The U.S. and Iran Are Stuck in a Cycle of Military Escalation

ISTANBUL—The conflict between the U.S. and Iran is escalating just as the two warring parties are running up against the limits of what they can achieve through military force.

The conflict widened this week after Iranian-allied militants in Yemen began striking ships transiting a key Red Sea chokepoint, helping drive oil prices above $100 a barrel for the first time in two months on Thursday.

The U.S., meanwhile, has escalated its bombing campaign in Iran in recent days, striking throughout the country during the most intense period of fighting since President Trump and Israel began bombing Iran in late February.

Trump and other administration leaders have threatened to ratchet up the military campaign against Iran, including by striking a suspected Iranian nuclear facility at Iran’s Pickaxe Mountain or by attacking Iran’s national infrastructure such as power plants in response to Iranian attacks on ships in the Strait of Hormuz.

“The price will continue to get higher every single night until they come to their senses,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters Thursday at a summit in Manila, citing Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi’s description of Tehran’s approach as “an eye for an eye.”

“The president’s policy is a head for an eye,” Rubio said. “I mean, honestly, that is what it is going to be.” He added that Trump would decide whether to escalate in the coming days.

The challenge facing Washington and Tehran is that both governments have shown a willingness to escalate, but neither is capable of achieving a decisive advantage over the other. The stalemate heightens the risk that the U.S. and Iran could be drawn into further months of war as both sides attempt to generate leverage, military analysts say.

“There is an escalatory dynamic now,” said Alan Eyre, a former senior U.S. diplomat who participated in negotiations with Iran. “I don’t think the United States administration really has a clear strategic concept of what it is trying to do.”

Trump could escalate further by attacking Iran’s civilian infrastructure, which would likely trigger Iranian retaliation against globally important energy infrastructure throughout the Middle East. Even if Trump were to use a small nuclear weapon to attack one of Iran’s underground atomic facilities, that would be merely a symbolic blow against the regime, said Hamidreza Azizi, a visiting fellow specializing in Iran at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs.

“None of these are going to fundamentally change the situation,” he said of Trump’s military options. “I see it as both sides reaching the limits of what military means can achieve.”

Iran this week showed that it still has room to maneuver in the conflict. The Iranian-allied Houthi militia in Yemen said it was launching a maritime blockade of Saudi Arabia and threatened shipping in the Bab al-Mandeb Strait that connects the Red Sea with the Indian Ocean.

Saudi media said Friday that a Saudi vessel was struck in the Red Sea, two days after two other Saudi ships were hit. Saudi military officials said they carried out military strikes on Houthi targets in the area of the port city of Hodeidah in response.

Any sustained attacks on ships transiting Bab al-Mandeb would significantly expand Iran’s strategy of piling economic pressure on the U.S. and its allies. Iran’s efforts since March to close civilian shipping through the Strait of Hormuz have caused the worst supply disruption in the history of the oil market.

The Houthis, who control a large part of Yemen, including the capital San’a, are an important ally for Tehran, though they have remained largely on the sidelines of the current conflict. The group receives weapons and training from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, but is seen as operating with a larger degree of independence from Tehran compared with Iran-backed militants in Iraq or Lebanon’s Hezbollah.

“The Iranians certainly gained an escalation advantage with the Houthi action,” said Byran Clark, a former senior U.S. Navy official and now a senior fellow at the conservative Hudson Institute in Washington. “I don’t think they have escalation dominance because the U.S. can still choose to attack civilian targets and adopt a total-war approach.”

The threat to Bab al-Mandeb alters the geography of the current conflict, imperiling an important route that Saudi Arabia has been using to circumvent the Iranian closure of the Strait of Hormuz, in which the kingdom exports oil via its East-West Pipeline to a Red Sea port.

The Houthis’ involvement expands an already complex problem for the U.S. military, which faced difficulties during weeks of bombing against the militia group last year in a campaign launched by Trump called Operation Rough Rider. During the operation, the Houthis downed more than a half-dozen U.S. Reaper drones and launched a missile attack on the USS Harry S. Truman, forcing the carrier to make a hard turn that sent an F/A-18 jet fighter rolling into the Red Sea.

The current surge in oil prices showed how the Houthis’ action could counter Trump’s ability to lower prices by talking about the potential for de-escalation, also known as “jawboning” the market. Oil prices have repeatedly dipped during the nearly five months of the conflict after Trump has spoken publicly about the possibility of ending the war.

“Expanding the conflict to the Houthis could be a counter-jawboning strategy,” said Erik Meyersson, the chief emerging markets strategist at the Swedish bank SEB. “It doesn’t necessarily mean that the Houthis are going to launch as many strikes as the Iranians are. It just means that you do one or two, and every now and then you squeeze that button, and then that counters Trump.”

The U.S. is also applying economic pressure on Iran, reimposing a naval blockade of Iran’s ports after Trump ejected earlier in July from a memorandum of understanding designed to end the conflict. The current standoff again sets up a test of wills in which Iran and the U.S. must gauge how much economic pain they are willing to endure if the fighting continues.

The Iranian regime has shown an ability to resist years of sanctions and other U.S. efforts to squeeze it economically. The regime is also less susceptible to domestic political pressure, showing that it is willing to kill its own citizens to remain in power as it did during protests in January.

“The Iranian regime knows how to take a punch,” said Eyre.