U.S. Resumes Strikes Against Iran

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If you haven't read David's post from earlier today you should do that. The very short version is that Iran has attacked three ships in the Strait of Hormuz over the past 24 hours, including one belonging to Qatar and one belonging to Saudi Arabia. That led to another warning from President Trump just yesterday. "We're going to win one way or the other” Trump said.

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Iran responded with an announcement that they wanted a "service fee" from every ship passing through the Strait. That was not the response Trump was looking for and so this afternoon the bombs have started dropping again.

U.S. Central Command forces have begun launching a series of powerful strikes against Iran to impose heavy costs for targeting and attacking commercial shipping crewed by innocent civilians in an international waterway. The U.S. strikes are in response to Iranian attacks on three commercial vessels that were transiting the Strait of Hormuz. Iran’s demonstrated aggression was unwarranted, dangerous, and a clear violation of the ceasefire.

The NY Times suggests the Iranians are upset about the U.S. ushering ships through a channel close to Oman.

Tehran has not claimed responsibility for the ship attacks, and there was no immediate public comment from the authorities in Iran, where a dayslong program of funeral ceremonies is underway for Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader who was killed on the first day of the war. Negotiations between Iran and the United States have been paused until after the funeral.

Although the United States and Iran have agreed to restore access to the strait — with President Trump declaring the waterway open to unrestricted navigation — the preliminary accord does not stipulate exactly how that should happen, and assigns to Iran the task of allowing the long-blocked traffic to get through. Iran has insisted that commercial ships sail near its shore, in a channel under Iran’s control, but many vessels are using American help to take a route near the Omani coast.

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Some video is already appearing.

There's no official word on the targets yet but there are some leaks. 

Strikes are expected to go on for some time.

So we'll have to wait and see how long this lasts and how Iran responds. My guess is they will respond by shutting down the Strait again, which is clearly what they want to do. The MOU bought them time to organize for the next attack. 

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