The Strait of Hormuz became the center of the U.S.–Israel war with Iran during the week ending Sunday, July 12, 2026. What began as a dispute over navigation routes and Iranian control of shipping escalated into three major rounds of American strikes, renewed Iranian attacks on neighboring countries, severe disruption to commercial traffic and an increasingly dangerous test of whether Iran can use the world’s energy supply as leverage against the United States.

The immediate escalation followed Iranian attacks on three commercial vessels: the Marshall Islands-flagged tanker Al Rekayyat, the Saudi-flagged tanker Wedyan and the Liberian-flagged tanker Cyprus Prosperity. The ships were traveling through the strait using routes intended to avoid Iranian territorial waters. Washington called the attacks a clear violation of the cease-fire and a direct threat to international commerce. (⁠Central Command)

On July 7, U.S. Central Command launched the first major retaliatory round, hitting more than 80 Iranian targets with precision weapons. CENTCOM identified air-defense systems, command-and-control networks, coastal radars, anti-ship missile capabilities and more than 60 Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps small boats among the targets. The purpose was not simply punishment. The United States was systematically attacking the network Iran uses to locate ships, communicate targeting information and launch missiles, drones or armed boats against vessels passing through Hormuz. (⁠Central Command)

A second major American round followed, and the campaign intensified dramatically over the weekend. Early Sunday, July 12, CENTCOM said it struck approximately 140 targets, including missile and drone launch sites, ammunition-storage facilities, communications equipment, naval assets and surveillance systems. Associated Press reporting described this as substantially larger than the previous two rounds. The combined official total for the week exceeded 300 Iranian military targets, although the Pentagon had not released a corresponding number of aircraft sorties or individual combat missions. (⁠AP News)

American forces struck again later Sunday. Iranian authorities reported attacks on military positions on Qeshm Island, the large Iranian island overlooking the strait, as well as explosions around Bandar Abbas and Hajiabad. A U.S. official said the additional attacks targeted missile systems, air defenses and IRGC small boats at several locations around Hormuz. Iranian authorities said there were no casualties on Qeshm, although semiofficial Iranian media reported that a naval officer had been killed elsewhere. (⁠AP News)

Reports during the week also described American attacks on transportation infrastructure, including a railway bridge in Golestan Province and two bridges on routes toward Mashhad. The full damage remains unclear. Iran said the bridges were attacked, but neither CENTCOM nor independent satellite assessments had established that all were permanently destroyed. Their likely military value was their role in transporting personnel, missiles, ammunition and equipment, but Washington has not publicly explained the operational reasoning behind each bridge target.

Iran responded on several fronts. The IRGC claimed authority to direct shipping through approved routes and said vessels ignoring Iranian instructions could be stopped or attacked. On Sunday, a Cyprus-flagged container ship traveling near Oman was hit and suffered major engine-room damage. Oman rescued 23 crew members, while an Indian crewman remained missing. Iran described the attack as a warning action against a vessel that refused its directions. The United States treated it as another unlawful assault on civilian shipping. (⁠AP News)

Tehran then declared the Strait of Hormuz closed until regional calm was restored. President Donald Trump and CENTCOM rejected that declaration. The American military said more than 140 vessels had transited the strait during the preceding week, although traffic was far below normal. Before the war, nearly 140 vessels reportedly passed through daily, and approximately one-fifth of the world’s traded oil and natural gas moved through the waterway. (⁠AP News)

The distinction is important. Iran may be unable to create an airtight physical blockade, but missile attacks, mines, drones and threats can still cause shipowners, insurers and crews to avoid the area. Reuters reported tanker traffic approaching a standstill during the week as attacks undermined confidence in the cease-fire. (⁠Reuters)

