Trump Widens His Iran War to a Ninth Straight Night as Tehran Strikes Kuwait and Bahrain
The administration’s expanding air campaign has shattered a signed ceasefire, drawn Iranian fire onto U.S. allies, and pushed gasoline back to $4 a gallon with the midterms only months away.
The United States carried out a new wave of airstrikes on Iran on Monday, and Tehran answered by attacking the American allies Kuwait and Bahrain, the latter home to the U.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet. President Donald Trump said the strikes were done “in honor of” U.S. service members recently killed, casting a widening war as retaliation even as the truce his administration signed last month lay in ruins.
Central Command said its ninth consecutive night of strikes hit Iranian military command centers, air defenses, coastal surveillance sites, missile and drone launch pads, and communications networks. Iran’s state news agency said the bombardment killed at least one person near Tabriz, a northwestern city believed to sit atop underground missile bases run by the Revolutionary Guard.
An escalation of Washington’s making
The fighting is not a spontaneous eruption in a volatile region; it is the outcome of choices made in the Oval Office. The war began on February 28, and the interim deal reached last month, meant to settle the remaining disputes within 60 days, has collapsed after both sides resumed attacks on each other’s infrastructure.
Rather than press the diplomatic advantage, Trump has threatened to bomb Iran’s power stations and bridges to force Tehran to loosen its grip on the Strait of Hormuz, and recent strikes suggest that plan is already underway. The administration has also reimposed a naval blockade on Iranian ports to choke off crude oil exports.
Iran turns its fire on Kuwait and Bahrain
Tehran has repeatedly answered U.S. strikes by targeting American allies across the Gulf. Bahrain sounded its missile sirens Monday morning while Kuwait said its air defenses were firing at an incoming barrage, echoing earlier rounds in which Kuwait reported intercepting dozens of Iranian drones in a single day.
Bahrain’s Foreign Ministry condemned Iranian drone strikes aimed at its air traffic systems, warning they put civilian travelers at risk.
The pattern is now familiar and dangerous. Similar Iranian salvos against Bahrain and Kuwait last month raised fears that the interim agreement could unravel, again placing the Middle East on the edge of a wider war. That breakdown has arrived.
A new front opens over Saudi Arabia
The crisis widened further Monday when Yemen’s Houthi rebels, who are backed by Iran, declared a maritime embargo against Saudi Arabia, a move that opens a new front and threatens global energy supplies well beyond the Gulf.
Houthi military spokesman Yahya Saree, announcing the blockade in a video statement, framed it as an “eye for an eye” response to a recent attack on Sanaa International Airport that the group blamed on Saudi Arabia.
The timing is acute. With the Strait of Hormuz largely stalled, Saudi Arabia has leaned on a pipeline to the Red Sea to move millions of barrels of oil to market, a relief valve the Houthis are now positioned to shut. As a projectile set a vessel ablaze off the coast of Oman early Monday, the Revolutionary Guard claimed it was targeting tankers in the strait.
Rising body counts and rising prices
The human cost keeps climbing. Iranian authorities said Sunday that at least 50 people had been killed and 517 wounded in the latest rounds of American strikes, and 17 U.S. service members have died since the war began in February. The most recent, the military said, was killed in Iraq on Saturday during a controlled detonation of a downed Iranian drone.
Americans far from the front are feeling the war too. Benchmark Brent crude traded above $86 a barrel on Monday, and regular gasoline climbed back to a national average of $4 a gallon, a squeeze on household budgets that lands with unusual political weight as voters head toward the fall midterms.
A narrow opening for diplomacy
Amid the escalation, Pakistan has stepped up efforts to revive the collapsed ceasefire, and two regional officials said Iranian Interior Minister Eskandar Momeni was expected in Islamabad late Monday for a two-day visit.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters Sunday that the United States remains open to talks but insisted any negotiation “has to be real,” adding that a genuine opening was “not where we are tonight.”
Mohammad Javad Zarif, a former Iranian foreign minister, argued in an essay published Monday by Foreign Affairs that the interim deal “could never survive such dissonance” over the strait.
“Washington cannot eliminate the Iranian government,” he wrote, contending that only a new peace agreement built by regional states could let the United States turn its attention elsewhere. The alternative, as the administration keeps choosing it, is a ninth night of strikes, a widening arc of retaliation, and a war with no exit in sight.
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