"The U.S. Military Might Just Finish The Job"

"[The U.S. strikes were in response to the attacks on shipping]; if it happens again, it will get much worse!" 

"Anything that happens is going to happen very fast." 

"[The U.S. military might] just finish the job."

U.S. President Donald J. Trump  

 

"He made it very clear that, based on the assessments of CENTCOM -- and I remember those -- the expectation was much higher as far as Iran's ability to close the Strait of Hormuz or the scope of the attacks. So it really shows that CENTCOM has been able to really effectively degrade those operations by the Iranians."

"Oil is flowing out of the Strait of Hormuz. There were -- U.S. energy secretary today said that 15 million barrels of oil is coming out of the Strait of Hormuz. There were oil tankers that were coming out of the Strait of Hormuz last night, kind of coming closer to the coast of Oman."

"So, Iranians' ability has been degraded to really -- to do what they were able to do at the beginning. And I think if you continue with these strikes, you're going to see that Iranians kind of that -- the arm of their threat to the Strait of Hormuz being rolled back."

"I think CENTCOM has the ability to do it. I think you're going to see these airstrikes continue to target those launching pads, naval assets, and then it could be possible that CENTCOM, U.S. Central Command or NAVCENT, they're going to get more involved in escorting the ships out of the Strait of Hormuz."

Miad Maleki, Foundation for the Defense of Democracies  

United States President Donald Trump arrives aboard Air Force One at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York, July 17, 2026. / AP PHOTO/JACQUELYN MARTIN

 

Tehran has been targeting American assets (military bases) across the Middle East, reflecting the largest escalation in hostilities since the signing of the Memorandum of Understanding between the United States and the Iranian regime that put a halt to the conflict initiated jointly by the U.S. and Israel in February aerial assaults. A month following the MOA signing Iran has accused US. forces of hitting civilian and energy infrastructure, including an airport, a railway station and two bridges. 

 

State media reported eight dead and 20 wounded in Friday overnight attacks.

 

It takes a bit of naive credulity to imagine the Islamic Republic being concerned over eight of its citizens dead and 20 wounded in view of its record of habitually treating its own as enemy combatants when Iranians from time to time converge in public to denounce the regime for its overwhelming human rights abuses practised against its own population. Its defense of its population against the strikes imposed by a foreign power far more concerned over the welfare of long-suffering Iranians than their government is ludicrous.

 

American strikes have expanded, focusing on Iranian infrastructure, as promised by the U.S. President. Citizens were informed by their energy ministry to reduce  electricity usage, switch off air conditioners during peak hours in view of the fact that the power grid is under strain from what it identified as American strikes on energy facilities in southern Iran. Hard to estimate how much more inconvenient this is for Iranians than the total closing of internet imposed by the regime during the height of the protests opposing the regime back in January.

 

Smoke rises from an Israeli attack on the Sharam Oil Depot in Tehran, Iran  June 15, 2026  West Asia News Agency, Reuters

 

 In view of the renewed attacks by the U.S. military following Iran's continued striking of ships transiting the Strait of Hormuz, the Iranian military threatened strikes against "all infrastructure across the region" would follow any strikes on its own infrastructure. Friday saw it launching widespread strikes on its Gulf neighbours, following an exchange of fire, the largest since the MOA was signed a month earlier. U.S. military sites in Kuwait were targeted Friday, a power and water plant damaged by an Iranian attack. Kuwait in turn urged its citizens to "ration their electricity consumption".

 

The Islamic Revolutionary Guards claimed to have targeted US. radar systems and military aircraft in Qatar to "punish the aggressor". Doha, on the other hand, stated the missile attack had been intercepted. Two American radar sites in Oman as well as the Al-Tanf military base in Syria were also attacked by the IRGC. The Syrian military, however, denied that claim, noting that U.S. forces had withdrawn from the base earlier in the year.

 

According to the Jordanian military, three Iranian missiles had been shot down (forgetting to mention that it was Israel that shot them down for Jordan). In Iraq, Kurdish forces explained that the U.S.-led coalition had shot down several drones over Erbil. Iraq's Kurdistan region saw strikes that killed eight members of an Iranian Kurdish armed opposition group, by an Iranian attack. Tehran targeted US. helicopters and planes at an airbase in Bahrain, according to Iranian state media, causing the island nation to urge its citizens to take shelter. 

 

Tehran and Washington have been trading fire for eight days following a  battle over the Strait of Hormuz. According to Iran's health ministry at least 38 people were killed and over 400 injured in the country with the resumption of fighting. This, from a regime that has most recently murdered thousands of its citizens in December/January, injured and imprisoned many thousands more, who had called for their reviled, persecuting government to stand down.