Iran also attacked countries hosting American forces. Qatar said its military intercepted Iranian fire; three people, including a child, were wounded by interception debris. Missile warnings sounded in Bahrain, home of the U.S. Navy’s Fifth Fleet. Kuwait said three northern border posts and an offshore oil-drilling platform were damaged, injuring one worker. Three Iranian missiles struck Jordan, causing minor damage but no reported injuries. Oman reported drone attacks near the strait and summoned the Iranian ambassador, calling Tehran’s actions irresponsible. Sirens sounded in the United Arab Emirates, although Emirati authorities said missiles in that incident did not enter UAE territory. (⁠AP News)

The Arab governments therefore became active military participants in defensive terms. Qatar, Kuwait and other states tracked or intercepted incoming weapons, protected American facilities and activated national air-defense systems. However, no Arab government publicly confirmed launching a new offensive bombing campaign against Iran during this particular week. Their approach combined armed defense, diplomatic protests and support for mediation.

Oman remained the central mediator. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi and Omani Foreign Minister Sayyid Badr Albusaidi discussed mechanisms for safe passage through Hormuz, while Oman said technical and political talks would continue. Pakistan, Qatar and Egypt also continued efforts to prevent the temporary agreement from collapsing completely. (⁠Reuters)

The United States demanded that Iran publicly acknowledge that all shipping channels would remain open, that vessels would not be attacked and that Iran would impose no tolls. American officials said Iran blamed some earlier attacks on an “errant” element within its system, suggesting a struggle between hardliners and pragmatists. Washington also maintained its broader demand that Iran surrender more than 900 pounds of highly enriched uranium. (⁠Reuters)

Israel was less visible in the publicly acknowledged Hormuz operations, which were led primarily by the United States. Nevertheless, Israel remained part of the broader war, continuing pressure on Iran’s military network and Iranian-backed forces in Lebanon. Explosions reported inside Iran on July 9 were not attributed to the United States, and Israeli officials warned that the war was not finished, but Israel did not publicly claim every unexplained attack. (⁠Al Jazeera)

Iran’s Kurdish opposition groups remained armed and positioned largely across the border in Iraqi Kurdistan, but no major Kurdish invasion of western Iran was confirmed during the week. They continued to represent a potential internal front if Iranian security forces weakened, yet fear of Iranian missile retaliation and uncertainty about sustained American support kept them from launching a general offensive.

By Sunday night, the United States had demonstrated overwhelming conventional superiority, but Iran continued to possess enough missiles, drones, mines and small craft to endanger ships and neighboring countries. The struggle was no longer merely over one container ship or one navigation lane. It had become a contest over who controls Hormuz, whether Iran can intimidate global commerce, and whether American military dominance can force Tehran’s divided leadership to accept a settlement before the conflict expands into a still wider regional war.

Copied from my friend in San Diego: President Trump is cutting Iran’s land links with Russia and China. He is conducting siege warfare on a global level. Iran is being systematically cut off from military aid, infra structure repair, currency stabilization and basic services like, water and electricity. Think of Iran as a fortress under seige.

History shows that siege warfare is overwhelming successful against castles and fortified cities, if the attacker has time, logistics, and the defender has no outside relief from other forces.

In the new asymmetrical war, sanctions, blockades, bombing campaigns, blockading sea ports, bombing rail ways, Trump has evolved a medieval concept into a modern strategic environment

Siege warfare has a long history: an attacking force surrounds a fortified enemy, cuts supply lines, and uses time, hunger, and psychological pressure to force surrender rather than relying only on open battle.

The classic example is Julius Caesar’s siege of Alesia in 52 BCE, where Roman legions encircled the Gallic leader Vercingetorix inside a hill‑fort, built extensive fortifications, and slowly starved the defenders until they capitulated, effectively ending large‑scale Gallic resistance and securing Rome’s control over Gaul.

Trump’s current approach to Iran resembles a modern, indirect siege: maximum economic sanctions, restrictions on oil exports, financial isolation, and military pressure around key chokepoints like the Strait of Hormuz. The logic is similar to ancient sieges: deny resources, raise the cost of resistance, and convince Iran’s leadership that capitulation to U.S. terms is preferable to prolonged suffering.

