Iran strikes US bases as Trump vows to reinstate sea blockade

Iran's military on Tuesday released footage said to show missiles being launched earlier that day towards U.S. bases in the region.

The U.S. launched strikes on Iran early Tuesday, hours after President Donald Trump vowed to reinstate an American blockade of Iranian ports and charge ships for safe passage through the Strait of Hormuz.

Iran responded with attacks on Middle East allies of the U.S.

The actions leave in tatters an interim deal meant to pause the fighting, reopen a waterway that is a crucial passage for the world’s energy supplies, and give negotiators time to hammer out a permanent end to the war.

Instead, fighting has once again engulfed the region and threatened the global economy. Unless a diplomatic solution is found quickly, it could intensify into all-out war.

The focus of the conflict now is the strait, through which a fifth of all traded crude oil and natural gas passed in peacetime.

Iran effectively shut the passage during the war by attacking and threatening ships — a tactic that proved its greatest strategic advantage since it sent the price of oil, fertilizer and other goods soaring at a time when world leaders were already struggling to address a rising cost of living.

The interim deal was supposed to reopen the waterway, but Iran has attacked some ships moving through the strait.

The U.S. has now threatened to reopen the strait by force — but experts say that will require a much bigger armada if not tens of thousands of American troops on Iranian soil. It’s possible Trump will back down, as he has previously.