The Situation Room - July 8th

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I’m Atlas, and welcome to The Situation Room! We cover the most high impact geopolitical developments every Wednesday!

Today’s topics:

• U.S. Renews Strikes Against Iran In Retaliation For Strikes Against Tankers

• French Presidential Candidate Re-Enters Presidential Race Following New Court Order

• Prominent British MP Resigns Due To Financial Misuse Allegations

U.S. Renews Strikes Against Iran In Retaliation For Strikes Against Tankers

_{By: Atlas}

The U.S. military began firing on Iran early Wednesday, hours after three commercial ships were struck in the Strait of Hormuz, shattering more than a week of relative calm and putting the interim deal to end the war back in doubt. Central Command called the strikes "powerful" and cast them as payback for attacks on civilian shipping. Explosions were heard across southern Iran within the hour.

The move came the same day Washington scrapped a sanctions waiver that had let Iran sell its oil, a one-two punch that ratcheted pressure on Tehran even as negotiators kept insisting a final settlement was still within reach. Oil prices climbed more than two percent.

The Strikes

Central Command announced the operation on X, saying its forces had begun "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 strikes, it said, answered Iranian attacks on three vessels in the strait. "Iran's demonstrated aggression was unwarranted, dangerous, and a clear violation of the ceasefire," the command added.

What exactly the Americans hit was not immediately clear. Iranian media reported explosions on the island of Qeshm and seven blasts in the city of Sirik, with more heard at the port of Bandar Abbas. State outlets said six projectiles struck the area of the Taheroui pier in Sirik. No casualties were reported on either side in the initial hours.

This was the first known U.S. strike on Iran since late last month, when a similar round of Iranian attacks on shipping drew American retaliation and a matching Iranian response before both sides agreed to stand down. The pattern repeated itself almost exactly.

What Set It Off

The trigger was a cluster of attacks on tankers moving through the strait Monday and Tuesday. Britain's Maritime Trade Operations center said an unknown projectile hit a tanker overnight, sparking a fire in an engine room off the coast of Oman. Two more ships were struck Tuesday, one as it exited the strait near the Omani-Emirati border, another by a drone. All three continued on their way. The U.N. International Maritime Organization called it the most attacks in the waterway in a single day since late April.

Two Gulf states named their ships and pointed the finger squarely at Tehran. Qatar said its liquefied natural gas tanker Al-Rekayyat was hit in what its foreign ministry spokesman, Majed Al-Ansari, called an "unacceptable attack" and a "serious and explicit violation" of international law. Doha summoned Iran's deputy ambassador, demanded an explanation, and said it held Iran "fully legally responsible." Saudi Arabia said its tanker Wadyan was also targeted, calling the assaults an attack on the safety of international navigation and global energy supplies.

Iran did not claim the strikes on the ships. Its foreign ministry spokesman, Esmail Baghaei, addressed only Qatar's accusation, calling it contrary to good neighborliness and warning that vessels using routes not coordinated with Tehran, or tampering with their tracking, risk collision. Iran voiced "dismay" at Doha's claims through its state news agency.

A Fight Over the Waterway

Underneath the exchange lies a dispute over who controls the strait, the channel that carried about a fifth of the world's oil and gas in peacetime. All three tankers were hit close to Oman, which had proposed a transit corridor hugging its southern coastline. Iran opposes that route. It has repeatedly declared that only its own approved passage to the north is safe, and it wants ships to register with Tehran and eventually pay fees, a break with decades of free navigation.

The Joint Maritime Information Center, overseen by the U.S. Navy, told shippers Monday that the Oman route "has been expanded and remains available for all traffic." Ships heading north work with Iran; those heading south work with Oman and the United States. The data firm Kpler counted at least 108 crossings over the weekend using various routes. Andreas Krieg, a security analyst at King's College London, said Iran was sending a clear signal that no alternative to its own toll system would be tolerated, and that tankers diverging through the Omani corridor without registering would be punished.

Washington and its Gulf partners have said flatly they will not accept Iran charging for passage. Under the 14-point memorandum signed last month, Iran and Oman are supposed to hold talks with other Gulf states to define how the waterway is administered.

The Deal Under Strain

The strikes landed on an agreement that has survived several skirmishes but keeps getting tested. The memorandum of understanding reached in June halted fighting on all fronts, reopened the strait, barred Iran from ever obtaining a nuclear weapon, and set up a $300 billion reconstruction fund, one the United States is not obligated to finance. Both sides gave themselves 60 days to reach a permanent deal.

Hours before the strikes, the Treasury Department canceled the license that had authorized Iran to produce, sell, and deliver oil through late August, allowing a wind-down period until July 17. U.S. sanctions on Iranian oil have stood since the 1979 revolution, and the waiver had been extended at least twice as an incentive during the talks. A U.S. official, speaking anonymously, said Iran's conduct in the strait was unacceptable and would carry consequences, but insisted negotiators were still working "in good faith" toward a final deal, describing the memorandum as "entirely performance-based."

Tehran read both moves as breaches. Its foreign ministry said revoking the license violated the interim deal and that "the U.S. government bears responsibility for the consequences." Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi called the new strikes a violation as well.

The timing sharpened the moment. President Trump was in Turkey for the NATO summit, where he met President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, while talks with Iran appeared frozen until after the burial of the late Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, killed on the war's first day, February 28. His body reached Najaf, Iraq, late Tuesday, with processions planned in Najaf and Karbala before burial Thursday in Mashhad. His son and successor, Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, believed wounded in the strike that killed his father, has still not appeared at the funeral. For now, the war that the memorandum was meant to wind down is once again live, its ceasefire holding by a thread and the strait still contested.

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