Hardliners in Tehran are pressing for further military and nuclear escalation despite mounting economic pressure and a widening confrontation with the United States. Is it a reckless gamble, or a realistic response to Iran’s dwindling options?
Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthis seized the Red Sea port city of Mocha on Thursday as the US-Iran conflict widened across the region, while senior White House advisers reportedly warned President Donald Trump that the war could continue beyond the end of his term in January 2029.
Iran is seeking to turn the US maritime blockade back on Washington by expanding its retaliation beyond the Strait of Hormuz, threatening shipping across a wider area after US attacks on Iranian tankers.
The escalating battle between Saudi Arabia and the Iran-backed Houthis may be a test of what remains of Tehran’s Axis of Resistance after months of war and mounting pressure on Iran itself.
Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthis attacked energy facilities and cities in southern Saudi Arabia on Tuesday, wounding at least 73 people and raising fears of a wider regional war.
Canada backed efforts led by the United States, France and Britain to reopen the Strait of Hormuz and pledged further measures against Iran, the government said on Sunday.
The United States conducted a covert four-month operation to clear mines from the Strait of Hormuz, deploying Navy SEAL divers, robotic boats and specialized underwater craft mostly at night, the Financial Times reported.
The United States is investigating whether its forces were responsible for a deadly strike on a wedding in southern Iran, Vice President JD Vance said Thursday, as evidence emerged suggesting the building may have been directly hit by a US munition.
Iran’s hardline Kayhan newspaper urged Iran’s military and the Islamic Revolutionary Guards on Thursday to disrupt or sever international fiber-optic cables running beneath the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz to pressure the United States and its allies.
Russia has secretly helped Iran develop supersonic cruise missile technology that experts say could give Tehran a new way to threaten US Navy vessels in the Middle East, the Financial Times reported, citing leaked Russian correspondence, travel records and military patents.
Iran’s ability to export fresh crude has fallen close to zero under the US maritime blockade, according to Kpler, just as Washington begins targeting the foreign banking networks Tehran relies on to collect the proceeds.
Persian Gulf states are accelerating billions of dollars in investment in ports, pipelines and railways to reduce their dependence on the Strait of Hormuz after months of disruption during the Iran war, Reuters reported Friday.
Iran will target US economic interests if Washington maintains its maritime blockade, Supreme National Security Council Secretary Mohsen Rezaei said Thursday, as the Trump administration steps up efforts to tighten Iran’s economic isolation.
A senior adviser to the commander of Iran's Revolutionary Guards said Tehran could deliberately prolong the war until US President Donald Trump leaves office to wear down its adversaries and deter future attacks.
Oil has reached mangrove forests on Iran's Qeshm island while a separate vast slick spreads toward Oman's coast, raising fears of environmental damage in waters already disrupted by war.
Saudi Aramco is routing crude around the Strait of Hormuz via its East-West pipeline as the Iran-related crisis has cut shipping through the strait to a tenth of pre-conflict levels, Chief Executive Amin Nasser said on Tuesday.
Iran is expected to receive within weeks the first shipment of up to 400 Chinese-made shoulder-fired air-defense missile launchers under a deal worth $60 million-$70 million, three sources familiar with the agreement told Reuters.
President Donald Trump’s increasingly explicit threats of a wider Iran war have fueled anxiety and speculation inside the country, as analysts and social media users debate whether the conflict is approaching a more destructive and unpredictable phase.
Donald Trump's short-lived proposal to charge cargo transiting the Strait of Hormuz has handed Tehran an unexpected argument: that Washington itself briefly accepted the principle that securing the strategic waterway could justify collecting fees.
An Iranian plane landing in Houthi-controlled Yemen looked like an oddly minor victory for Tehran. But it may have been the opening move in an effort to rebuild the allied force capable of threatening a second global maritime chokepoint alongside the Strait of Hormuz.
The Iran war has yet to trigger an exodus of entrepreneurs from the Persian Gulf, but falling investment, rising costs and slower funding are beginning to test the region’s heavily financed startup strategy, Bloomberg reported on Tuesday.
As Ali Khamenei’s coffin is carried through days of state-orchestrated mourning, the Islamic Republic is trying to recast a humiliating wartime death as martyrdom, continuity and power, and repair a system wounded by war and public distrust.