quickly spread into a regional conflict with broad consequences for worldwide energy and stock markets.
Lebanon became an escalating flashpoint in the war with Israel’s military and Hezbollah forces exchanging strikes in and around Beirut.
In addition to Iran’s missile and aerial drone attacks on Israel and Gulf state allies of the US, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has sought to disrupt shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, a conduit for 20% of the world’s fossil energy supplies.
Trump told reporters on Friday the US Navy will “soon” start escorting tankers through the waterway.
Although he has previously said the war would last only weeks, Trump on Friday declined to publicly project an end date for the conflict.
“I can’t tell you that,” he said to reporters. “I mean, I have my own idea, but what good does it do? It’ll be as long as it’s necessary.” Iran continued to export crude oil while other producers in the Gulf halted their shipments for fear of Iranian attacks.
Bob McNally, president of Rapidan Energy Group, said Trump’s comments on Friday “will focus the market’s mind on pathways that this energy disruption, already history’s largest, could expand and last longer.”
After nearly two weeks of war, 2,000 people have been killed, most in Iran, but many in Lebanon and a growing number in the Gulf, which has for the first time in decades of Middle East conflicts found itself on the front line. Several million people have been displaced from their homes.
Still there does not seem to be an end in sight to the war. US-Israeli strikes killed Iran’s leader but have not toppled the government, which now, from its perch on the Strait of Hormuz, has put the entire world economy on the war’s frontlines.
The initial US victory in killing supreme leader Ali Khamenei has given way to a conflict that Washington cannot completely control, sharply limiting Trump’s options.
Iran still holds many cards as it chokes the world’s oil supply and strikes US allies in the Middle East, including Gulf states who had for years staked their reputations on political and economic stability.
The government was decapitated but decentralised “mosaic defence” allowed the military to retaliate without losing much of a step.
“The regime seems pretty intact, despite the fact that it has lost some very senior leaders,” said Ali Vaez, Iran project director at International Crisis Group.
That allows Tehran to roll out a “three-part strategy,” Vaez said: “First, ensure survival. Second, keep enough retaliatory capacity to be able to stay in the fight. And then third was to prolong the conflict” so that “you can end it on your terms.”
All of which spells trouble for Trump as the war draws in US allies and drives up the cost of living at home and abroad.
With its missiles and a vast supply of relatively cheap drones, Iran has expanded the war to US allies in the Gulf, Turkey, Cyprus and and elsewhere.
“We knew that this will open up a Pandora’s box of chaos,” said the Gulf International Forum’s Aziz Alghashian, a Saudi analyst.
He also said there was “anger” among Gulf states that had put “so much investment in” diplomacy with Iran.
The worldwide fallout has sparked questions over Washington’s strategy.
Trump has called for Iran’s “unconditional surrender,” while Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth has said the operation’s goals are “laser focused,” as the administration dodges questions over the war’s ill-defined, shifting objectives.
Jonathan Paquin, a political science professor at Canada’s Universite Laval, said “The American administration was undoubtedly presumptuous in believing it held all the cards.”
In the short term, Tehran still has plenty of pressure points it can hit via oil and shipping threats, including via Yemen’s Houthi rebels, who previously disrupted shipping through the Red Sea with their own missile attacks.
Iran is taking “the global economy hostage” as a means of “putting pressure on Trump,” said Crisis Group’s Vaez.
With no easy exit, Trump is likely to “revise the concept of victory, setting aside the prospect of surrender or regime change” and claiming that the Iranian should rise up on their own, said Paquin.
But while Trump might want to walk away boasting of killing Khamenei and degrading the Iranian military, “Iran might not give him that off-ramp,” said Nate Swanson, of the Atlantic Council.