WASHINGTON<\/p>\n
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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.<\/p>\n
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US President Donald Trump warned that he could order strikes on the petroleum infrastructure of Iran\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n
Trump paired his ultimatum with a social media post saying the United States had \u201ctotally obliterated\u201d military targets on the island, the export terminal for 90% of Iran\u2019s oil shipments, which lies about 300 miles (483 km) northwest of the strait.<\/p>\n
US strikes did not target Kharg\u2019s oil infrastructure, but \u201cshould 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,\u201d Trump wrote.<\/p>\n
Iran had no ability to defend against US attacks, the president added. \u201cIran\u2019s Military, and all others involved with this Terrorist Regime, would be wise to lay down their arms, and save what\u2019s left of their country, which isn\u2019t much!\u201d, he posted on Truth Social.<\/p>\n
In response to Trump, Tehran hinted on Saturday at expanding the maelstrom of destruction to the Gulf region\u2019s energy infrastructure.<\/p>\n
Iran\u2019s armed forces said any strike on their country\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n
Iran\u2019s\u00a0semi-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.<\/p>\n
Markets were watching for any sign that US strikes had damaged the island\u2019s intricate network of pipelines, terminals and storage tanks. Even minor disruptions could further tighten global supply, adding pressure to an already volatile market.<\/p>\n
Some energy industry observers expressed doubts that Kharg\u2019s oil facilities would stay intact.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
Oil prices have swung sharply on Trump\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n
Lebanon became an escalating flashpoint in the war with Israel\u2019s military and Hezbollah forces exchanging strikes in and around Beirut.<\/p>\n
In addition to Iran\u2019s missile and aerial drone attacks on Israel and Gulf state allies of the US, Iran\u2019s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has sought to disrupt shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, a conduit for 20% of the world\u2019s fossil energy supplies.<\/p>\n
Trump told reporters on Friday the US Navy will \u201csoon\u201d start escorting tankers through the waterway.<\/p>\n
Although he has previously said the war would last only weeks, Trump on Friday declined to publicly project an end date for the conflict.<\/p>\n
\u201cI can\u2019t tell you that,\u201d he said to reporters. \u201cI mean, I have my own idea, but what good does it do? It\u2019ll be as long as it\u2019s necessary.\u201d Iran continued to export crude oil while other producers in the Gulf halted their shipments for fear of Iranian attacks.<\/p>\n
Bob McNally, president of Rapidan Energy Group, said Trump\u2019s comments on Friday \u201cwill focus the market\u2019s mind on pathways that this energy disruption, already history\u2019s largest, could expand and last longer.\u201d<\/p>\n
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 \u00a0time in decades of Middle East conflicts found itself on the front line. Several million people have been displaced from their homes.<\/p>\n
Still there does not seem to be an end in sight to the war. US-Israeli strikes killed Iran\u2019s 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\u2019s frontlines.<\/p>\n
The initial US victory in killing supreme leader Ali Khamenei has given way to a conflict that Washington cannot completely control, sharply limiting Trump\u2019s options.<\/p>\n
Iran still holds many cards as it chokes the world\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n
The government was decapitated but decentralised \u201cmosaic defence\u201d allowed the military to retaliate without losing much of a step.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe regime seems pretty intact, despite the fact that it has lost some very senior leaders,\u201d said Ali Vaez, Iran project director at International Crisis Group.<\/p>\n
That allows Tehran to roll out a \u201cthree-part strategy,\u201d Vaez said: \u201cFirst, ensure survival. Second, keep enough retaliatory capacity to be able to stay in the fight. And then third was to prolong the conflict\u201d so that \u201cyou can end it on your terms.\u201d<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe knew that this will open up a Pandora\u2019s box of chaos,\u201d said the Gulf International Forum\u2019s Aziz Alghashian, a Saudi analyst.<\/p>\n
He also said there was \u201canger\u201d among Gulf states that had put \u201cso much investment in\u201d diplomacy with Iran.<\/p>\n
The worldwide fallout has sparked questions over Washington\u2019s strategy.<\/p>\n
Trump has called for Iran\u2019s \u201cunconditional surrender,\u201d while Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth has said the operation\u2019s goals are \u201claser focused,\u201d as the administration dodges questions over the war\u2019s ill-defined, shifting objectives.<\/p>\n
Jonathan Paquin, a political science professor at Canada\u2019s Universite Laval, said \u201cThe American administration was undoubtedly presumptuous in believing it held all the cards.\u201d<\/p>\n
In the short term, Tehran still has plenty of pressure points it can hit via oil and shipping threats, including via Yemen\u2019s Houthi rebels, who previously disrupted shipping through the Red Sea with their own missile attacks.<\/p>\n
Iran is taking \u201cthe global economy hostage\u201d as a means of \u201cputting pressure on Trump,\u201d said Crisis Group\u2019s Vaez.<\/p>\n
With no easy exit, Trump is likely to \u201crevise the concept of victory, setting aside the prospect of surrender or regime change\u201d and claiming that the Iranian should rise up on their own, said Paquin.<\/p>\n
But while Trump might want to walk away boasting of killing Khamenei and degrading the Iranian military, \u201cIran might not give him that off-ramp,\u201d said Nate Swanson, of the Atlantic Council.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WASHINGTON \u00a0 The US-Israel war on Iran entered Saturday its third week with no end in sight to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":522987,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,3,21,19,22,20,25,24],"class_list":["post-522986","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-states","tag-america","tag-news","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/522986","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=522986"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/522986\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/522987"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=522986"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=522986"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=522986"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}