In Trump’s first term, maximum pressure hurt Iran’s economy but did not produce capitulation. This time Trump has three more years to isolate Iran.

In medieval times sieges were lifted by relief armies or failed because the besiegers ran out of money, supplies, or political will, long before the defenders starved. The state of Iran is the medieval city and America is Rome. America has the time, money, military and will to force Iran into unconditional surrender.

The U.S. Air Force has surgically dismantled the Aq Tekeh Khan railway bridge in Iran’s Golestan province, effectively severing a critical land-based artery that linked Tehran to Russia and China.

By vaporizing this rail link, Washington has signaled that it’s not just squeezing Iran’s navy in the Strait of Hormuz, it’s systematically strangling the regime’s entire land-based logistical network.

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The corridor Iran relies on competes directly with the Middle Corridor (Trans-Caspian International Transport Route), which runs China to Kazakhstan to the Caspian Sea to Azerbaijan to Georgia to Turkey, bypassing both Russia and Iran entirely. Turkey controls the corridor's western terminus and the Bosphorus.

Since Hormuz became unreliable, container traffic on the Middle Corridor has increased. That's why Trump was so kind to Erdogan last week.

Trump continues to be an enigma, no one not even his advisors knows what he will do in Iran.

“How do you Know Trump is lying?” Answer, “his lips are moving.”

Trump’s immediate objectives are: to keep Iran economically strangled, to sharply degrade its military and regional power projection, and to extract a face‑saving agreement he can present as “victory,” all while avoiding the political and military costs of a massive ground war. He will continue to sign and than break any Memorandum of Understanding that fails to denuclearize Iran, and remove the Islamic Revolutionary Guard as a political power.

So long as there is no clear, large‑scale attack on U.S. territory that kills Americans, President Trump will continue a grinding war of attrition and siege against Iran rather than launch an all‑out invasion.

Sanctions, financial restrictions, and energy chokepoints are slowly erode Iran’s economic base, undermining its ability to fund the IRGC, missile programs, and regional proxies. It is estimated that only 20% of the population of Iran supports the IRGC.

Periodic airstrikes and stand‑off missile attacks keep Iran off balance militarily, forcing it to devote resources to air defense, dispersal, and infrastructure repair rather than offensive capabilities. Naval deployments in and around the Strait of Hormuz signal that the United States can further tighten or loosen the noose, depending on Tehran’s behavior.

This strategy allows Trump to maintain a posture of toughness without committing to a single decisive escalation that could spiral beyond his control. He can threaten “destruction in one night,” float options like seizing strategic locations, and then dial back at the last moment, claiming that pressure has already forced Iran to the table.

This keeps both adversaries and domestic audiences guessing, but the underlying structure remains the same: Iran is placed under sustained economic and military siege, with the promise of relief only if it accepts U.S. conditions on nuclear and governing issues.

The crucial conditional is a mass‑casualty attack on Americans. If Iran, or forces clearly directed by it, were to carry out a dramatic strike that killed significant numbers of U.S. civilians on American soil, or a high‑visibility massacre of U.S. troops, or a successful assassination of Trump the political logic would change.

Under those circumstances, the President would be under intense pressure from his base, Congress, and the national security establishment to respond in a way that looks unmistakably decisive, including large‑scale strikes on leadership targets, command infrastructure, or even more ambitious military operations.

Short of that, Trump has strong incentives to stay in the attritional lane: it is coercive but comparatively contained, painful for Iran but more manageable for the United States and its allies.

A siege strategy means months of hardship for Iran, currency decay, constrained oil exports, intermittent bombing, cyber operations, and pressure on allied militias, combined with periodic negotiating flurries. Trump can adjust the intensity of sanctions enforcement, the tempo of strikes, and the strictness of maritime controls to reward or punish Tehran’s moves, always framing any concession as something he has extracted through maximum pressure.

Unless an unmistakable attack on Americans forces Trump’s hand, the war of attrition is the path that best leads to his stated goal of denuclearizing Iran and removing the IRGC as a credible threat.